Essential Avengers volume 5

Essential Avengers volume 5 consists of issues #98 to #119 plus the crossover issues Daredevil and the Black Widow #99 and part of Defenders #8 and all of #9 to #11. The early Avengers issues are written by Roy Thomas, with one plot from a story by Harlan Ellison, and the rest of the run is by Steve Englehart who also writes the Defenders issues whilst Steve Gerber writes the Daredevil and the Black Widow issue. The art sees short runs by Barry Windsor-Smith, Rich Buckler, Don Heck and Bob Brown with other issues by John Buscema, Jim Starlin and George Tuska. The Defenders issues are drawn by Sal Buscema and the Daredevil and the Black Widow issue is drawn by Sam Kweskin. Inevitably there's a separate post for some of the labels.

This volume covers the end of one writer's acclaimed run on the series and the start of another's but it's hard to avoid the impression that this results in the tail end of one's ideas and the early learning process for the other's. Both men have produced major epics that Avengers has returned to time and again, but by and large they're to be found in the volumes on either side and this one is instead treading water. That's not to say there aren't some standout moments but the volume as a whole doesn't feel like the best of the Avengers in this period.

One sign of where Thomas's heart really was can be found in the large number of characters that appear from the pages of X-Men, at the time in its reprint wilderness years. There's a multi-part storyline featuring the return of the Sentinels, now seeking to sterilise the entire human race so that the robots can then oversee artificial procreation with no more mutants. This is immediately followed by a visit to the Savage Land leading to a battle with the Mutates. And then there's another multi-part tale in which Magneto and the Piper have captured the X-Men then the Avengers as a prelude to a scheme to create an army of mutants. The latter two stories are scripted by Englehart but Thomas remains the editor and it's easy to see where the enthusiasm for revisiting so many elements from the X-Men, and especially what were then the last years of original material, had come from. But the problem is that both the Sentinels and Magneto, even the somewhat generic would-be world conqueror portrayed in this era, are foes very specific to one title and don't easily translate well to other series even though the Avengers contains one mutant member (the Scarlet Witch) throughout the whole of the volume.

And it's that member's relationship with another team member that is one of the main themes running through the whole volume. The Vision and the Scarlet Witch now feel confident about admitting their feelings for one another, although it's a bumpy ride at first due to the Vision's initial lack of knowledge of human behaviour and the Scarlet Witch's misunderstanding. Still they become an item and are generally supported by their teammates, by the media and by the public at large. There are, however, some exceptions and one issue sees them and the rest of the team attacked by the Living Bombs, a group of bigots who demonstrate strong gender and racial diversity but despise a mixed relationship between mutant and android and fear it will lead to more androids being created and taking over the world. It's a reminder that people can be incredibly tolerant and supportive in regards to one aspect can still be bigots in regards to another. Bigotry and hypocrisy can be found closer to home with Quicksilver's outright hostility to his sister being involved with an artificial android. This is despite Quicksilver having fallen for and become engaged to Crystal of the Inhumans. It seems Pietro will accept some interracial relationships but not others.

The relationship also impacts on one of the other themes to run throughout the volume, Hawkeye's search for his own place in life which also drives both of the crossovers. Having abandoned the growth serum in the Kree-Skrull War at the end of the previous volume, Clint resumes his original identity though initially adopts a total fashion disaster of a new costume before eventually resuming his original outfit. Coming back to Earth in Yugoslavia, he initially settles for working in a carnival where it turns out the mysterious strongman is an amnesiac Hercules. This leads into a grand battle with the Greek deity Ares, allied with the Enchantress in Olympus and utilising a wide range of henchmen, that climaxes in issue #100 which also sees the return of every Avenger so far, even the Hulk and the Swordsman. Although Hercules is left trapped on Olympus, Hawkeye returns to the Avengers full time but becomes increasingly angry and disillusioned, in part because his feelings for the Scarlet Witch have come to nothing. He eventually quits and sets out to resume things with the Black Widow, but she is much changed from the woman he worked alongside and is now in a relationship with Daredevil as seen in the included issue of their joint title. Such is Clint's anger that when the Avengers come looking for help against Magneto he refuses to hear them out and storms off again. He eventually finds himself working alongside the Defenders and gets caught up in the conflict between them and the Avengers due to the machinations of Loki and Dormammu.

The Avengers-Defenders conflict is a milestone in comics history as the longest lasting crossover to that time in terms of both publishing time and issues included. As a Defenders story it's certainly a key event. But as an Avengers storyline it doesn't feel that amazing. Loki may have been the villain the Avengers originally formed to deal with but he hasn't appeared enough to really feel like a core Avengers foe in a way that Dormammu feels more natural for the Defenders, admittedly a much younger team still largely dealing with Doctor Strange's foes. The story feels like it owes more to the traditional Justice League of America formula of dividing the team into several units to deal with individual parts of the menace before all coming together for the final showdown. In practice this boils down to a series of individual battles that are mainly won by the Defenders regardless of which series they take place in, all for individual pieces of a McGuffin. The set-up also flows more from the pages of Defenders than Avengers, making this an ultimately highly unsatisfying crossover here. It presumably owes its reputation to being the first of its kind rather than to the actual content.

The other stories in the volume contain a mixture of old and forgettable new foes. One story sees a teaming of the Space Phantom and the Grim Reaper, apparently allied but each working towards their own ends in just which human body they will put the Vision's consciousness in. The story is complicated by the presence of Hydra in a tie-in to events over in Captain America's own title, with the revelation that the Space Phantom has been impersonating one of Cap's foes. The final issue in the volume sees the team clash with the Collector against the backdrop of the annual Halloween Parade in Rutland. One of the few new foes introduced in these pages is Imus Champion, a very rich giant of a man who seeks to master all skills and hires Hawkeye to train him in archery before embarking upon an audacious scheme to destroy California. There are some good ideas in the concept but the execution just doesn't make for an especially memorable foe. Less memorable still is the Lion God, a deity worshipped by an African tribe and presumably intended to be a recurring foe for the Black Panther but instead he gets easily defeated the first time and then the second time he seems to have been set up purely to demonstrate the worth of the newly arrived Swordsman and Mantis. Even less memorable are Skol and the Troglodytes, a race of underground dwellers who live near the Black Knight's castle.

