Wolverine 20 - Acts of Vengeance

This issue continues Wolverine's adventures in the Latin American cliché of Terra Verde with the continued interference of Tiger Shark the only element from the wider event. Otherwise this is a middle parter of the story and very much an action driven one as La Bandera and her rebels try to free political prisoners from a medical centre with a side-line in experiments, whilst Wolverine and Tiger Shark each keep on coming back.

Wolverine #20

Writer: Archie Goodwin
Breakdown artist: John Byrne
Finishing artist: Klaus Janson
Letterer: Jim Novak
Colourist: Mike Rockwitz
Editor: Bob Harras
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The issue opens with a strong sequence as Tiger Shark forces Wolverine into the depths of the sea and shoves his claws into a coral reef, leaving him unable to extract himself in the time before his air runs out. It's such a strong sequence that it really should have been the cliffhanger to the last issue instead of just Tiger Shark intercepting Wolverine as the latter fled the medical centre through the sea. It also confronts Wolverine's cockiness well as he initially thinks how he hasn't got a chance against Tiger Shark in the water and these are the sort of odds he likes. A pattern recurs through the issue as each fight makes it appear that the loser is doomed, only he comes back at an unexpected moment later on. Only at the end of the issue do we get a permanent conclusion to the conflict though Wolverine doubts his foe will be killed in the process.

The rest of the issue focuses on a battle with the military dictator who is using a special variant of cocaine combined with his ex-wife's mysterious healing powers to produce a super soldier for the country. Meanwhile La Bandera tries to free political prisoners and confront the dictator but enthusiasm for a rebellion is in somewhat short supply. There's also an indication that the real power is the president's adviser Geist, an aged Nazi who survived the war and went on to help various governments with secrets, acquiring cybernetic elements to his body in the process. However this element of the story is still mired in cliché and doesn't yet overcome it to provide an original spin.

Being the conclusion of the title's involvement in "Acts of Vengeance" but only a middle part on its own storyline means that this is an unsatisfactory issue for the crossover reader even though it confirms that excellent matches of heroes and villains can be made out of the basic premise. But otherwise it has too many cliched elements and leaves the event before sorting them out without being sufficiently gripping to stay around for the local storyline's conclusion.

Wolverine #20 has been reprinted in:

• Essential Wolverine volume 1 (1996)
• Wolverine Classic volume 4 (2006)
• Acts of Vengeance Crossover Omnibus (2011)
• Marvel Universe by John Byrne Omnibus volume 1 (2016)

Wolverine 19 - Acts of Vengeance

We come now to what is surprisingly the first ever issue of Wolverine to take part in a crossover. In the early years of this series there was a real determination to ensure that this series stood on its own merits rather than merely feeding off events in Uncanny X-Men, with the result that Wolverine's solo adventures are largely set elsewhere. It notably did not take part in a number of crossovers between the other mutant titles such as "Inferno", "X-Tinction Agenda" and "X-Cutioner's Song" and may also have avoided having annuals to duck out of further crossovers. Consequently the first 74 issues of the title are almost their own beast, give or take the stories that build on revelations in Marvel Comics Presents. But this and the next issue are the exception to this rule, suggesting that either a Marvel-wide event could override the wishes of the X-Men editors or else having John Byrne as the artist on a series guaranteed its inclusion in a crossover he was heading. But notably Archie Goodwin manages to weave the crossover into an existing storyline so that it feels completely natural.

Wolverine #19

Writer: Archie Goodwin
Layouts: John Byrne
Finishes: Klaus Janson
Colourist: Mike Rockwitz
Letterer: Jim Novak
Editor: Bob Harras
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The storyline itself concerns Wolverine's investigations into a cocaine supply line that's come into Madripoor, a Singapore-like city where he spends most of the early years of his solo series, with his old foe Roughhouse captured and experimented on. The cocaine has also been supplied to the United States, creating further complications. So when Wolverine arrives at the source, the Latin American country of Tierra Verde, he soon comes across Tiger Shark who's been sent to deal with the country's hero La Bandera. A brief cutaway scene establishes that the Kingpin has sent Tiger Shark both for revenge for disruption to his operations but also as part of the broader conspiracy. It's a sign of how easy it would be to cut the wider event from the storyline. As we'll come to more with the Uncanny X-Men issues, Wolverine has been officially considered dead and undetectable to equipment for a while now so he's one of the few heroes who it's natural to not target. Despite this, Tiger Shark is actually quite a good fit since one of Wolverine's biggest vulnerabilities is drowning and so a water-based foe presents a stronger challenge than usual.

Tierra Verde is a country that's cliché upon cliché. A Latin American country with a military dictatorship, rebellion openly forming in the streets, state involvement in international drug crime and an ex-Nazi operating in the country who actually says, "an embarrassing cliché, yes?" The concepts are so well-worn, especially at Marvel, that it makes one wonder if there are any other story types set in the region. This is La Bandera's first appearance and she quickly falls into the classic sidekick role of the young innocent girl contrasting with the experienced and cynical Wolverine. Otherwise as the first issue to see Wolverine in the country this is predominantly a scene-setter, with the complications of Tiger Shark getting in the way as Wolverine makes his way to the heart of the operation.

Although this is the third part of the overall saga, the scene shifting helps to make the issue sufficiently accessible for readers brought in via the wider crossover. The Kingpin sending someone to take down a previously never before seen hero may not be the biggest event going but given the odd set-up for the X-Men at the time it's understandably hard to arrange a more conventional conflict and Tiger Shark is a good match for Wolverine anyway. Overall this is not the most essential of chapters in the crossover but a good example of how to incorporate it into the regular flow of a title.

Wolverine #19 has been reprinted in:

• Essential Wolverine volume 1 (1996)
• Wolverine Classic volume 4 (2006)
• Acts of Vengeance Crossover Omnibus (2011)
• Marvel Universe by John Byrne Omnibus volume 1 (2016)

Essential Fantastic Four volume 8

Essential Fantastic Four volume 8 contains issues #160 to #183 (#180 is a reprint with only the cover included here) plus Annual #11 and the crossover issues Marvel Two-in-One #20 and Annual #1. Most of the writing, including the annual and the Marvel Two-in-One issues, is by Roy Thomas with one issue co-written with Gerry Conway and another scripted by Bill Mantlo. The penultimate issue is co-plotted by Len Wein, Jim Shooter and Archie Goodwin, and scripted by Mantlo who writes the final issue. The art is by a mixture of John Buscema, Rich Buckler and George Pérez, with Ron Wilson and Sal Buscema each contributing a couple of issues at the end. John Buscema draws the annual and Sal Buscema both the Marvel Two-in-One issues.

This volume covers a period in which the Thing now had almost a solo series in the form of Marvel Two-in-One, yet apart from the odd mention of one or other of his team-ups it's barely noticeable in the regular series. Instead the series operates as though this is the only place where significant developments happen to him. This is most noticeable when a succession of issues see Ben first temporarily ally with the Hulk against the rest of the team and then the result of prolonged exposure to the Hulk's gamma radiation causes Ben to revert to human form. Ben's loss of powers leads to his temporary replacement by perhaps the shortest lasting official membership of the team ever as Luke Cage, Power Man is taken on. Cage is around for such a short period of time, part of which is spent under the control of the Puppet Master and the rest with Ben still hanging around on the scene as the Four battle the Wrecker, making it impossible to assess either the new member's potential or the overall dynamic of the team. It's tempting to see this as just an extended advert for Power Man's own series, which often showed signs of being in danger saleswise. Meanwhile Ben finds being fully human again is not all he was expecting, with reduced strength and many people only interested in his monstrous form. However he is soon restored to active duty courtesy of a special exo-skeleton designed to mimic his rocky form, finally giving him a way to have both forms when he needs them without the awkward mental side-effects. Sadly for Ben this doesn't last too long with Galactus blasting him with a special energy that turns him fully into a monster once more. The only long term side-effect is that Ben's strength has been enhanced, as part of a general upscaling of the powers of some of the Four. He does start thinking about marrying Alicia, and there are hints that she wants children, but it doesn't come to much.

The main area where Marvel Two-in-One makes its presence known is in a crossover between both titles' annuals, even spilling over into an issue of the regular series. The whole piece is a convoluted epic built around time travel as a canister of adamantium is accidentally sent back in time to the Second World War, resulting in changes to history as the Germans win and conquer the United States. The canister gets cut in half by a time wedge, resulting in the whole Four first going back in time to team up with the Invaders and then Ben travelling back solo where he allies with the less well-known Liberty Legion. Both adventures present a variety of foes from the 1940s set titles, including a clash with Baron Zemo as we see how he was stuck under his hood whilst the Liberty Legion bring conflict with Master Man, U-Man and Brain Drain plus new foes Skyshark and Slicer. It's a good idea in principle and allows each half of the saga to stand more or less on its own. But the whole thing is let down by an ability to explain or understand just how time travel works with some of the saga implying that the events of the adventure has changed actual history albeit temporarily, other moments suggesting that it depicts part of what was always in the original history and other moments still suggesting that the 1940s elements actually took place in an alternate timeline and so explain why Captain America and Namor the Sub-Mariner in the present day have never remembered what happened. Any one of these approaches to time travel would be fine but when all three are thrown together it creates an incoherent mess that undermines a good attempt to bring together the heroes of different eras.

