Essential Avengers volume 4

Essential Avengers volume 4 is made up of issues #69 to #97 plus the crossover issue Incredible Hulk #140. Everything is scripted by Roy Thomas with both parts of the Hulk crossover plotted by Harlan Ellison. Most of the art is by a mixture of Sal Buscema, John Buscema and Neal Adams with a couple off issues by Frank Giacoia. The Incredible Hulk issue is drawn by Herb Trimpe.

Throughout this volume there are a number of stories that seek to address contemporary social issues and it's not hard to see this as a response to the critical acclaim of the Green Lantern/Green Arrow series which was running in the same period. But at times these tales can feel like they're missing the mark. There's a tale of Native Americans being driven from their land by a ruthless businessman that may tell a fast story with a non-cliched portrayal but it feels like a typical retread. There's another encounter with the Sons of the Serpent but once again punches are pulled with the revelation that the Supreme Serpent is in fact two television chat show hosts, one white and one black, who want just "power for ourselves". Would it have been so wrong to have an actual home grown racist as the leader and show the horror needs no outside manipulation? And the Black Panther, the hero-king who rules a proud African kingdom, is reduced to taking a day job as an inner city schoolteacher concerned with urban crime, as though black superheroes can do little else. But the most cringe-worthy moment comes in issue #83 with the Liberators. This all-female team, consisting of the Wasp, the Scarlet Witch, the Black Widow and Medusa, has been assembled by the Valkyrie to free women. But the Valkyrie turns out to be the Enchantress in disguise, trying to steal a device that will restore her full power. And what is her motivation for launching a war on men? She has been deserted by the Executioner who went off with another woman. And in the following issue she is now working with another man and all talk of a war on men has now been forgotten. So she's become a radical feminist for want of a man and then abandoned feminism upon finding one. How could this get any worse? And it's a pity as earlier on the Enchantress had highlighted some very real sexism and grievances when recruiting (although the backstory she gave to her Valkyrie identity is false). The intentions may be all well and good but the execution is repeatedly clumsy and so it's no surprise these issues have largely been forgotten.

Two other influences from DC can be seen with the appearance of other heroes, although one group is a far more obvious homage than the other. Early on the Avengers are confronted by the villainous Squadron Sinister and it is easy to spot their origins as a copyright friendly pastiche of the Justice League of America, right down to the individual counterparts - Hyperion is Superman, Nighthawk is Batman, Dr Spectrum is Green Lantern and the Whizzer is the Flash. Later on issue #85 sees the Avengers visit a parallel world where the heroes are the Squadron Supreme. Shown here are the good versions of the four Sinister members alongside four further heroes who again are clear counterparts to Justice Leaguers - Lady Lark is Black Canary, Tom Thumb is the Atom, Hawkeye is Green Arrow and the American Eagle is Hawkman. This was no casual rip-off but one half of a deliberate crossover in the days before inter-company crossovers with the official versions of heroes were possible. (Over at DC at about the same time the Justice League of America encountered the Assemblers, a team equally made up of counterparts to the rival company's heroes, but this team has had a rather lower profile than the Squadron Supreme.) It's also appropriate to encounter a team of DC derived heroes in a parallel universe and it's an elegant way to meet fan demands decades before a direct Avengers/JLA crossover could be produced. However the identical names and appearances of the two Squadrons is just asking for trouble, as shown by the cover copy for issue #85 which proclaims the return of the Squadron Sinister but is actually the first appearance of the Squadron Supreme.

More surprising is the way issue #97 declares a whole load of Golden Age heroes to have been nothing but fictional characters depicted in comics. Again this is the same method previously reported used by DC (with the subsequent addition that the comics were based on real events in a parallel universe), but whereas the Distinguished Competition's use of that method predated any actual revivals, Marvel had by this stage already revived Namor the Sub-Mariner, Captain America and, albeit only briefly, the android Human Torch. It's therefore a surprise to find the Angel, Blazing Skull, the Fin, the Patriot and the original Vision confined to fiction within fiction and brought to life briefly by the mental powers of Rick Jones in issue #97. The surprise only grows when remembering that the writer is Roy Thomas, who could normally be found integrating the Golden Age heroes into modern continuity. Was this a case of editorial interference blocking an attempt to revive the original characters, as seems to have happened with the introduction of the modern Vision? Still whatever the rationale we get to enjoy the sight of several of Marvel's Golden Age heroes in battle with the Kree some years before the launch of the Invaders.

At 640 pages this is one of the longest of all Essential volumes and at the time it was first published it was the record holder. Consequently one could query the reasons for including the Incredible Hulk issue as although it (naturally) follows up on the Hulk after Avengers #88 it doesn't really feature the Avengers that much. It's probably better that we're left wondering why it was included rather than why it wasn't but overall this crossover is really just a Hulk story that happened to detour into the pages of the Avengers instead of a true meeting of the two titles. Both parts of the crossover are plotted by Harlan Ellison, and he gets named on both covers, but rather than some grand masterpiece from a big name science fiction writer lured over to comics, this instead feels like a piece of stunt casting, either to attract in science fiction fans or just to lend Ellison's credibility to comics. The result is a rather mundane Avengers fighting the monster called Psyklop who is seeking the power of first the Hulk and then the Dark Gods. It may feature the first time the Hulk visits Jarella's world, but as an Avengers story it's ultimately forgettable.