One of the oddest stories comes from a plot by Harlan Ellison but the result is a rather incoherent mess in which ordinary man Leonard Tibbit is given great powers by the Watcher and told the only way to save humanity from certain doom is to kill five particular people, but this is actually just a way to get the Avengers involved to stop the real menace - Tibbit himself. It's completely out of character for the Watcher to intervene in such a way and it doesn't make much sense either when he could have simply informed the Avengers.

Towards the end of the volume comes the permanent return of the Swordsman, accompanied by the mysterious Mantis, a woman he met in a bar in Vietnam. It's unclear if the Swordsman has genuinely reformed and is seeking acceptance through membership of the team or if he is only faking it as part of a scheme yet to be revealed. Mantis's motivations are even more obscure and her powers have yet to be fully explored, making for good intrigue to come.

The art in the volume is rather inconsistent, particularly when compared to the stability on the writing front. Barry Windsor-Smith's brief run shows his distinctive style which is especially good for the mythology driven storyline, whilst Don Heck provides the best of the more traditionally solid runs.

Overall this volume is okay but not really spectacular. The obsession with reviving old X-Men foes in the first half of the volume is quite simply misplaced and can distract at times from the ongoing storylines and character development. Other than Mantis there just aren't any really memorable creations added in these pages. It's clear that this combines one writer exhausted at the end of a long run and another only slowly limbering up and finding their feet on the title before going on to produce something especially memorable. This is often a curse of the Essentials to catch the less good and it's unfortunate that this volume has landed right between two especially memorable heights.

Essential Daredevil volume 5

Essential Daredevil volume 5 contains issues #102-125 and Marvel Two-in-One #3, which crossed over with the series. It also carries Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe entries for Daredevil, his apartment and billy club, and the Black Widow, plus unused covers for issues #104 (which is the version actually used on the volume’s cover though the only significant difference from the published version that I can spot is that Kraven’s hand blocks part of the Black Widow’s breasts), #107 & #115. Most of the issues (including Marvel Two-in-One) are written by Steve Gerber, with a brief run at the end by Tony Isabella and then the very brief beginning of one by Marv Wolfman. There are also individual issues either fully written or scripted by Chris Claremont and Gerry Conway, plus half an issue written by then editor-in-chief Len Wein, presumably whilst searching for a new writer. The issues are drawn by a mix of Syd Shores, Don Heck, Bob Brown, Sal Buscema and Gene Colan, with Jim Starlin drawing part of issue #105.

This era of Daredevil is often forgotten. It’s true that writers have regularly returned to the theme of Ol’ Hornhead and the Black Widow, but otherwise this is a period of ideas that doesn’t get remembered so much. Partially this is because the issues in this volume see the end of the San Francisco days of the title, and as a result in later years they would be referenced less than the New York days. Perhaps also it’s because of the tradition that moving characters to the West Coast generally doesn’t last very long. Or perhaps it’s because the book goes through a highly experimental stage, containing a mixture of traditional urban crime adventures, some travelling adventuring, struggles with spies, science-fiction battles and more. It may make for quite a diverse set of tales but it also implies a book that doesn’t really know what it’s doing and where it’s going. For the moment it can get by on the mixture but only so long as the threats are on a credible level. This is shown best with the villains that Daredevil faces.

The series introduces a number of new villains but, as ever, they’re not much to write home about. The debutants include the likes of Ramrod, Terrex, Black Spectre, Kerwin J. Broderick (another law partner turned crooked), Deathstalker (at least it seems so at this point), Blackwing, El Jaguar, Jackhammer and Copperhead. Additionally the series sees its first encounter with a good number of villains from other series, including Kraven the Hunter (from a series featuring some wallcrawler or other), Nekra and Mandrill (both originally from Shanna, The She-Devil), the Circus of Crime (originally from The Incredible Hulk, though subsequently retconned into being the successor to a similar named group from the Second World War era Captain America Comics, but since used in many other titles), Hydra (another organisation that pops up in many places but they first appeared in Nick Fury’s strip in Strange Tales) including individual agents such as Dreadnought (ditto), Silvermane (again from the Amazing Spider-Man), Man-Killer (from Marvel Team-Up) and Mentallo (another from the Fury strip in Strange Tales). We also get a new, albeit briefly lived, incarnation of the Crusher (previously seen in Iron Man).

In a surprising move we get a rare reprint of two letters page, which in this era was entitled “Let’s Level With Daredevil”, coming from issues #120 and #121. Rather than containing actual letters we instead get “The Hydra File”, a two-part essay by Tony Isabella that pulls together the history and structure of Hydra from its many previous appearances. In an era before such projects as the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and the Marvel Saga it was rare for writers to get the chance to bring together and tidy up some of the more convoluted histories of the Marvel Universe, with the result that the canon could often get even more confusing with yet more appearances. This essay is a good attempt to tackle the problems and in particular explains how the original Hydra branches got separated and not all have reunited, thus explaining some of the apparent contradictions from previous appearances. I wonder how many other letters pages in the 1960s and 1970s were put to a similar use, but which have not been reprinted in the relevant Essential volume.

Issue #105 introduces the series to “Madame MacEvil”, better known as Moondragon. Her arrival is the clearest sign of the distinctive science fiction turn the series is taken, but she never really fits in comfortably. At one point she is able to use her abilities and technology to restore Daredevil’s sight, albeit at the cost of neutralising his radar and enhanced senses, but this is soon reversed (although not before he’s had a chance to see what Natasha actually looks like) when he finds his fighting ability is severely constrained. I’ve never really liked the idea of Daredevil regaining his sight, even if it is only temporary, because it goes against the fundamental premise of the character. And here the restoration itself feels all too easy, as though vision can be switched on and off at will. As for Moondragon herself, she rapidly becomes a potential rival to the Black Widow, leading to some very catty responses from the latter, but also brings the possibility that the series will soon be moving to the stars. Fortunately this doesn’t turn out to be the case, but there is still something awkward about scenes where Daredevil crosses the continent aboard Moondragon’s spaceship. The two characters just aren’t remotely on the same level, a point that Moondragon makes when she leaves. Fortunately the science fiction is scaled back at the same time though not before a gratuitous guest appearance by Captain Marvel.