The other tale to noticeably indulge Roy Thomas's enthusiasm for pre-Silver Age Marvel characters is a curious two-parter in which the Four take on the Crusader, who turns out to be the grown up version of the early 1950s hero, Marvel Boy. But rather than a straightforward revival of the character to allow him to be used as a hero in the modern day, we instead get a strange story that instead turns him into a zealot driven by anger and revenge upon a bank that denied him a loan when the Uranians needed medication, thus preventing him from returning to Uranus in time to either save the civilisation from natural destruction or else to die with it. It seems that Thomas was aiming for a tale to contrast the black and white simplistic morality of the Golden and Atlas Ages with the more complicated superhero ethics that were developing strongly by the mid 1970s, as well as a more general look at fanaticism in the name of one's "father". But the problem is that he has never been one of the best polemical writers and so all the subtleties about the Crusader's approach to fighting crime in contrast to the Fantastic Four's (and they're far from the best heroes to use for such a contrast anyway, being more adventurers) are completely lost in favour of a tale of a seemingly indestructible fanatical foe. Marvel Boy's original adventures were only published for about a year, though were reprinted in the late 1960s and so he's not a hero whom it's easy to get excited about making it odd that he gets brought back this way only to be immediately killed off. It's also surprising that no effort is made to reconcile the civilisation on Uranus with the greater scientific knowledge of the planet that had developed in the intervening quarter of a century since the original tales. In 1950 it was possible to present other planets in the Solar System as being inhabited but by 1975 this was no longer credible.

One recurring theme in this volume is alternate Earths of one kind or another. At the start of the volume is a convoluted tale of Earth and two separate alternate dimensions that are all being pushed into a three-way conflict with each other by Arkon. One world is the Fifth Dimension, allowing Johnny to meet with Valeria once more, the other is the world where Reed became the Thing instead of Ben. It's a rather convoluted piece more notable for characterisation than for the conflicts, and presents a clear attempt to create a new Silver Surfer when Ben is travelling through space and encounters Gaard, an intergalactic ice hockey player complete with skates, stick and a puck, who serves as guardian of an interdimensional portal. The revelation that he is actually the Johnny Storm of the Reed-Thing's dimension, albeit unaware of his own identity, is an attempt at adding tragedy and familiarity but the character as a whole feels half-baked and it's easy to see why he is quickly forgotten.

A more substantial epic comes with an unusual starting point as a highly articulate golden gorilla called Gorr lands on Earth and lures the Four onto his spaceship to take them away. We soon learn he has solicited their aid because Galactus is seeking to consume Counter-Earth on the other side of the Sun, with only the High Evolutionary offering any meaningful resistance. Battling both Galactus himself and his current herald the Destroyer yields no ground until he accepts an offer to find an alternate populated world to consume providing that either its inhabitants voluntarily offer themselves up or the Four will select it for destruction. This leads to exploration of three possible alternate worlds, one being inhabited by a race of robots led by Torgo, the Thing's sparing partner from the world where the Skrulls operated like a 1920s gangster movie. Another world appears to be a parallel to medieval Earth as knights battle dragons but it turns out to be the Skrulls again, this time driving out the last of the indigenous population. Finally the third world appears barren and deserted but instead turns out to be Poppup, the home of the Impossible Man and his people with a single group mind, thus making the rest of the race willing to offer themselves up. But all is not well and Galactus suffers indigestion, and is then accelerated evolved into an energy form that no longer needs to eat. It's a curious twist to end the epic with but it shows an attempt to move forwards.

The return of the Impossible Man is the big surprise, since the original story had been exceptionally silly and it seemed as if all were trying to forget it. But now we get a somewhat slapstick issue as "Impy" roams through New York, eventually invading the Marvel Comics bullpen in the hope of starring in his own comic. It's a wonderfully anarchic piece that allows a tongue in cheek look at the Marvel office. However the Impossible Man then hangs around the Four for the rest of the volume in a tale that also sees both Thundra and Tigra show up and never really depart. The Impossible Man is best kept for one-off stories rather than an ongoing element.

The last issues in the volume put the team through multiple wringers as the Baxter Building gets taken over by the Frightful Four who are trying to recruit a new fourth member. They eventually find one in the form of the Brute - the Reed Richards of Counter-Earth who has inadvertently stowed away on the Fantastic Four's journey home. The rest of the Frightful Four are soon defeated but the Brute takes Reed's place and confines the real Reed to the Negative Zone. Reed's stretching power has been weakening before vanishing completely and so he is forced to survive by his wits and make a deal with Annihilus against a giant android controlled by the Mad Thinker, who has bizarrely found the ability to extend his power into the Negative Zone. Meanwhile the other Reed is trying to keep up the pretence on Earth but Sue has her doubts and they're confirmed by the different way this Reed kisses her. Sue has been growing ever stronger as a character, learning to use her forcefields for effective offensive action and seeing her power steadily increase in strength. It is thus a surprise only to the Brute that she proves the hardest of the Four to subdue. Reed's own nobility also triumphs through in the climax, impressing even his counterpart.

In general Johnny is the least used of the Four throughout this volume. After seeing Valeria a final time he tries updating his hair style and fashion sense in order to hit the singles bars, but the results are almost painfully comic. A long running though occasional thread sees him dating new character Frankie Raye but she is fearful of flame and panics whenever he flames on to go into action. There are hints at some great reason for this but she appears so infrequently that it becomes an irritation and with Thomas leaving just before the end there's a strong possibility it will not be resolved at all.

Apart from a few slips towards the end, this volume is quite strong. It demonstrates that it is possible to find new ways to handle the characters and their large ensemble cast whilst also adapting to the spirit of the times. This is the series at its best so far since the later Lee-Kirby years.

Essential Fantastic Four volume 6

Essential Fantastic Four volume 6 contains issues #111 to #137. Bonus material includes the cover of the reprint Marvel Treasury Edition #21 and early versions of the covers for issue #130 & #131. The writing starts off with the tail end of Stan Lee's run with a brief interregnum by Archie Goodwin before runs by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway. Most of the art is by John Buscema with individual issues by Ross Andru and Ramona Fradon.

This volume sees the final regular work on the series by Stan Lee but it's a somewhat stunted exit. His continuous run ends at issue #114 midway through the Over-Mind story with issue #115 being scripted over a Lee plot. Then after a very brief run by Archie Goodwin there's an issue by Roy Thomas that seems to be the start of his run, only for Lee to return for another six issues to produce sequels to one of the best known stories and one of the least known. It's all rather tame for the ending of the last of the Four's creators. This volume shows the series in the early years of the 1970s when the onus was on the book to find a way forward in the new decade rather than simply rehashing old glories. It also had to demonstrate it could survive without either of the creators though there's an element of the original run remaining in the form of inker Joe Sinnott.

What is particularly noticeable throughout the volume is an increase in the soap opera element of the series with concerted attempts to not just retell the same old stories but to also move forward. Ben and Alicia may still remain an item throughout, but Reed and Sue's marriage reaches such strains from his overprotective attitude that midway through she leaves him, taking Franklin with her. Later she's inadvertently reunited with the others due to Dragon Man kidnapping her and Franklin on the orders of Gregory Gideon, but Reed is knocked unconscious and Sue refuses to stay around until he recovers, lest it causes more problems. The word "divorce" may not appear but it's a pretty bold for the series to take two people who at this time are not just the leading couple of the Fantastic Four but the first couple of the whole Marvel universe and risk breaking them up for good. It's clear that Sue and Reed still mean a huge amount to each other, with Sue shown thoughtful and pensive in every glimpse of her during her time away whilst Reed takes the loss badly and is almost permanently saddened by it all. But it's also a move that exposes the risks of having too much soap opera in a title that is still nominally aimed at children, even though a good chunk of the readership was now growing up with the title. Here comes the clash of realism and escapism. Relationships fail. Marriages don't always last. Parents do split up. Some children have never known their parents to be together (Franklin looks young enough to fit this). All these are clearly true and a part of modern day life. But does that make it wise to explore them in escapist literature? It's easy to see why some readers were alienated at the time - future FF writer Mark Waid has spoken of how close to home this hit. I'm lucky in that I've never experienced this myself but within this volume at least it feels like a souring of the fairy tale of Reed and Sue. The volume ends with them still apart so there's no great triumph of hope or attempt to show there is light for children in the same position as Franklin.

Also broken up in this volume, though it's not as advanced, is the relationship between Johnny and Crystal. She has been back amongst the Inhumans for some time now due to her lack of immunities, but is briefly reunited with the others when Diablo uses her to pose as a goddess to conquer a Latin American country, Terra Verde, but it's only a brief reunion as she must soon return home. When Johnny eventually tracks her down to the Great Refuge he discovers that she has since met Quicksilver and fallen for him. Johnny's initial reaction is anger and fury but after he and Quicksilver have been forced to work together to save Crystal's life he takes her final decision calmly in a strong scene that shows how he has matured from his days as a young hot head. Also underlining how things are moving on is a scene where he tracks down his old girlfriend Dorrie Evans in the hope of resuming things, only to discover that she is now married and has two children. It's all a reminder of how life marches on and people are not like toys who can simply be put down and picked up from the same spot years later.

Ben starts the volume having stormed out in anger having seemingly had his personality altered by the latest attempt to restore him to human form. For a time he can change back and forth at will, but after the process is reversed by Reed with the intention of getting it right this time, Ben instead smashes the machinery and stays in his monster form, perhaps having decided he prefers this form as it is accepted by Alicia. A brief visit to a parallel universe reinforces the situation for him as he sees a world where it was Reed and not him who became the Thing and is even lonelier. The Four gain a new member for the time being in the form of Medusa, who takes Sue's place on the team and quickly slots in with her power to manipulate her hair proving a more visually noticeable power than invisibility. There's clearly a period of unseen time in which she trains with the others so that they're often able to co-ordinate with one another at critical moments.

On a more mundane level is the ongoing conflict with Walter Collins, the owner of the Baxter Building who is getting ever more angry with the Four's activities and the dangers and damage that they attract. He keeps threatening eviction but the Four repeatedly evade his attempts to serve notice on them, often with humorous results.

As for the adventuring, there's some revisiting of old themes but time and again they feel like diminished remixes of former glories. Early on we get another fight between the Thing and the Hulk but it isn't as spectacular as before. Stan Lee's great final epic is another Galactus story which this time features his new herald, the angel-like android Gabriel the Air-Walker. The Silver Surfer is also involved in what feels like an attempt to have the final word on Galactus but when the main battle comes in an amusement park it's all too clear how far the ambitions of the series have fallen. Lee's final story sees the return of the mysterious Monster from the Lost Lagoon but again it's a morality tale about not judging by appearances. It feels a very strange ending for his writing.

The first issue after the very final Lee one sees a retelling of the Four's origin, leading into another confrontation with the Mole Man who has now subdued and enslaved his rival Tyrannus. It's a rare attempt to give the Mole Man a more humane side with a partner, Kala, but she turns out to have her own plans. The Frightful Four return with a new fourth member in the form of the warrior woman Thundra, who twice proves a match for the Thing. Another Inhumans storyline seems to be breaking beyond tradition and offering a new menace in the form of an uprising by the Alpha Primitives of the Great Refuge, with their guilt powering the android Omega, but the whole thing falls down with the revelation that Omega was created by Maximus. Is it not possible to tell another type of Inhumans story? One of the more surprising returns is the businessman Gregory Gideon who is now dying of radiation poisoning and seeking a radical cure for both him and his son, utilising the android Dragon Man to capture the Four. A more curious tale comes in the aftermath as one of Gideon's subordinates is empowered by first an energy wave and then by the Shaper of Worlds from the Incredible Hulk. Slugger Johnson's imagination feeds the Shaper who transforms the world into a bizarre version of 1950s culture and politics with the Four split up amongst the various factions in this strange new world.

The big new foe of the volume is the Overmind, whose mental powers steadily take control of many figures of authority in order to undermine the Fantastic Four and conquer first the planet and then the whole universe. At one point even Reed succumbs to the control of the Overmind and the rest of the Four are left searching for another brilliant mind to fight him with. They find it in the form of Doctor Doom, making for a memorable extra sized issue which also supplies this volume's cover.

One of the more politicised stories comes in issue #119 as Ben and Johnny go to the fictional African country of Rudyarda to rescue T'Challa, who has briefly adopted the name of "Black Leopard" due to the political connotations of the name "Black Panther". Rudyarda itself is a thinly disguised blend of South Africa and Rhodesia - fictional parodies from this era often did not stop to separate out the two countries - where they clash with Klaw. But the real villain is not the master of sound but the country's racial segregation, shown starkly. The story ends with a message of hope as the three face the separate exits to the prison and Ben simply tears down the wall so all three can walk over the signs together, in a moment that seems to have impacted on the prison guards. It's certainly a bold story for its era but it shies away from explaining just why the Four aren't stopping to overthrow the entire system of apartheid.

Overall this volume shows some signs of promise but not many. There's too much willingness to wallow in concepts from the Lee-Kirby run with both Lee himself and other writers at times presenting almost reruns of old stories instead of trying to take them forward. On the other hand there's a real conscious effort to move the characters forward even though the decision to push Reed and Sue's marriage into separation is somewhat questionable given both their status as Marvel's first couple and the traditional target audience in this era. Still the volume shows the series trying to haul its way forward into a new era and for that it must be commended.

A few Iron Man previews

As is becoming a standard, whenever I complete a full set of Essential volumes for any particular series and character I take a look at any later issues reprinted in other volumes. For Iron Man there are two issues, by coincidence the very next two in order.


Iron Man #88 & #89 written by Archie Goodwin and drawn by George Tuska, reprinted in Essential Daredevil volume 6

These two issues see Iron Man battling with the Blood Brothers as they rampage through New York for reasons that will be disclosed in later issues, with Daredevil caught up in the action in the second issue when the fight blocks his route to the airport to catch a plane to the west coast and a crossover with Ghost Rider. By and large this is an Iron Man story with Daredevil firmly a guest star, to the point I question why it's even included in this volume, and it's mainly an action piece. There are some ongoing subplots continued such as Michael O'Brien's investigations and Roxanne Gilbert's actions, whilst Pepper Hogan has taken the decision to resign and move away with her sick husband, worried that if they stay he will again become Iron Man, a monster or worse.

It's unusual to see the very next issues after the end of the main Essential run but these show yet another writer taking on the series as Archie Goodwin returns once more, and some good moving forward of storylines that could potentially sink into a right mess or just be forgotten amidst the high turnover of writer. These two issues are a solid mix of fast action and ongoing developments.

Essential Iron Man volume 3

Essential Iron Man volume 3 contains issues #12 to #38 plus a crossover in Daredevil #73. Most of the writing is by Archie Goodwin with later runs by Allyn Brodsky and Gerry Conway, who also writes the Daredevil issue, and one issue by Mimi Gold. The art is by a mixture of George Tuska, Johnny Craig and Don Heck with the Daredevil issue drawn by Gene Colan.

As stretches go, this is a fairly straightforward run which sees the series enter the 1970s and make some attempts to move with the times. The most significant long-term development appears to be Tony's heart operation. By now heart transplant surgery was established in the real world, making Tony's reliance on his chest plate an anomaly, though the surgeon doesn't replace his damaged heart with another but instead uses "synthetically-developed tissue" to rebuild the damaged organ, thus retaining an element of advanced technology. However it's not all plain sailing for Tony as his new heart is at risk of rejection and weakness if he over strains it. This happens near the end of the volume and Tony is forced to once more rely on wearing a chest plate all the time in order to survive. Annoyingly the operation is partially tied in to a crossover with the Avengers but the issue isn't included here even though Iron Man #19 presents it as the answer to readers' confusion.

We get a brief replacement for Tony as Iron Man in the form of Eddie March, a boxer who wears an imitation set of armour in the ring. Tony fears he has been holding back because of his recent heart operation and so opts to retire from the role, little realising that Eddie has retired from boxing because of a blood clot that puts his life at risk. Eddie's stint as Iron Man is short lived and he is soon hospitalised, leading to Tony feeling he must resume the role and accept whatever fate his health brings, encouraged by Eddie's bravery. Eddie is black and at the time making such a replacement was a radical approach, predating the John Stewart Green Lantern by over a year.

The other sign of the times are some issues that try to match the contemporary trend for addressing real life social problems but they often fall back upon individual corruption rather than acknowledging that some problems can't simply be fixed by a hero's intervention. Pollution comes up more than once as Iron Man faces attacks of Tony's plants on islands, but it becomes clear that the problem is in staff, with one manager stirring up local hotheads to protest a plant and cover up embezzlement whilst another is cutting costs at the expense of minimum safety standards which leads to conflict with an angry Sub-Mariner. The tales touch upon the problems of pollution but don't really go to the nub of the conflict between technological advancement to sustain the human population versus the need to keep the planet healthy in the long run. Other tales look at issues such as the longstanding hostility between peoples of different countries, here in the form of Japan and the United States as young people in the former remain hostile to the latter a quarter of a century after the Second World War and one attacks uses a giant robotic lizard based on the legendary beast Zoga. Coming from a country where hostility to Germany still persists after seventy years it's an unfortunately all too familiar tale of old national hatreds.

Another tale has a twist on the standard Latin American dictatorship cliché as here the country in question is ruled by the Overseer, a giant computer. But what's more awkward is the way the story shows Tony telling fleeing revolutionaries that raising an army in the States will not be as easy as expected as "there are those who would not bear arms for any cause!", an implicit acknowledgement of the impact of the Vietnam War on popular attitudes to overseas intervention. Yet rather than admit that the world isn't so black and white, Iron Man instead takes at face value the claims of the revolutionaries and charges in to overthrow the dictator, rather than stopping to ask just what the facts of the situation actually are, and whether simply charging in and overthrowing the existing regime will bring enlightened progress to the country as opposed to opening up an era of turbulent chaos. The situation in the story could have made for a strong exploration of the conflict between the traditional black and white values whereby knights in shining armour could go on a simple rampage in response to the first damsel in distress they heard from, against a more nuanced society that had seen the impact of such an approach and was now demanding restraint in solving other countries' problems no matter the suffering. But instead Iron Man carries on in the old fashioned way and it's only after his attack has begun that we get what could have been the turning point in a nuanced exploration when a child is shot down by one of the Overseer's machines. This would not be the last time that Iron Man writers would try to follow the approach of DC's Green Lantern but implement it badly.