They’re far from the only guest stars to appear during the volume. We also see the likes of Spider-Man, Shanna the She-Devil (twice), the Man-Thing, Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. In addition the Marvel Two-in-One issue brings Daredevil into contact with the Thing. Daredevil is kept quite busy with all these comings and goings, though he never fades into the background of his own series. Indeed it’s his strong presence at the forefront throughout which is the cause of some problems between him and Natasha.

Although the book’s title reverts from “Daredevil and the Black Widow” to just “Daredevil” from issue #108 onwards, Natasha isn’t got rid of that easily. Instead, she remains a solid presence in the title throughout the volume’s run, even though on several occasions it seems as though she and Daredevil have broken up and/or been divided by the continent yet they are soon reunited. Some of this may be down to changing writers, but one consequence is that each time they separate rings less true and one expects them to soon be reunited. There are a number of issues in their relationship that are difficult to solve, with Natasha finding herself increasingly weakened both in image and her own self-esteem, feeling little more than Daredevil’s sidekick. At times, she is portrayed especially weak and clingy, which stands at odds with her background as an efficient Soviet spy. In addition, there are her financial difficulties once her inheritance runs out and she feels it is important to be with Daredevil only on an equal level. After a bit of back and forthing, together with multiple hops between the two coasts for the series, finally in issue #124 the Black Widow departs from the title, heading off with the intention of spending some time rediscovering herself as a solo independent woman rather than as a sidekick. (However, she didn’t quite get there. Just two months later she popped up in a new team title, The Champions. This was the first Marvel superhero team based on the US West Coast, but only lasted seventeen issues. The Black Widow served as the team’s leader, which may have prepared her for later serving that role with the Avengers, and thus found herself in at least one way. It would be nice to eventually see an Essential Champions.)

There’s another potential romantic interest for Matt introduced in the volume in the form of Candace Nelson, Foggy’s previously never mentioned sibling. (And Foggy was surprised when Matt produced one?!) Candace is a younger graduate student in journalism who’s stumbled across some dubious research and various elements both within the US government and the criminal fraternity want the details. She also goes on a date with Matt but it gets interrupted. Now maybe it’s the way she’s drawn, or an effect of being printed in black and white, but I found a particular scene between Candace and Matt in issue #115 a little disturbing. Foggy leaves Matt to look after Candace in a hotel room (so that the DA feels easier about not reporting a wanted person) a situation Candace clearly enjoys rather more than Matt telling him “I don’t bite” and then stretching out on the bed suggestively. Perhaps it’s because she’s drawn looking very young, despite being a graduate student, or that she’s wearing a short tartan skirt, but there’s something about the whole situation that screams “Alone with schoolgirl and she knows what she wants!” and it’s clear that Matt’s reluctance to be in this situation isn’t just because he needs to go out as Daredevil. It’s a pity because at other times Candace is portrayed a bit more maturely, albeit with an idealist’s naiveté. There’s a general “will they, won’t they?” approach to her and Matt but it doesn’t really get anywhere, although Candace manages to speak in the background when Natasha calls Matt. (Oh and it transpires there’s a real Candace Nelson who was born at exactly the same time that the fictional one was appearing in the series, but I don’t know if that inspired her naming or even if Nelson is her maiden name.) Sadly, Candace becomes yet another interesting supporting cast member who doesn’t really survive a change of writers. This is a pity as with Matt now settling back in New York permanently, Candace could have filled the role of a non-legal regular who raises questions about the way lawyers and the legal system sometimes operate without having to strain the story to include her. A moment close to this comes with one of the few references to events in the real world comes in issue #117 when Foggy is lecturing Candace about breaking the law and states “No one is above the law: not you, not me, not even the President. No one!” The issue came out in about September 1974, just a month after Richard Nixon had been forced to resign over Watergate and the scene allows for a brief declaration about the law even when the individual has honourable motives. However there were no further such uses.

There are a few politicised moments, such as an odd panel in issue #121 where a comment about the cold in January leads to a mini-rant about the failure of some landlords to provide adequate heating and the resulting consequences. There may be a point to this but it sits completely at odds with the actual narrative of the story and just feels like a writer venting his spleen at any spurious opportunity. If writers wish to make such points, they should construct stories that actually involve them and not just tack them on to unconnected events. (Unless of course it was going to lead up to a revelation that all of New York’s unscrupulous landlords are agents of Hydra, until the editor wisely killed the idea? Somehow, I just can’t see that one being proposed in the first place.) We also get some signs of the second wave of feminism that was sweeping at the time, but it’s clear that Matt is not always at ease with it. Nor has he become an enlightened, progressive San Francisco liberal. At times he can be very domineering towards Natasha, including one moment when he tells her to “slip into something barely legal” and when she replies “You male chauvinist…” he silences here with a slap on the bottom. Curiously this issue (#120) is written by Tony Isabella, who is normally rather more liberal. But then not all movements took everyone with them equally. The series also briefly touches upon both environmentalist themes and dubious governmental practices with the discovery in the Candace storyline that the government had commissioned research into mutating humans so they could breath pollution. The project was abandoned but the papers are the MacGuffin pursued by many.