Better handled is a tale of racial conflict in the inner cities as Tony finds a community centre project he is sponsoring is fiercely resisted locally, with many objecting to what they feel is just charity to ease white guilt and line the pockets of white owned businesses rather than real measures that would help economic development and enable the community to become self-sufficient. The situation is complication by corruption in local government, with the scheme having been pushed through by a councillor who heads both the estate and construction firms involved, and by the intervention of the aptly named Firebrand, a rabble rousing superpowered would be revolutionary. Though the tale is a little heavy handed it does well in challenging head on the assumption that outsiders can simply impose facilities on a community as a solution to its problems rather than engaging with them to find the best way forward.

In more traditional territory the series continues to add a few long lasting villains, ranging from yet another Crimson Dynamo to the rather more original the Controller, who has developed technology to control other human beings and an exo skeleton to overcome the weaknesses of his body caused by disease and accidents. He makes for a strong counterpart to Iron Man, the type of villain most heroes need. The Night Phantom is an early example of a villain empowered by Voodoo, a man embittered against technology after an accident crippled him. The Cold War also pops up in the form of the Spymaster and his Espionage Elite of five aides, who invade Stark Industries to steal industrial secrets. Elsewhere various aliens send agents to Earth with the most notable being the robot Ramrod. There's also a succession of crimelords who use the title Jonah. A more shocking foe comes in the form of a Life-Model Decoy that takes on a life of its own and ousts Tony not just from his company but from his entire life, armour and all, leading to the memorable cover image. This in turn leads to the oddity of Tony openly wearing the original Iron Man armour in order to take down the impostor but without those around him realising he is the true Iron Man. Another visual conflict between Iron Man and Tony comes as the Mercenary disguises himself as Tony in order to reach and kill his target, only to be shot by Vincent Sandhurst, Janice Cord's attorney now seeking vengeance on Stark. Foes from other series include the Red Ghost from the Fantastic Four, who is now accompanied by a new set of super apes, Lucifer from the X-Men, the Collector from the Avengers, and the Zodiac cartel, also from the Avengers. The latter appear in the crossover with Daredevil which may have been a try-out piece to see if the proposed merger of the two titles would work but it's all too clear that the two don't go together well with the resulting story a confused mess that doesn't really feel at home in either series.

Tony's romantic life has its ups and downs. When kidnapped by businessman Mordecai Midas he falls for Madame Masque whom he discovers is a disfigured Whitney Frost, but this causes tensions with Jasper Sitwell who had also fallen for Whitney. Tony tries to hide the news of her return after she disappears once more, but Jasper's detective skills discover what has happened and track her down to an island where a scientist is trying to turn her into a mate for her son who has been transformed into a modern day Minotaur. In the end she chooses Jasper over Tony but sets out on her own to prove herself first. Tony's main romantic interest is Janice Cord, owner of a rival firm, but he worries that both his heart and his life as Iron Man mean that nothing can ever come of it. Matters are complicated by her firm's inventor Alex Niven who turns out to be both protege and successor to the original Crimson Dynamo. Having a character be a rival to the hero both in and out of costume is a good move but it's short-lived as the Titanium Man shows up to deal with a defector. In the subsequent battle both Iron Man and the Crimson Dynamo misinterpret the other's actions towards Janice and she is killed by blasts from the Titanium Man, leaving Tony in mourning and Alex swearing vengeance on Iron Man. Meanwhile the end of the volume sees the introduction of Marianne Rodgers, an old flame whom Tony dates once more.

The supporting cast is also expanded with the introduction of scientist Kevin O'Brian, who has the dialogue of a dreadfully cliched Irishman but who nevertheless proves an effective and loyal employee to the point that Tony trusts him first with running the company during a leave of absence and then with his identity when he needs someone to reinstall the chestplate pace maker.

Overall this volume tries to update the series both in its approach to real world problems and also in updating Tony's heart condition, but in both cases it soon backs off and returns to the status quo ante of the series, as though the previous developments had been risks too far. Otherwise the main advances come in developing more of the supporting cast and villains and telling the usual mix of tales. There are few really bad stories apart from the awkward one-step-forward-two-steps-back approach to the Overseer tale but otherwise this volume is standard but not spectacular.

Essential Iron Man volume 2

Essential Iron Man volume 2 consists of the Iron Man strips from Tales of Suspense #73-99 and Iron Man and Sub-Mariner #1 (the one-shot that bridged the transition from shared anthologies to solo titles), then Iron Man #1-11 and also the Sub-Mariner story from Tales to Astonish #82 that forms part of one of the earliest Marvel crossovers if not the very first between separate titles. The first issue is atypical, being a rush job written by Stan Lee and Roy Thomas and using a lot of inkers and/or pencillers. Once back to normal Lee writes every issue until #98 and then Archie Goodwin writes the rest of the volume. The Tales to Astonish story is plotted by Lee and scripted by Roy Thomas. Most of the art is a run by Gene Colan, initially under his pseudonym of Adam Austin but soon under his own name, followed by turns by Johnny Craig and then George Tuska. The Tales to Astonish story is drawn by a combination of Colan and Jack Kirby.

The reproduction quality in this volume is generally good but there are some pages that make me wonder about how the material was sourced given how little original master material from the late 1960s survives. This volume was originally released in 2004, before the Masterworks had got to any of these issues, and the budget for the Essentials at the time generally didn't run to full-scale remastering of entire volumes. Some of the pages have panels of different quality and on occasion panels with colour burnt in as greyscale share a page with straightforward black and white panels. My best guess is that a lot of the material is drawn from later reprints that hacked about with the pages. As far as I can determine the last US reprints of most of these issues prior to this volume coming out had been the reprint titles Marvel Super-Heroes and Marvel Double Feature plus at least one fill-in reprint in Iron Man itself, all in the 1970s at a time when page counts were reduced and reprints sometimes cut pages. However between them those books don't seem to have covered every single issue included here and I don't know if it was the practice at the time to trim out individual panels. I'm also not sure if the holdings for reprint titles from 1970 are substantially better than for original issues from 1968. Details of foreign reprints are much harder to come by on the net but tales of pages being cut up and panels resized or removed would fit some of the results here. It's a mystery to ponder but it doesn't detract from the readability of these issues.

These issues show Iron Man at his best but also his most vulnerable. Several times his power supply runs low and he suffers heart attacks, showing just how close to death he is. Yet it raises the question about how a man who is both a great designer and the owner of a large technological corporation is unable to come up with a rather more effective set of long lasting batteries. Otherwise he continues to face a variety of foes and situations both in the armour and out of it with those around him. At one point he's taken to hospital with an attack and it's revealed he wears a chest plate, leading to public speculation that Tony Stark is Iron Man but he gets by with help from others.

The supporting cast has quite a bit of turnover here. Early on there's a continuation of the Tony-Pepper-Happy romantic triangle but eventually Pepper and Happy elope to get married and largely fade out of the series. However before then Happy is twice transformed into a monster dubbed "the Freak" whom Iron Man has to subdue. Happy has also now learnt Iron Man's secret identity and loyally protects it but unfortunately the moment when he tells Tony this takes place off panel. However Tony and Happy agree for the latter to make some token appearances in the Iron Man armour whilst the former is publicly in hospital, though it leads to Happy's capture by the Mandarin. Given all this and Pepper's dismay at Tony's absences when Happy is injured, it's not too surprising they largely drop away. Tony continues dating a large number of woman who on more than one occasion turn up in the crowds watching trouble at the factory in scenes that reminded me of the Chilean miners of a few years ago. However the women all seem to be aware of each other's existence and tolerate the situation. Later on Tony finds a mutual attraction with Janice Cord, the daughter of a rival inventor and owner who is driven by a jealousy of Tony. Janice is also considering selling her business to be integrated into Stark Industries, but there are hints her lawyer is up to something more. The series also features the first connections between Iron Man and S.H.I.E.L.D. when the spy organisation places agent Jasper Sitwell at Stark Industries to provide extra protection for the weapons given multiple attacks and Iron Man's frequent absences. At first it seems Sitwell is just a naive kid, spouting all the slogans but seemingly clueless. However he regularly shows a much greater skill and intelligence than anticipated. Even when dating Whitney Frost and seemingly oblivious to the fact the woman is using him to find the factory's weak points he is in fact setting a trap. Meanwhile Senator Byrd has now acquired the first name "Harrington", making obvious the connection to either the-then real life Senator for Virginia Harry Byrd or his predecessor, father and namesake, but I'm not familiar with either's career to say whether the portrayal's similarities go beyond the name. Throughout the early part of the volume Byrd continues his committee's investigations into Stark Industries, even when advisers it could cost him re-election, and his actions briefly lead to Stark Industries being shut down, but Byrd abandons his pursuit after Iron Man saves the day against the Titanium Man in Washington DC and only reluctantly resumes them when Tony is framed as a Communist collaborator.

Although the propaganda has declined from the first volume, there are still some quite overt moments. I was surprised to see Iron Man visiting Vietnam in issues #92-94, originally published in mid 1967. Although the primary focus is on a return appearance by the Titanium Man, the story also contains some rather unsubtle propaganda as we meet Half-Face, a Vietnamese inventor whose work rivals Tony Stark's and whose face was deformed whilst working on weapons. Half-Face's story comes with tragedy as we hear how the Communist authorities forced him to leave his wife and child to work for the state. Later on he and the Titanium Man are under orders to destroy a village, kill the inhabitants and make it look like the work of American bombers. Half-Face turns against his masters when he realises he would have caused the death of his own wife and child but for Iron Man saving them, and so deserts Communism pledging to work for "freedom". This story would have been published just at the point when opinion polls on the war found support dropping below 50% permanently. Whereas the flag wearing side of Tales of Suspense (Captain America) had largely avoided Vietnam altogether, the capitalist and arms manufacturing side was still pushing the message that North Vietnam was run by a bad regime that needed to be removed and the Americans were the ones to do it. And Iron Man has come to the country not out of connection to his origin (which isn't mentioned at this stage despite the obvious potential for comparison with Half-Face's) but apparently to test a new design of shell that Tony Stark has developed. Though this is a cover for the military really wanting him to deal with Half-Face, it does not disguise that Stark is an active player in the conflict. Was this Marvel making a bold political statement about where it stood on the most controversial question of the day? Or was it a victim of timing, with a story prepared months earlier now appearing to miss the prevailing mood? Another story sees a Communist dictator of a Caribbean island, who is all but named as Fidel Castro, have a scientist develop and consume a strength formula and the result is the beast known as the Crusher, but the focus of the story is very much on action rather than on justifying US foreign policy against Cuba.

The Mandarin pops up several times with a variety of schemes and weapons, including both Ultimo, a giant robot buried in a volcano, and later a robot of the Hulk. On more than one occasion the Mandarin finds out Iron Man's identity but is fooled by a variety of impostor methods such as having Happy in the armour or using Life Model Decoy robots to allow Iron Man and Tony Stark to be seen in two places at the same time, as well as a disguise under the helmet. One scheme involves faking photographs to make it look as if Tony is collaborating with the Communists, producing convincing shots decades before PhotoShop. It would have worked too if the Mandarin hadn't blurted out the truth in front of reporters. Other foes come back in an enhanced form such the Titanium Man, the Melter or the Unicorn, or drift in from other titles such as the Black Knight, the Mole Man, the Grey Gargoyle or the Gladiator. There's a trip to a dystopian future where the world is ruled by Cerberus, a super computer that Tony has yet to invent. With the help of an antique set of Iron Man armour he manages to defeat it, helped by the grandfather paradox, but this sort of time travel story always falls down when it doesn't make clear the rules on whether history can be changed or not. The crossover with the Sub-Mariner seems rather inconsequential, with Namor seeking revenge on Iron Man for a distraction at a critical moment with Warlord Krang. It shows Namor to be a hothead lashing out at the wrong target but doesn't really add anything to Iron Man's story. The one-shot Iron Man and Sub-Mariner doesn't actually combine the heroes beyond the cover and seems to just be a fill-in in the schedules, perhaps because of poor planning of the switchover to solo titles.

And there's a major long running storyline featuring the Maggia, now led by the mysterious "Big M" whose identity is hidden for several issues then casually revealed in a thought bubble as Whitney Frost, the woman dating Jasper Sitwell. She is given a back story as a socialite who was engaged to a politician only to discover she was actually the daughter of Count Nefaria, causing her fiancé to abandon her to be sucked into the Maggia's world. There is a strong sense that she doesn't want to be caught up in this but has no choice, adding depth to her character and setting up possibilities for the future. The storyline also makes use of the Gladiator and introduces Whiplash, on of the more physical of Iron Man's recurring foes. A foe of a different kind comes in the form of Morgan Stark, Tony's cousin and nearest relative, who sells out Iron Man to clear his gambling debts. And there's rivalry with A.I.M., with its would be leader the scientist Mordius rapidly coming unstuck.

In general this is a solid but not particularly spectacular volume. It pulls its punches more than once by not showing such a key moment such as Tony learning that Happy knows his secret identity and is willing to help protect it and by casually revealing a major mystery villain in a thought bubble. It also comes close to throwing out most of the supporting cast without adequately replacing them - it's not clear at the end if Jasper will stick around for the long haul leaving only Janice for the time being. And the anti-Communist propaganda is wearing thin at this point. But otherwise the adventures show strong imagination and manage to keep up the vulnerable side of the hero as he struggles to survive.

Essential Hulk volume 4

Essential Hulk volume 4 is made up of the Incredible Hulk #143-170. The writing is in a period of transition with the end of Roy Thomas's run, then runs by Archie Goodwin and Steve Englehart, with other issues plotted and/or scripted by Gary Friedrich, Len Wein, Gerry Conway, Steve Gerber and Chris Claremont. The art is mostly by Herb Trimpe with some contributions by Dick Ayers. Bonus material includes the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe entry for the Shaper of Worlds.

Whilst the art throughout this volume continues to be strong, cementing Trimpe's reputation as one of the greatest Hulk artists, if not the greatest of all. However the writing meanders a lot, not helped by the high turnover of scripters, and the result is a somewhat turgid volume even though there are some developments. A key strand in the early issues is the Hulk's quest to be reunited with Jarella and they do briefly achieve it twice, first when she's transported to the full-size world and later when the Hulk journeys back to her world with the help of both an experimental version of Ant-Man's shrinking formula and the mysterious Shaper. This in turn helps drive a final wedge between Bruce Banner and Betty Ross, with the result she turns fully to Glenn Talbot and marries him. Betty and Talbot's wedding is a rare one in superhero comics in that it's not interrupted by villains and monsters. Instead it proceeds smoothly whilst the Hulk is on Counter-Earth, where his counterpart is married to Betty and they have a son. It's a glimpse at what might have been had Bruce made the trench and not been exposed to the gamma rays all those years ago.

Counter-Earth and Jarella's world are two of a number of locations visited by the Hulk on his travels throughout the volume. Others include the depths of the ocean, a city in the sky and Canada. The latter is depicted primarily as a wilderness in which a monstrous beast roams. Curiously it takes the strip a while to realise that sur Québec, la principale langue parlée est le français ni l'anglais. So the Mounties all speak English mais un groupe de bûcherons parlent français. Still it helps to emphasise that the Hulk is abroad.

Meanwhile back in the States there are a variety of developments surrounding Thunderbolt Ross and the military. A dedicated military base and unit is established for the purpose of tackling the Hulk. Initially named "Project: Greenskin" it is subsequently renamed "Hulkbuster". General Ross is generally a subdued rational man throughout the volume but can succumb to his own anger at times. But at other points he's realistic enough to realise the Hulk isn't always the greatest threat. Indeed at one point when both he and Bruce are captured it's Ross who realises that the only way to escape is for Banner to become the Hulk. However the plan only partially works as the Hulk hates Ross too much to stop to free him. As a consequence Ross is subsequently transported to the Soviet Union and only subsequently freed by a covert operation. However in the process Major Talbot is shot and assumed dead, though actually survives as a prisoner behind the Iron Curtain. His assumed death has a devastating impact on Betty, who believes she's gone from being a bride to a widow in the space of a mere month, and she succumbs to anger and more.

There's less material for Jim Wilson beyond a scene where his girlfriend confronts him about trying to hide the Hulk at her house and makes it clear she expects to be married to Jim, a level of commitment that he wasn't prepared for. It seems to be a way of phasing Jim out of the series but it does succumb to the cliché of depicting young women as just waiting to be married and only giving them independence in so far as they force the issue. Of the other supporting cast, Doc Samson is also phased out as loses the gamma radiation that has enhanced his body and strength. However another recurring character is introduced in the form of Colonel Armbruster, who takes over the command of Project: Greenskin during first the absence and then enforced vacation of Ross.

There are a number of new foes encountered in these pages but few have had much lasting impact. Amongst the less remembered are the Horusians, aliens who have replaced with champion conflict by giant creations on Earth and their creations include the Sphinx and a stone Colossus. Then there's Fialan, an assassin from Jarella's world sent after her to Earth by Visis, or the Inheritor, another of the High Evolutionary's creatures, this one having evolved from a cockroach. In an initially more human form is Senator Morton Clegstead, the main political backer of Project: Greenskin, who believes the Hulk's blood can cure his cancer but it instead mutates him into a gigantic blob. There's a surprising for its time (and writer) use of Soviets as enemies, although the strip does take subsequent steps to establish the main villains as rogue elements with the regular authorities only acting once their hands have been forced. The main rogue element is the Gremlin, the revenge-seeking son of the Hulk's very first foe, the Gargoyle. Out at sea the Hulk comes across Captain Omen and his gigantic submarine that is a self-contained world. The homage to Captain Nemo and the Nautilus in the Jules Verne novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is all too obvious. But there's an element of horror, both in the form of the half-man half-fish monster Aquon who has been created by Omen, but also in the fate of the second generation crew who have evolved to work at the deep pressures of the oceans' depths and who find their bodies exploding at the surface pressures. Elsewhere the Hulk fights Zzzax, a living energy being whilst a visit to Sky Island, the former home of the Bird People, leads to a clash with the Bi-Beast, a living monument left to commemorate the race now it has passed on. The final issue sees the Hulk and Betty on a strange island inhabited by giant aliens.