On another level the story of Copperhead rings a lot of bells about the issue of creators’ rights in the comics industry and whether or not particular creators in the 1930s made a good deal or not. Copperhead is the son of the artist’s model for the pulp fiction character of the same name; a model who believed he was essential to the success of the pulps and who felt others were making money off of him. But the father did nothing until many years later when the pulps were reprinted, and then when he died his son took over the pursuit of vindication and money, with the added twist of adopting the character’s identity and believing his father had actually been the original Copperhead. Leaving out some of the wilder features it’s not hard to see this story as a subtle parody of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s on-off attempts to regain the rights to Superman (the-then most recent court case had ended a couple of years earlier with a ruling against Siegel & Shuster). In particular it seems to reflect the view that far from being the mistreated creators conned out of their most famous creations and confined to poverty that they’re often presented as, they were in fact very successful financially but mishandled their affairs and only then tried to reclaim Superman. The tale of the most famous creators’ rights battles is usually turned into one of the gallant little creator swindled by the evil corporation, though occasionally there’s one co-creator pushing another out of the credit (another point touched upon here with the Copperhead extracting revenge upon his writer), but often it can be rather more complicated with changing financial circumstances on both sides being a key factor. The issue was written by Marv Wolfman when he was the “Editor-in-Chief” (although that precise title doesn’t appear to have been used publicly until early in Jim Shooter’s tenure in about mid 1978) of Marvel’s line of black & white magazines, and only a few months before he became the overall Editor-in-Chief, so I wonder if this story was in any way a corporate mandate? It’s a little ironic given that Wolfman himself would later bring suit against Marvel over the ownership of characters but he’s far from the only ex-Marvel Editor-in-Chief to have expressed dislike of intellectual property practices in the industry.

Wolfman is the last of the regular writers in this volume. Of the others, Steve Gerber is by far the most experimental, but also has the longest run in which to do that. It’s interesting to read his early work from before his most famous runs on Defenders and Howard the Duck. There’s far less of the weirdness and humour associated with those series, but there are strong signs of his diversity. Tony Isabella’s run is far briefer and mainly taken up with a single storyline involving S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra, in which he seems to be throwing everything, even restoring the Spider-Man villain Silvermane to activity. And then a combination of Len Wein and Marv Wolfman handle the final two issues here and one theme quickly emerges. By the end of the volume the series is almost “back to basics”, with Matt back in New York working with Foggy, and the Black Widow having departed. None of the other San Francisco supporting cast have made a permanent transfer to the East Coast and even newer New York based characters like Candace have disappeared. Foggy is still District Attorney but facing re-election and the signs are far from encouraging and he may well be soon returning to private practice. There’s even a step back to the more down to earth urban threats rather than the spies and science fiction of beforehand. Only Karen Page is absent, instead working as an actress and appearing as part of the supporting cast over in Ghost Rider. Now as we only get one and a half issues of Marv Wolfman’s run on the series it’s entirely possible that all we’re seeing is a preliminary clearing of the deck before bolder changes in later issues that have yet to be Essentialised. But as it stands the volume ends with things very much back to the original.

Overall I enjoyed this volume a lot. It’s true that the series is fishing around for a distinctive genre, but it’s also worth noting that Daredevil’s association as a hard edged urban crime series was only set down by the arrival of Frank Miller and that didn’t happen until issue #165 (which will probably reached at the end of Essential Daredevil volume 7 when that eventually comes) and then fully cemented by subsequent writers building on Miller’s work, most obviously Ann Nocenti (whose first issue wasn’t until #236). Before that Daredevil was a series that went in many places both figuratively and literally, and such diversity can work for a time, as it does here. When originally printed the series was suffering from low sales and occasionally signs can be seen of emergency measures, such as the book briefly going bimonthly. But one should never look to contemporary sales to determine if a run is any good all these years later. This volume shows some forgotten gems and is well worth a look.

Essential Daredevil volume 4

Essential Daredevil volume 4 contains issues #75-101 and Avengers #111, which crossed over with the series, plus unused covers for issues #90 & #91. Most of the issues are by Gerry Conway, with one script by Gary Friedrich, and the last few see Steve Gerber take over (scripting Conway’s plots at first then full writing). The Avengers issue is by Steve Englehart. The art on the regular issues is nearly all by Gene Colan bar individual issues by Barry Windsor-Smith, Sam Kweskin and Rich Buckler, whilst the Avengers issue is drawn by Don Heck.

This is a volume of two halves, the first set largely in New York and seeing the final resolution (for now) of Matt Murdock’s relationship with Karen Page, then the second half sees the book take a major step away from its roots by transferring Daredevil to San Francisco, making him one of the earliest Marvel heroes to be relocated to the West Coast, and teaming him up with the Black Widow, aka Natasha Romanoff (or Romanova depending on who’s writing her), with the book’s title changed from issue #92 onwards to Daredevil and the Black Widow. As I discussed when looking at the previous volume, this was an era when the “buddy book” teaming up two superheroes was becoming popular. The Human Torch and the Thing team-up in Strange Tales may have been long over but Captain America and the Falcon had become that book’s title a couple of years earlier whilst it was only some months since the launch of Marvel Team-Up, originally intended as a regular team-up between Spider-Man and the Human Torch. Reinforcing the house style of the mini-genre, all these books for a time used a similar logo layout with small pictures of the two heroes on either side of the logo. There were plans in this period to instead merge Daredevil with Iron Man (this was some years before the merger of Power Man and Iron Fist) but fortunately they came to nothing and instead the team-up with the Black Widow feels far more natural as the two have similar power levels.

But before that change happens the series runs through a mixture of bitty adventures, mostly in New York but some elsewhere, and provides the conclusion for a good while to the Karen Page saga. The first couple of issues takes us to the fictional country of Delvadia. And unlike most Latin American people portrayed in comics in this era (as well as in many other mediums) its inhabitants don’t all speak Spanglish with an outrageous accent. The first Delvadian seen at first appears to be an exception but it soon transpires he’s just putting it on to mock the way Americans expect him to speak. However whilst the language portrayal may be more advanced than usual, the portrayal of the country is more stereotypical. Being a Latin American country in fiction it is inevitably full of military dictatorships and revolutionaries. Daredevil gets caught up in a plot by revolutionaries but soon defeats it without a wider exploration of the state of Delvadia. Some comics at this time (1971) may have been exploring complex social and political issues but others were still just using them as a backdrop to action adventures.