Amongst the foes who would have a more lasting impact is the Shaper (of Worlds), a being with the power to alter reality but without the imagination to create for itself who has instead given reality to the dreams of Nazi scientist Otto Kronsteig, giving a glimpse of a New York overrun by Nazis and where Kronsteig is eventually transformed into the Nazi ubermensch "Captain Axis". On another level is the Wendigo, the first fictional use of the beast from Algonquian legend who will go on to be a regular feature of many Marvel stories set in the Canadian wilderness. But by far the nastiest of foes is the Harpy, the mutated form of Betty Banner Talbot after she succumbs to anger at the apparent death of her husband, blaming both her father and Bruce Banner for the Major's death. She succumbs to the suggestions of Modok and is exposed to gamma radiation, transforming her into a vicious creature resembling the harpies of Greek legend. I forget just how many times the main romantic interest in a series has been transformed into a monster to fight the lead character, but here there's a real sense of hurt and pain driving the fight, and Bruce finds he has no choice but to sacrifice a chance to rid himself of the Hulk once and for all in favour of curing Betty.

There are also a few first appearances in this series by foes from elsewhere, most notably Doctor Doom who encounters the Hulk for the first time in the opening issue. Later the Hulk makes his first visit to Counter-Earth where he clashes with Kohbra, another of the High Evolutionary's creatures previously seen in the pages of Warlock. Back on Earth, he fights with Tiger Shark from the pages of Sub-Mariner. The series also sees return appearances by familiar foes such as the Leader, the Abomination, the Rhino, the Chameleon, Hydra, Visis, Modok and A.I.M.

There also a number of appearances by other heroes, including the aforementioned Ant-Man. When the Hulk is captured in New York, by a combination of Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D., Captain America and the Fantastic Four, he is soon put on trial with his lawyer none other than Matt Murdock (Daredevil), with various Avengers called as witnesses and Mr Fantastic supplying what seems to be a way to turn the Hulk back into Bruce Banner so as to give evidence but which actually empowers the Hulk enough to escape. Issues #150 & #161 continue the practice of using the series to tie up loose ends from cancelled titles. The former issue spotlights Havok and Lorna Dane from X-Men as Havok discovers the hard way he needs more training for his powers whilst the romantic triangle between the pair and Ice-Man is seemingly settled in Havok's favour. It's a brief tale that manages to tie into the ongoing storyline as the Hulk's search for Jarella draws him to Lorna as a green-haired woman. Later on issue #161 is part of the Hulk's adventures in Canada and ties in with the conclusion to the Beast's exploits from Amazing Adventures, as the latter's journey northwards concludes with an encounter with the Mimic, whose powers are getting out of control.

But whilst other adventures are being wrapped up, the Hulk's are ongoing and the pattern for them has now been largely settled as he wanders the Earth, and occasionally the rest of the universe, in search of peace and tranquillity, whilst Bruce Banner searches for a way to cure his other self. The military search for the Hulk in an attempt to restrain or destroy him whilst various villains seek to use him for their own purposes. Looking at this more and more, I think the basic core problem is the over-simplistic nature of the Hulk's personality that results in some rather stilted interaction with those around him, whilst Bruce Banner's role is often minimalised either by the short period between transformations or by the limited resources around him. Consequently the series is often weak when it's unable to get much great action out of the Hulk himself. The problem is further compounded by the changing writers with the results that the character's motivation can change at times - he's willing to help save a woman's brother from the Wendigo because he doesn't want to be blamed for things he hasn't done, yet at other times he just doesn't care what the world around him thinks so long as he's left alone. His memory is weak such that he can't always recall the details of his past encounters with various foes. Add in the very child-like dialogue and the result is a character that's hard to enjoy at times. It would be much better to give the Hulk a strong degree of intelligence and memory, allowing for much greater character interaction and development, or else to shift the focus to the Hulkbusters' pursuit of him and present events through their eyes. Alternatively a sidekick who actually goes all over the place with him would allow for development to take place in another way. But the approach here of focusing on the Hulk in such an oversimplistic depictment just hampers the character and at times makes the series tough to wade through.

So in spite of having some developments amongst the Hulk's supporting cast, this volume is a return to what has been all too typical of the series so far - a great idea squandered by inconsistency and uncertainty as to how to depict and develop it in practice. And it's surprising just how easy it is to pinpoint the problem. There have been times when this can be made to work - so far the best has come under Roy Thomas - but it requires a dedicated writer who lasts for a good while. When left to a fast turnover of writers the result is all often too formulaic adventures that expose the problems inherent in the formula. This is not one of the best Essential volumes.

Essential Captain Marvel volume 1

Essential Captain Marvel volume 1 contains the Captain Marvel strips from Marvel Super-Heroes #12-13 then Captain Marvel #1-21 and a bonus story from the comedy series Not Brand Echh #9. Marvel Super-Heroes was an anthology series, previously entitled Fantasy Masterpieces, which variously combined try-out new material with reprints from the Golden Age; later it would carry reprints of more recent material including a long run reprinting the Incredible Hulk. Stan Lee writes the first Marvel Super-Heroes and is then followed by Roy Thomas who writes up until issue #4 of the titled series and again from #17 and also the Not Brand Echh story. Arnold Drake and Gary Friedrich write most of the intervening issues, with one other by Archie Goodwin. Gene Colan draws as far as issue #4 and also the Not Brand Echh story, then the others are drawn by Don Heck, Dick Ayers, Frank Springer, Tom Sutton, Gil Kane and John Buscema.

Captain Marvel was not only one of the last Marvel Silver Age superhero features to get an Essential volume, but was also the last one to be created in that era. After the initial burst of creativity that produced everyone from the Fantastic Four to Daredevil, there was then a period in which the emphasis was on consolidation rather than expansion, giving pre-existing characters their own strips, and the debuts seemed to be done with. Then in 1967 came this new feature. Was he the product of a late surge of creativity that led to Stan Lee and his artists to come up with just one more character? Or did he serve some ulterior purpose?

Even without consulting wider comic histories it seems clear it was the ulterior purpose and it shows. Captain Marvel appears to be the first in a long line of Marvel characters created for the purpose of securing intellectual property rights. Often such characters get rushed into print before the idea has been thoroughly thought through, resulting in some rather confusing early years as the premise, powers and/or backstory get revised in order to work better, and eventually the character is given up with the codename transferred to a new hero, often one with no connection at all to the original. Unfortunately this pattern is all too clear with Captain Marvel. Over the course of this single volume we get a series that starts off as a tale of an alien military spy yet by the end he's become a cosmic powered hero fused with a human being. The series got its first cancellation during the course of this volume yet it was revived barely six months later as a bimonthly. The last regular issue in the volume ends with a note explaining this has been a try-out and "Now, his fate is in your hands -- you, the reader! We'll be waiting for your verdict!" But these two issues were just a try-out and the series did not continue for another two years. It's hard to disguise that the series had not been terribly successful and yet Marvel kept on trying to keep the name "Captain Marvel" on the newsstands.

The real purpose was clearly down to the "use it or lose it" requirements of trademark law that mean a company can't simply hold onto a name to prevent competitors from using it; they must regularly actively exploit the trademark. Exactly how frequently can vary, as can the precise means by which the mark is used, but one consequence is a particular code name can appear on the shelves repeatedly and for multiple characters simply because of the risk of otherwise losing it. This is why names like "Spider-Woman" have been used so many times and also why some of the various "Captain Marvel"s have no connection to each other whatsoever. The name "Captain Marvel" had been used before; first for a highly successful character published by Fawcett Comics in the 1940s & 1950s until DC brought a copyright suit, and then the name had been briefly used by M. F. Enterprises for a short-lived hero. Clearly the risk of rivals being able to publish comics with "Marvel" in the title was too great and so Marvel were clearly moving to tie up the trademark before yet another company printed a comic called "Captain Marvel". Indeed when the Marvel series was revived again in 1972 from issue #22, it came just a few months before DC revived the Fawcett Captain Marvel (since DC could hardly breach its own copyright). Had Marvel foreseen its rival's move and rushed to reinforce its mark? It just served to reinforce the pattern as a whole succession of Captain Marvels would be wheeled out over the years. (DC revived the Fawcett character but because Marvel had already got to the trademark, DC have been unable to sell their version under the logo of "Captain Marvel" - although this doesn't affect what the character is called inside the strip - leading to the use of alternatives such as "Shazam".) But in the process Marvel forget to create a particular exciting scenario and series, and eventually had to change just about everything other than the lead character's name.

The series starts by tapping into the contemporary fads of spies and space science fiction. We see Mar-Vell, a captain in the Kree armed forces, sent on a mission to Earth, though the precise details of his mission vary between revenge for earlier defeats and spying upon the world to determine the threat level. The original given mission is ridiculous for one man, even one as skilled as Mar-Vell, so it's no surprise that it gets changed early on under a different writer. However the new mission becomes equally silly because a Kree scout ship is hiding in orbit and observing Mar-Vell all the time - so why not just cut out the middle man and do the spying from orbit without the risk of arousing suspicions on Earth? A lot of the problem is that the real reason for sending Mar-Vell onto the planet is the jealousy of his superior, Colonel Yon-Rogg, for Mar-Vell's relationship with medic Una. Yon-Rogg belongs to a line of suitors who believe that simply disposing of a rival without even concealing their involvement or hatred will result in a woman falling into their arms. I don't have the real life statistics to hand to check just how many men have succeeded with this method of courting, but I suspect it's very few if that.

There's an attempt to make this a science-fiction romantic story with the regular complications of Yon-Rogg trying to get Mar-Vell either killed on his mission or executed as a traitor, but it rapidly becomes tiresome, even when an additional angle is added to the triangle in the form of human Carol Danvers (later Ms. Marvel then Binary then Warbird then Ms. Marvel again then yet another Captain Marvel - have I missed any out?). It's trying to give a sense of purpose and tragedy to the story but we don't see a great deal of Una and what we do see just doesn't make her a compelling character but instead a weeping wet blanket. It's hard to grasp just what Mar-Vell and Yon-Rogg see in her to the point that the Colonel is prepared to destroy one of his best officers in pursuit of her. The result is that the core motivation for the hatred between Mar-Vell and Yon-Rogg just doesn't convince and so we're left with an endless succession of adventures as Mar-Vell settles on Earth, assuming the guise of the dead Dr Walter Lawson, and finds himself torn between his orders and his realisation of the value of the planet. As a result he comes to the protection of humans multiple times, under the "Americanized" form of his name, Captain Marvel, and equally regularly has to justify his conduct as Yon-Rogg tries to get him prosecuted.

The idea of the noble enemy who comes to a society with orders to destroy it yet rebels when they discovers what the inhabitants are like had been done before with the Silver Surfer and no doubt with many earlier ones, but often it isn't too obvious just what they see in the society or how it is they always seem to meet the best examples. Here Mar-Vell spends most of his time around a missile base in Florida or at a nearby motel with a suspicious night clerk, interacting with a limited number of base personnel and townsfolk, and getting caught up in protecting humans from various alien incursions. At the base the main characters are the base commander General Bridges and the security chief Carol Danvers. Carol is presented as a clear potential romantic interest from the outset and we soon get the all too familiar scenario whereby she falls for the hero but is hostile to his secret identity. Eventually she and Mar-Vell share a kiss, to the delight of the watching Yon-Rogg and the horror of Una, but nothing really comes of it and Carol disappears when the series overhauls itself.

Mar-Vell battles a number of menaces ranging from a Kree sentry to the Super Skrull. The latter is, I think, the first time a Kree and a Skrull had faced off in a Marvel comic though we learn they've been enemies for centuries. Other existing Marvel foes include Quasimodo the living computer. There are new threats such as the Metazoid, a mutated being created by the Communists, or Solam, a solar energy creature drawn to Earth by accident, the Aakons, another alien race, the Organization, a criminal outfit, the Cybrex, a robot built by the real Walter Lawson, the Man-Slayer, a robot created by Communists and the Puppet Master (in a crossover with the Avengers and th Sub-Mariner, however only the Captain Marvel issue is included here). There are also the inevitable clashes with other heroes such as Namor the Sub-Mariner, Iron Man and, later on, the Hulk, though the Captain America depicted on the volume's cover (reused from issue #17) is in fact an illusion generated by Mar-Vell to draw Rick Jones in.

From issue #11 onwards the series starts to transform itself into something different and steadily ditches a lot of the baggage. Una is casually killed off by a stray shot in battle with the Aakons, and Mar-Vell boards a rocket which gets thrown into deep space where he meets an all-powerful being who gives him enhanced powers, including flight, casting illusions and teleportation. Subsequently we learn that Mar-Vell has long been manipulate by the Kree ministers Ronan the Accuser and Zarek as part of a planned coup against the Supreme Intelligence. Zarek is motivated by concerns about the Kree racial stock but fortunately for a black and white reprint this is about the only moment that touches upon the racial tensions within the Kree Empire whereby blue-skinned Kree have come to see themselves as the original pure stock and are hostile towards pink-skinned Kree such as Mar-Vell, seeing them as the result of mixing with lesser races. As a reward the Supreme Intelligence gives Mar-Vell yet further powers and a new costume, his most familiar one, but the hero is now cut off from the Kree. He is soon trapped in the Negative Zone and the only escape, however temporary, is through bonding with another being and regularly trading places with them. And so Rick Jones is lured into a cave in the desert.

When introduced in issue #17, Rick Jones seems several years younger than he's normally portrayed, looking almost like a child. Was this just an error by Gil Kane or was it a deliberate homage to Billy Batson, the original Fawcett Captain Marvel? There are other elements to his introduction that feel like a retread of how Billy was introduced to Shazam, and indeed in the pre-Crisis Fawcett & DC stories Captain Marvel and Billy were treated as separate personalities. But whatever the motivation, the result is that Captain Marvel now shares his existence with a mortal. After a final tidy-up with a showdown in which Yon-Rogg is killed and Carol saved, the series now embarks fully in its new direction.

However the last few issues are just strange. In one Rick finds himself caught up in a strange sociological experiment run by a scientist who uses a luxury block of flats as a giant laboratory. Then in the revived try-out Mar-Vell clashes with both the Hulk and the Rat Pack, a bunch of hi-tech looters. By the end of the series everything has changed beyond recognition and it's no longer clear at all just what it's all about.

Captain Marvel is a series that's quite well drawn and the individual issues flow quickly without any obvious stinkers. But the overall direction of the series is a total mess and the result is a rather meandering flow. The Not Brand Echh story included here plays on the fact that "Captain Marvin" can't remember what his mission is. Whether by accident or design it winds up parodying the series in more ways than one as it really doesn't know what its purpose is for. This was one of the earliest series whose sole reason for existing was legal rather than creative and its artificialness is all too easy to see.

Essential Doctor Strange volume 2 - creator labels

Yet again we have a volume with a lot of creators, so here's a separate post to carry the labels for some of them.

Essential Dazzler volume 2

Essential Dazzler volume 2 contains issues #22-42 of the character's solo series plus the four issue mini-series Beauty and the Beast, Marvel Graphic Novel #12 entitled "Dazzler: The Movie", and Secret Wars II #4. Writing wise the volume covers the end of Danny Fingeroth's run on the series and the concluding run by Archie Goodwin. In between is a turbulent period with issues written by Steven Grant, Frank Springer, Jim Shooter, Ken McDonald, Mike Carlin, Linda Grant and Bob DeNatale. Most of the issues are drawn by Frank Springer and the last ones by Paul Chadwick; other artists include Mark Bright, Geof Isherwood and Tom Morgan. Shooter writes both the graphic novel and the Secret Wars II issue, they are drawn by Springer and Al Milgrom respectively. Finally Beauty and the Beast is written by Ann Nocenti and drawn by Don Perlin. Given the page lengths of some of these the result is the single largest Essential volume to date. So it's no surprise that some of the labels are in a separate post.

This volume comes in a period when the concept of a family of X-Men titles was starting to come together, and would climax at the end of 1985 with the introduction of X-Factor. In the process Dazzler gets ever more drawn into the core themes of the mutant titles as prejudices grow. Appropriately for this shift the very last panel sees the Beast raising his new team with her, though instead a resurrected Marvel Girl would take the place. Was Dazzler axed to free up the character with the intention of using her in X-Factor? It's hard to say though as the last few issues contain all the signs of a series in desperate straits and making a last ditch attempt to turn sales around - the series had been bimonthly for a while, and now it had a new creative team, a new costume and a new logo - then it's doubtful that the series would have lasted much longer anyway.

Sadly this volume shows the series drifting, with changing creative teams changing the premise as they go. In the process Alison Blaire/Dazzler gets moved from New York to the West Coast for not particularly convincing reasons, ditching her supporting cast as she goes and never really replacing them. For most of the run the premise of a superpowered being who has no interest in being a superhero but just wants to live an ordinary life is adhered to, but with limited input as Alison drifts through life and romantic interests, with the series steadily going off the rails. Her original stage costume disappears after issue #26 (bar a brief reappearance in the Beauty and the Beast limited series) and a replacement doesn't arrive until issue #38. It's true the original costume bore all the hallmarks of the disco era that had long passed by this time, both in the series and in wider society, but it always gave Dazzler a distinctive appearance. I'm glad to see that a cover featuring it (#26) was used for the front cover of the volume, as the new costume introduced in issue #38 has dated even more and is extremely generic.

From issue #27 to #35 each issue was graced with a highly stylised painted cover by Bill Sienkiewicz. Painted and photographic covers can look amazing but they are also extremely vulnerable to publication flaws. Unfortunately the black and white reproduction is exceptionally harsh on them, turning many into very dark pages that remove the attraction of them. Worst of all is the cover of the graphic novel, though at least it hides some of the 1984 hairstyles. Is it me or was the fashion of 1984 the ultimate in bad taste?