I’ve written before about issue #77 with a guest appearance by Spider-Man and Namor the Sub-Mariner, but reading it in the full context of this volume it really sticks out as an intruder in the title. Parts of the issue feel more like an issue of Amazing Spider-Man than Daredevil, in particular a scene between Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson at the former’s flat that assumes a stronger degree of familiarity than the average guest appearance. The whole thing is setting up an adventure in Sub-Mariner #40 but Daredevil doesn’t appear which leaves one wondering why his title was used to set up the team-up rather than Spider-Man’s. The other crossover in this volume is with Avengers and is only partially more relevant to the series. After an encounter with a jealous Hawkeye, Daredevil and the Black Widow are recruited by a rump of the Avengers to help free both the other Avengers and the X-Men from Magneto. The rationale for recruiting two West Coast based heroes is rather weak – that all other potential help is non-contactable – and it results in Daredevil and the Black Widow being caught up in a conflict against a villain somewhat out of their normal range (and unlike Doctor Doom, Magneto had not yet been elevated to a Marvel Universe wide supervillain who could be used in almost any title without surprise). Furthermore the Avengers issue is the final instalment in a multi-part storyline and presented on its own it is somewhat confusing to read, as though Daredevil’s readers, like Ol’ Hornhead and Natasha themselves, have walked in during the second act. But the story ends with a big development when for the first time Daredevil and the Black Widow are both offered membership in the Avengers. Daredevil declines, feeling that the nature of his powers makes it difficult to operate in a team environment, but the Black Widow accepts, leading to her departure from the series although her name remains in the book’s title for the remaining couple of issues in this volume and she returns by the end of the final issue.

Issue #77 also sees the return to the series of Karen Page, with her acting career having brought her back to New York. For a few issues it seems that she and Matt are firmly a thing of the past, both due to her developing relationship with her agent and her assumptions that Matt has found someone else, though that hasn’t quite happened yet. Issue #85 ends with a sudden renewal as Matt and Karen meet once more at an airport (Gerry Conway clearly had a thing for big kisses at airports with Peter Parker and Mary Jane’s first great kiss also taking place at one – I wonder if this reflects anything in the writer’s own life?) and rediscover their feelings for one another. The following issue see the relationship soar as they announce their engagement, but it rapidly crashes and burns when their party is attacked by the Ox and Matt gets hurt as Daredevil. Karen’s doubts resurface and she comes to the conclusion she was foolishly trying to recreate her past and she and Matt part on good terms. The Karen who leaves the series (for now) is a much more mature and developed character than the cipher we first saw working in Matt and Foggy’s office; a sign of how much development there has been over the series. But all that development cannot overcome the basic problem for any superhero’s relationship with a civilian and her knowledge of his secret only makes it worse. Ultimately it’s best that the relationship has been allowed to run a natural course and Karen given the chance to step aside so her character is not run into the ground. It also allows for the dramatic shift in the location and focus of the series. Other loose ends have been tied up by this stage, such as the subplot of Foggy being blackmailed, alongside battles with old foes such as the Owl and new ones such as the Man-Bull.

The issues in this volume see quite a few new villains introduced and they include El Condor, Man-Bull, Mr. Kline, Blue Talon, Damon Dran the Indestructible Man, the Dark Messiah and the Disciples of Doom (Josiah, Macabee and Uriah) and Angar the Screamer. By now I’ve acknowledged the need to google some of the names in these sections so many times that from now on please take it as read. Angar the Screamer is probably the best known of these villains, though upon checking I was surprised to discover he’s been used rather less than I thought. Bizarrely he’s easily the most dated of all the foes, dressing as a hippie, although his backstory builds upon the real life failure of the hippie movement leading to his anger at both the hippies who “sold out” (ironically he’s done the same) and the forces that reacted against the hippies. But even more surprisingly his headband has on it the symbol of the swastika. Yes it’s an ancient spiritual symbol, and it’s pretty clear that that’s the reason why Angar wears it, but in the West its usage by the Nazis has given it very different connotations and it is very daring (and open to misunderstanding) for anyone here to try to reclaim the symbol for its original purpose. When the character first appeared, less than three decades after the end of the Second World War, that would have been even more the case. But the hippies were nothing if not daring so was this a reflection of a real life attempt to do just that, or is it a sign of inaccuracies in the portrayal of the character? My knowledge of both the hippie movement and the history of the swastika is insufficient to answer that one.

As well as the new introductions, there are also some villains from other series making their first appearances here including the Scorpion (from the Amazing Spider-Man in case anyone didn’t know by now), Baal (from Iron Man, was this perhaps one of the few traces of the aborted plan to merge the titles that made it into the series?) and, in the Avengers crossover, Magneto (from the X-Men – which at this point was a reprint only title due to low sales). On top of all that we also get some new incarnations of existing villains such as the third Mr. Fear who turns out to be Larry Cranston, a former classmate of Matt’s and now his law partner. But as with the earlier Starr Saxon incarnation, this new Mr. Fear is killed off almost immediately. There’s also a sort-of new Ox – the original’s mind was swapped with Dr Karl Stragg’s back in issue #15 and both found themselves exhibiting traits from each other’s personality, with Stragg going on to die in the Ox’s body. Now the Ox in Stragg’s body finds he is dying and also that the body is turning into the Ox’s original form. But instead of using the opportunity to correct the earlier mistake of removing the Ox as a villain, issue #86 compounds the error by killing off the rest of the Ox. In both cases there were opportunities available to either resurrect or replace the villains for the long run and thus correct the past blunders, but instead the error is repeated and the villain’s identity is invariably diminished for the long run as it would be harder to introduce yet another incarnation.

There are also some additions to the supporting cast. In the early issues, the most prominent addition is Phil Hichok, Karen’s casting agent who has a brief entanglement with her. Then once the series relocates to San Francisco we get quite a few additions, and wisely they are spread out. The most prominent is Ivan Petrovitch, the Black Widow’s friend and chauffeur who raised her after her mother died in the siege of Stalingrad. (I’m not sure how that has been retconned as the years pass and the Black Widow’s origin has been subject to quite a few retcons.) Ivan learns of Matt’s identity (between issues, never a good move) and comes to aid Daredevil several times, almost serving as an Alfred Pennyworth figure both inside the mansion and beyond it, giving Daredevil the permanent back-up support he’s hitherto lacked. Elsewhere in San Francisco we meet Paul Carson, a police lieutenant who becomes Daredevil’s strongest ally on the San Francisco police force and provides a strong contrast with his superior, Commissioner O’Hara, who is rather less than thrilled about having superheroes running around on his patch. There’s also Jason Sloan, the most prominent of Matt’s new law partners. In addition there are various smaller characters with potential for reuse such as Lucretia Jones, a local TV reporter. Of the major characters Sloan is less developed than the others, but overall we get a good mixed supporting cast that crucially isn’t anchored to just one aspect of Matt/Daredevil’s life, which was a problem in the earlier issues when he supporting cast was limited to just his law partner and their secretary.

But it’s Daredevil’s new co-star who really shakes up the title. The Black Widow was first introduced in Iron Man back in 1964, but had subsequently undergone a significant makeover in the pages of the Amazing Spider-Man and then enjoyed a solo feature in Amazing Adventures which ended immediately before she was added to Daredevil. Sadly we have yet to see an Essential Black Widow carrying both her earlier and later solo appearances. Originally one of the many Communist foes that existed in the early Silver Age Marvel stories, she defected to the United States within a couple of years and after a brief retirement she became the costumed crimefighter she’s best known as. As a pre-existing character she comes with an established past and this is not forgotten, with appearances by both her former partner Hawkeye and Danny French, an associate from her spying days. The relationship between Natasha and Matt is carefully built upon, with the two quickly falling for each other but taking some time to realise this and it’s only slowly that they realise their feelings for one another. Being a costumed crimefighter herself Natasha demonstrates none of the perpetual worry that so many superheroes’ girlfriends go through; nor is there a clash of priorities between her and the male hero. Instead we have a couple who work well together, although there are still some issues between them that need to be ironed out. Interestingly Natasha and Matt are one of the first unmarried couples in comics who are as blatantly sleeping together as an early 1970s Comic Code Approved Marvel comic can show. It’s also credible that they would move together to the West Coast and start a new life out there.

Less credible, though, is the fact that Matt Murdock and Daredevil both turn up in San Francisco at the same time, and they are both prominently associated with the same woman, and once again this leads to suspicion about Daredevil’s identity. Matt initially solves this through a combination of help from the Black Panther, who briefly impersonates Daredevil to appear in the same place as Matt, and a resorting to the old “Mike Murdock” lie with a claim that the “second Daredevil” is following Matt to protect him out of loyalty to his “predecessor”. When Daredevil gives an interview to the Rolling Stone magazine in issue #100 he finds himself once again caught up in the mess of this lie and now has to claim that originally there were two Daredevils taking the role in turns until one was killed. That particular mess from way back in issue #25 seems to pop up when one least expects it, with one explanation built upon another in order to cover Matt’s tracks.

Otherwise the move to San Francisco opens up a number of new opportunities. By this stage it seems clear that Daredevil is unlikely to have the strongest Rogues’ Gallery going and so he and the Black Widow becomes two of the few heroes who can get away with the problem that it’s difficult to find supervillains on the West Coast. Instead we get a good mix of stories that give us a mixture of foes and situation, putting both heroes to the test. The introduction of the Black Widow and the relocation have both worked for the best, giving the series a more distinctive purpose and allowing for stronger character development. As a result it’s strange that Daredevil’s San Francisco days are now one of his forgotten eras. It’s true that he has many forgotten eras, but his relationship with Black Widow has been frequently referenced over the years. Gerry Conway and Gene Colan both end their runs on the book at a high point and Steve Gerber’s first few issues are encouraging for the future. This volume contains a strong run of issues and shows the title in a healthy state. It is easily the best Essential Daredevil volume so far.

More non-essential Spider-Man Essentials

Time now for another look at Spider-Man's guest appearances. Today I'm looking at a stretch from 1972 until 1981, ending at the twenty year mark which is also broadly at the point where the Essentials start getting bitty – in particular the Fantastic Four and Avengers series don't (yet) get beyond here and most of the other series that start in the Silver Age are even further behind. It's not the neatest of points but it serves its purpose. With that said:

Daredevil and the Black Widow (to give the book its full cover title at the time) #103, written by Steve Gerber and drawn by Don Heck, reprinted in Essential Daredevil volume 5

This issue tied in with Marvel Team-Up #12 (a Man-Wolf issue) which saw Peter sent to San Francisco to get photographs of Daredevil and the Black Widow, who had teamed up and were briefly relocated there. This issue continues Peter's efforts to get the story – curiously he's written here as a journalist as well as a photographer. Peter makes it into the Black Widow's mansion where he's secured the chance to get the story, but suddenly new villain the Ramrod shows up, stealing a box of papers for his shadowy masters who reconstructed his body after an accident. Daredevil and the Black Widow pursue him, with Peter changing to Spider-Man and following at a distance, recovering the papers. The fight continues on the skyline until the Ramrod loses his grip and plunges to his doom. Spidey takes off and Peter shows up to finally get his interview. Whilst it's nice to see Spider-Man interacting with other heroes on good terms, rather than hot-headedly getting into a fight, this appearance feels rather short and certainly not a substitute for the lack of an early Team-Up with Daredevil and/or the Widow as the interaction between them and Spidey is limited to the actual fight. And Spider-Man doesn't really contribute much to the right that Daredevil or the Widow couldn't have done themselves. Peter seeking an interview also feels out of role – I suppose one could argue Jonah wanted to save on air fares but in Team-Up #12 he was specifically sent on a photo assignment. Ultimately this is a gratuitous unnecessary appearance.

An issue I'm going to have to skip as it hasn't yet been Essentialised is Sub-Mariner #69 written by Steve Gerber and drawn by George Tuska. As before if the Essential Sub-Mariner gets further volumes and reaches it (this one would be in volume 5 by my reckoning) I'll try to remember to return to this post and add my thoughts on the issue. However I suspect that won't be for many years yet.