One area where the series does improve a lot on the issues in the first volume is in having a much lesser reliance on the wider Marvel universe, with many more issues focusing upon characters original to the series. But that's not to say there aren't some appearances and at first we still have the Angel flying about in the early issues, then when in danger Alison engages the Heroes for Hire, Power Man and Iron Fist, then later she's recruited by the Inhumans and encounters practically the entire Royal Family. In the last few issues she trains with the X-Men, then has the Beast come to save her at the end. Then there's the villains such as the slightly renamed Sisterhood of Evil Mutants, consisting of Mystique, Rogue and Destiny, mutant hunters sent by regular government arsehole Henry Peter Gyrich, the duo of Moonstone and Blackout and finally Tatterdemalion. And there's even a surprise appearance by none other than Millie the Model, complete with her rival Chili Storm. Millie now runs a modelling agency that Alison signs for, only to discover sinister goings on with the finger seemingly pointing at Chili. The Marvel universe also intrudes with two wider events, one a mega crossover, the other a theme month.

Issue #30 fell in Assistant Editor's Month, when the Marvel editors went off to the San Diego Comics Convention and left power to go to the heads of their assistants. Here that's more literal than most as Alison briefly flees Los Angeles and accepts a lift to the convention with none other than editor Ralph Macchio, unaware a military group are tracking her and the second-in-command is determined to sort the problem out during his brief period in charge. Meanwhile in New York power has also gone to the head of the assistant editor, a young Bob Harras as he gets ever more dictatorial, demanding all manner of bizarre changes on his titles... until Ralph phones in and suddenly the power drains away. All these years later and Harras has since  been Editor-in-Chief at both Marvel and now DC, so I wonder how he and other creators now feel about this portrayal. Amidst all this the main story of Alison fighting a soldier who is mutated into a dinosaur man due to a military device is almost an afterthought.

The other wider Marvel event the series ties into is Secret Wars II. Issue #4 is included here and it sees the Beyonder trying to understand the concept of "love", picking on Alison to woe. Eventually she seemingly succumbs and he empowers her to be his equal but then he realises his mistake and releases her form his mind control. He then returns her to her previous situation in issue #40 but gets briefly tied up in a battle in her own series. This particular Secret Wars II crossover is frankly a distraction from the regular series, neither offering a special character piece that shows the series's star in an enhanced light nor a one-off adventure that can be easily brushed aside but instead just adds a needless element to the series's final storyline. All in all it demonstrates the tick-box approach to crossovers that seek to take in every series no matter how awkward this is.

In the meantime the series introduces some more original characters but with one exception it doesn't really develop them. Early on Alison befriends Lois London, her half-sister who turns out to be another mutant. Lois is horrified when she discovers she has the power to generate energy in moments of stress, and believes she's killed a man. This causes her to flee, with Alison leaving New York to help her, but even after Lois is cleared, Alison doesn't return home. In Los Angeles Alison befriends Janet McEntee, one of her aerobics students but not much comes of this. Then at the end she is captured and then aided by O.Z. Chase, a grizzled bounty hunter, and his fierce dog Cerberus, who has a strong appetite for beer and cigars. Chase and Cerberus make for a slightly comical pair as they drive across the country in pursuit, with Chase often declaring how much he hates the dog yet he can never get rid of him.

There are also a number of new foes include Flame, an arsonist for hire and Revenge Inc, a group of mercenaries who carry out elaborate retributions for clients. There's also less superpowered ones with Alison having to handle a deranged obsessive stalker, soldiers sent to tackle the mutant "threat", and the Racine Ramjets, a nasty all-female gang. Finally in an extended story at the end of the series, Dazzler is pursued by Dust and Silence, two individuals who survived horrific drug experiments that have left them trying to survive by bizarre means, and the hordes of offspring of others subject to the drugs, arranged as the "New Wave" including Deathgrip, the Outriders, a trio a powered motorcyclists, Jared and Chunk. And then there's a succession of Hollywood sleazeballs in the graphic novel.

I've written about my dislike of graphic novels in previous posts (namely Essential Killraven volume 1 and Power Pack Classic volume 2) so I'll refrain from going through my general criticisms of the format yet again. However here we see some specific problems caused by using them to feature major events in the life of a character with an ongoing series. As well as all the accessibility problems, any delay on such a graphic novel forces a series either to have a jump in the narrative or else to tread water for up to months on end. The latter seems to have been the strategy adopted here, with the result that Alison has been in Hollywood and around Roman Nekoboh for a while, making some of her naivety hard to swallow whilst his pursuit of her seems even less natural.

"Dazzler: The Movie" frankly isn't worth the build-up or any contemporary extended wait. Whilst the art looks good even when muddied by the reproduction that turns the unremovable colour into an excess of grey, the story is very pedestrian, focusing upon the sleazy side of Hollywood and the way Alison lets it consume her. Men try to indirectly buy their way into bed with her, and she eventually succumbs to the advances of Roman Nekoboh after he showers her with attention and gifts, fakes an affair for the media to get her to play along, chases her, commits sexual harassment if not sexual assault and fakes a heart attack to make her care for him. Nekoboh (the name is Hoboken backwards - Frank Sinatra's birthplace - and the forename is the clincher) is an aged once-great movie star who doesn't realise that he's in the has-been phase of his career. Bald, overweight and short-sighted, he wears a wig, corset, contacts and false teeth to present a younger, slimmer image to the world, a sign of the fakeness of the environment Alison has stepped into. Her submission is a sign of the poor way she's handled here. Moving beyond her singing career she tries her hand at acting - a combined career that's surprisingly common in the industries - and winds up making a movie with Nekoboh. But her naivety persists and she finds herself taking part in a stunt to reveal her to the world as a mutant, in the hope of boosting the movie's profile and overcoming prejudice by showing the capacity for mutants to do good, but it backfires spectacularly when her powers overload, causing fear and hatred. It's possible to see foreshadows of more recent storylines that focus on how the world reacts to having potentially dangerous superpowered beings in their midst, as well as a parallel to the real life problems many LGBT celebrities have faced when they've come out or been forced out. But the graphic novel is let down by the poor treatment of the central character, showing her as a fool who succumbs to the sleazy side of Hollywood, to the point where she takes a look in the mirror and sees herself as an ever fattening smoker, realising what's she's become and hating it. (It also misses a trick by not exploring the obvious comparison with her mother's life.) Eventually she discovers how she's been manipulated all along by a man whose advances she rejected when working at a gym club and then quit her job when he purchased the club to try to have her. What we're left with is some good ideas but badly executed with a fall out on the main series, both by forcing it to tread water to line up with the graphic novel but also by shifting the character away from her roots and pushing her into a marginalised existence as she tries to survive despite infamy and prejudice, making the series into something very different from before. And Alison doesn't learn all her lessons with the Secret Wars II issue, also written by Jim Shooter, showing her once again quickly succumbing to the advances of a man who abuses his power to shower her with gifts and fakes being in danger to get her to care for him.

As well as the graphic novel, the end of 1984 also saw the launch of a limited series. Beauty and the Beast is an odd little series that appears to have been named first and only then had the contents devised. It sees Alison and the Beast (Hank McCoy) drawn into a theatre comprised completely of mutants, a hotel for other mutants to hide at, and a struggle between Doctor Doom and his alleged illegitimate son. (Doom's presence in the story was a major continuity mess as it came in an extended period when the original Doom had been killed off, bar his explained appearance in Secret Wars.) Hank is drawn to pursue Alison for no particular reason though the two find themselves falling for each other, seemingly just to meet the demands of the story. All in all this is a convoluted mess that distorts characters and continuity in order to tell a rather turgid and forgettable story.

Looking at the main series the same thing happens with the biggest problem being the abrupt shift away from New York. Initially this appears to be only temporarily as Alison helps Lois run away, since Alison has a highly successful album out. But she soon settles on the West Coast and drifts into a succession of other jobs whilst waiting for her career to take off again. The graphic novel and limited series then forcibly drag the regular series into the realm of anti-mutant prejudice but it feels off. Finally the last issues see a new creative team effectively abandon the singing and move Dazzler ever more towards being a conventional superhero, with an extended struggle against powerful foes during which her father is killed. It's all rather jarring and the result is a meandering before a final crash. The last issue also sees her death faked with the result that she believes she can have freedom from prejudice and the ability to continue her singing career - but it's never easy to climb back into the closet so just how is she going to sing in public without being recognised? It seems more likely she is going to be a regular superhero, though not on the initially planned team.

And so a once promising series crashes upon the rock of creative and editorial incompetence. Given the graphic novel was written by the-then Editor-in-Chief, it's easy to guess where the forced new direction came from. Sadly it left the character and series wrecked and attempts to either salvage the mess or move beyond it just didn't come off. The cover of the final issue declares "Because you demanded it! The last issue of the Dazzler". Despite the length of the volume I wasn't screaming for it to end, but the sad state of the series makes it hard to mourn too much. It's a pity because the series had launched so well, offering something different from the norm and giving us that extreme rarity, a female lead who existed for more than just intellectual property protection.