Howard the Duck #1, written by Steve Gerber and drawn by Frank Brunner, reprinted in Essential Howard the Duck volume 1

Amazing as it may seem, Howard the Duck was once one of Marvel's biggest properties, leading to a much publicised creators' rights dispute over Howard's ownership, followed by a notorious mid 1980s movie often considered one of the worst films of all time. Before that came Howard's own series which launched in 1975 (and was reportedly more popular than the contemporary revival of the X-Men!). The key to understanding the series is that it's an existentialist satire in which the difference between seriousness and silliness is a point of view. With that said...

Spider-Man makes a short guest appearance in the first issue in which Howard encounters Pro-Rata, a cosmic accountant who lives in a tower made of credit cards located by a river in Cleveland and who sends Howard through a portal to a dimension of barbarians in order to retrieve the missing key for the Cosmic Calculator, which will allow Pro-Rata to become the Chief Accountant of the universe. Steve Gerber made this up, not me. Midway through the issue Jonah sends Peter to Cleveland to get photos of the mysterious talking duck sighted there, and late in the issue Spider-Man follows the sound of the explosion to reach the tower where he and Howard in turn save each other's lives. It's a fairly gratuitous appearance by Spidey that doesn't really add anything other than to lure readers in. Unfortunately the issue plays the guest appearance for straight rather than making a wider comment on the conventions for comics to do such appearances, missing an opportunity. Spider-Man makes a further brief cameo appearance in issue #10 (also in this volume) when Howard has a breakdown and several past characters appear in a surreal nightmare. It's notable for the image of Howard turning on a tap only to get webs as Spidey comes out of it. It's an example of the sort of madness that happened in Howard's series.

To keep this listing complete I'll just note Marvel Two-in-One #17, written by Bill Mantlo and drawn by Sal Buscema, which is reprinted in Essential Marvel Two-in-One volume 1 but which has also appeared in Essential Marvel Team-Up volume 2 as it crossed over with Team-Up #47 (which in turn is also reprinted in the Two-in-One volume). My thoughts on the issue are in my regular piece but I'll just repeat my comment that the creative teams on the two series seem to have been swapped around, and there's some dialogue in one series that would more suit the other, suggesting that the chapters were originally created to appear in the opposite series as someone got the schedule mixed up and assumed the issues would come out the other way round, then when the mistake was discovered the two stories were simply swapped over. Ah the mess of arranging crossovers.

Another one that I've already covered in the main run is The Man Called Nova #12 written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by Sal Buscema. This crossed over with Amazing Spider-Man #171 and both issues are reprinted in Essential Spider-Man volume 8 and also in Essential Nova volume 1. This time at least the chapters appeared in the books they were specifically created for. Later on in the series issue #15's cover promises an appearance by Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man and the Hulk, but it's very brief and they're only robot duplicates so like a lot of other brief cameo appearances I haven't included it in this overview. As previously noted, Nova was created in part as a deliberate homage to Spider-Man (and less deliberately drew upon elements of Green Lantern) so the series may be worth checking out to see how such a homage worked out in practice. It's all contained in that single Essential volume.

Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2, written and drawn by Jim Starlin, reprinted in Essential Marvel Two-in-One volume 2 and also in both Essential Avengers volume 8 and Essential Warlock volume 1

This was a continuation of the story from Avengers Annual #7 (in which neither Spidey nor the Thing appears), which in turn served as the conclusion to the saga of Adam Warlock and Thanos that Jim Starlin had been telling back in Warlock's own series before it was cancelled. The storyline climaxed with Thanos combining the power of the six Soul Gems (later renamed the Infinity Gems) and assembling a giant space fleet to wipe out much of the universe as a gift to regain the favour of the embodiment of Death. In the first part the Avengers, Captain Marvel and Adam Warlock attacked, destroying the main star destroying weapon but Warlock lost his life to Thanos and his own time-travelling younger self (it's a little complicated to summarise here) and was drawn into the world of the Soul Gem.

The Marvel Two-in-One annual opens with Peter Parker sleeping, receiving a telepathic message from Moondragon about how Thanos re-gathered his forces, overwhelmed and captured the Avengers and now plans to use the last surviving Soul Gem to destroy Earth's sun. Spidey sets out for the Baxter Building, observed by Master Order and Lord Chaos (two cosmic entities making their first appearances) where he gets the help of the Thing and they set off in the Fantastic Four's space shuttle. Once aboard Thanos's flagship they battle Thanos's army but get captured and brought before Thanos who rapidly subdues the Thing. Spider-Man panics and actually swings away until he realises he's doomed anyway so decides his best chance is to free the Avengers, which he does by throwing himself into the machine holding them in stasis. All the while Order and Chaos comment on how Spider-Man is meeting path of destiny they've set out for him but the ultimate job is to bring forth Adam Warlock. As Spidey recovers he finds himself strangely drawn to the Soul Gem which he releases from its container whilst at the same time Adam Warlock finds himself being called from inside the gem back to reality for one last missing. Warlock's spirit bursts out and turns Thanos into living stone. Thanos's army surrenders and the heroes bury Warlock then head for home.

As you can gather from that outline this is quite a different sort of story from the type Spider-Man is normally involved in, even in some of the more fantastic Marvel Team-Ups. Indeed in the story itself both Spidey and the Thing comment on this. I'm also not too comfortable with the whole idea of Order and Chaos manipulating Peter Parker's destiny so that he would become Spider-Man in the first place – the idea of mortals being micromanaged by powerful cosmic entities is so far detached from the norm for Spider-Man stories that it really sticks out. However this is a guest appearance so a little latitude can be allowed and Spider-Man is ultimately the catalyst for saving the Earth. I guess Marvel's leading solo hero has to do that at least once. And Two-in-One was a team-up book so his appearance wasn't even gratuitous. Still I bet a few Thing fans thought the regular hero should have had a greater role.

Spider-Man made another debut issue guest appearance in The Human Fly #1, written by Bill Mantlo and drawn by Lee Elias. However this is another issue that has to be omitted in this run as the Essentials haven't yet touched the Human Fly (nothing to do with the Spider-Man villain who sometimes go by this name and sometimes as just "the Fly", although Spider-Man is investigating the similarity of names), which seems to be one of the most obscure of all Marvel series. It was reportedly based on a real-life stuntman although there has been a degree of uncertainty about this.

Defenders #61, written by David Anthony Kraft and drawn by Ed Hannigan, reprinted in Essential Defenders volume 4

This story sees the Defenders trying to catch a serial killer who murders lawbreakers who has been striking on the Empire Statue University. Trying to lure him out they decide to erect a statue to a lawbreaker – and choose Spider-Man, in hideous modern art. Both Spidey and the vigilante show up but the latter knocks out the Valkyrie's flying horse and throws the statue's tarpaulin over Spidey, then uses the distraction to escape. Spidey and the Defenders agree to dismantle the statue. Whilst the Defenders was a series that made a virtue of a high number of guest stars (to the point that Defenders membership was never formally defined until the New Defenders era), Spider-Man's presence is largely unnecessary and any fugitive or criminal could have served as the basis for the statue. The fight is chaotic with too many heroes taking on one lone killer who escapes all too easily. This is yet another gratuitous appearance.

Fantastic Four #207, written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by Sal Buscema, reprinted in Essential Fantastic Four volume 9

When I originally wrote this post, Essential Fantastic Four had not yet reached this issue so I had to make do with a promise to come back to it when it eventually arrived. As that's now happened I can give my thoughts on this one.

This issue sees Peter on his first photo assignment for the Daily Globe and might have made a reasonable addition to Essential Spider-Man volume 9 because it shows him being hired by the Daily Globe, a precise point jumped over a bit in Amazing #194. In the space of less than one page Peter enters the Globe office, gets put on the salaried staff with an understanding about his time commitments and sent on his first assignment! Said assignment involves obtaining photographs of the students at Security College, a specialist institution for the offspring of the rich and famous who might otherwise be subject to kidnap attempts, including one Johnny Storm. The debate on journalism ethics has come a long way in the last three decades so it may just be the passage of time, but I was surprised Peter so readily accepted an assignment that effectively involves intrusion of privacy, even if he is photographing students out and about on the campus rather than in their private rooms. During the course of his attempts he discovers that the students are being hypnotised and used for nocturnal stealing by the Fantastic Four's old foe the Monocle. He convinces the Human Torch this is happening and they bring down the operation. The Monocle himself escapes the two heroes, but he'd tried to break away from the Enclave who blow up his rocket. All in all this issue feels rather awkward. The rest of the Fantastic Four don't appear at all as they're off on the planet Xander dealing with the left-over events from Nova and although Johnny's attendance at Security College was built up in previous issues, the whole thing feels as though it was scripted as a potential (fill-in?) issue of Marvel Team-Up. This is probably the reason why we get such a rushed introduction to Peter's career at the Globe and in the wrong series to boot – the script probably originally had him receiving a standard assignment but then the issue went out at a very awkward point in his own titles for this. However that doesn't excuse running part of a major development in Peter's life in another series.

Uncanny X-Men #123, scripted by Chris Claremont and drawn by John Byrne, reprinted in Essential X-Men volume 2

This is really quite a short appearance by Spidey that helps to establish continuity with the Marvel Team-Up issues with Captain Britain by bringing back the villain from that story, Arcade. Spidey bumps into Cyclops and Phoenix in New York, then sees them captured by Arcade's garbage truck and rushes to warn the rest of the X-Men by phone – only for it to be answered by Arcade who tells him he's too late. Spidey then smashes the phone box in rage. He doesn't appear in the rest of the story and really only served to provide a degree of continuity and explanation to introduce the story's villain.

Although not yet reached in its own Essential series, Fantastic Four #218, written by Bill Mantlo and drawn by John Byrne, has been reprinted in Essential Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man volume 2 as it crosses over with issue #42 of that series, and thus my thoughts on it are in my review of that volume.

Dazzler #1-2, written by Tom DeFalco and drawn by John Romita Jr, reprinted in Essential Dazzler volume 1

As I touched upon in my introduction piece about Spider-Woman, the Dazzler originated in a plan by Marvel to have a singer-superhero with a real-life singer doing promotion appearances. Eventually Marvel launched her in their first direct market only title in 1981. As part of the run-up to introduce here, she guest-starred in Amazing Spider-Man #203 and Spidey returned the favour in her own title. The first issue includes a cameo as the Dazzler takes on a group of muggers but falls into trouble and is helped by the arrival of Spider-Man. She goes on to get a job as the singer in a top nightclub, where in the second issue the opening night sees the attendance of about half the heroes in New York. When the Enchantress shows up, seeking a cosmic rift that will open on the site giving her great power, everyone joins a battle with her and the monsters she conjures up. The Enchantress is defeated but the night club is destroyed in the process; however Dazzler is given a tip for an interview about a singing contract- and all the heroes go to give her support and make sure she gets auditioned. Spider-Man's appearance here is very much a part of crowd support, both within the story itself and for sales (he's quite prominent on the cover of issue #1, reproduced as the Essential volume cover) but he gets a few good moments such as when Peter rushes into the gents to change into his costume and finds the other heroes have taken all the cubicles!

Given Dazzler's origins in the disco scene, there was rather a missed opportunity for her to fight one of Spider-Man's old foes. Why did no one think to pit her against the Hypno-Hustler?

(I've decided to leave out the What If series. Quite apart from it not having been Essentialised yet, it is by definition explicitly set in alternate timelines and often takes characters in quite unusual directions. Plus in most appearances Spider-Man was invariably a banner feature, not a guest star.)

Okay that's everything from 1972 until 1981. There's only a few guest appearances I could find that haven't yet been in the Essentials. Again it's surprising that there weren't more such appearances but I guess that Marvel Team-Up was able to meet a lot of that demand.

What's surprising about the appearances covered here is that in contrast to guest appearances in the 1962-1971 period there's far less of a hot-headed jerk in the Spider-Man costume. Equally there's very little of the resort to the stock formula of the hero being assumed to be a criminal, either inadvertently or deliberately due to a villain framing them. Instead we get Spider-Man interacting with other heroes on more respectful terms. The character was steadily developing in his own series and these guest appearances reflect that well.