The same cannot be said for the final storyline in this volume which is the main reason for its length. Rather than end the volume on a cliffhanger (although there was a gap of only fifteen months before the next volume was published), we get the entirety of the Kree-Skrull War story from issues #89 through to #97, made even slightly longer by issue #93 being 34 pages long as part of Marvel's brief 1971 attempt to expand the page size and price of their comics before retreating to the regular size (though not quite the previous price). This is one of the first full-length epic stories that Marvel produced, with a wide range of settings and characters. We get guest appearances by not only the familiar Kree and Skrull figures such as Ronan the Accuser, the Supreme Intelligence and the Super Skrull, but also by obscure ones such as the Skrulls who impersonated the Fantastic Four way back when the aliens first appeared or the first robotic Kree sentry to visit Earth. We get the return of Rick Jones, who discovers how even a simple orphan carries within him the ultimate potential of humanity, and his alter ego Captain Marvel. There are battles with S.H.I.E.L.D., a trip to the Inhumans' Great Refuge to overthrow Maximus and restore Black Bolt, encounters with Annihilus in the Negative Zone and even a journey through the body of the Vision (although as this is in the extra long issue it feels suspiciously like gratuitous padding), before a climax in space in which aid comes from the mental powers held by all humans and Rick's memories of the old comics he enjoyed at his orphanage. There's also a dig at McCarthyism some two decades after the event in the form of H. Warren Craddock, head of the Alien Activities Commission. Was this just a really really late piece of satire or was it a more contemporary response to the presidency of Richard Nixon, who had first achieved national fame through his work on the Un-American Activities Commission? All in all this is a saga that sets out to combine disparate elements in a strong ongoing narrative that also carries some good character moments. Of particular note are the growing feelings between the Vision and the Scarlet Witch, with the android's desperation to save her coming to the fore.

The rest of the volume may seem tame by comparison but there are further additions to the series character base. The only new recruit to the Avengers is the Black Knight but he's barely seen, a sign that the Avengers membership has grown to the point where it's getting out of hand. Some relief on numbers comes from Yellowjacket's decision to drop out of superheroing and focus on scientific research with the Wasp following him, whilst the Black Panther ultimately decides to return to Wakanda and take up ruling full time upon the death of his regent. Otherwise the cast of the Avengers is large and allows for a mix of line-ups in individual issues with nearly all the members seen so far appearing at one point or another. There's also a new hero introduced in the form of Red Wolf, accompanied by the wolf Lobo, but they only appear in a single story. As noted above there's a sort of first appearance by the Valkyrie as a disguise by the Enchantress but the name and appearance of the disguise have gone on to greater things with the Defenders. The only notable supporting character to be introduced is Monica Lynne, who moves from a singing career to become a social worker before accompanying the Black Panther to Wakanda.

The series continues to add villains with several making their first appearances in these pages. In the immediate term the big introduction is the full Zodiac cartel, following on from the appearances of Scorpio in Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Now we get to meet Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. They appear multiple teams and even briefly conquer New York in their second appearance, making for a strong threat. Also recurring is Arkon, the ruler of another world who seeks both a way to restore his world's light and a mate, settling on the Scarlet Witch. Posing a threat of a very different kind is Cornelius van Lunt, one of the earliest examples in comics of a corporate criminal who uses both sharp business practices and hired crime to achieve his ends. There's also another group of existing foes brought together, this time under the name of the Lethal Legion and consisting of the Grim Reaper, the Man-Ape, Power Man, the Swordsman and the Living Laser. For the longer term the biggest arrival is the Grandmaster, who here challenges Kang to a game of living chess with the Avengers' as Kang's pieces. As a grand and all-powerful strategist the Grandmaster presents strong potential for the long run.

Overall this is a mixed run on the title with some unfortunate misfires in attempts to do social relevance tales balance by a very strong climax and some good additions to the mythology although the dismissive approach to some of the Golden Age characters is surprising. There are clear signs of character development, especially with the Vision, and plenty of action at all levels. It's easy to see why the Kree-Skrull War has become one of the most celebrated of all Avengers storylines and it makes for an excellent ending to the volume that more than justifies its extra large size.

Essential Hulk volume 2

Essential Hulk volume 2 contains the Hulk strips from issues #92-101 of Tales to Astonish which was then transformed into a new Incredible Hulk series and the volume contains issues #102-117 and annual #1. Bonus material includes the back-up story from Incredible Hulk #147. Most of the issues are written by Stan Lee or Gary Friedrich bar one by Bill Everett & Roy Thomas and another by Archie Goodwin & Roy Thomas. The art is mainly by Marie Severin and Herb Trimpe, with Frank Giacoia providing breakdowns on one issue. The back-up from #147 is written by Thomas and drawn by Trimpe.

The first volume showed two attempts at the Hulk that just couldn't find a clear identity and direction for the series, with the result that it meandered aimlessly. And once again, we have a volume that founders due to the extremely limited nature of the central character and the poorly developed cast and environment around him. The Hulk is an oversimplistic monster and alter ego Bruce Banner is much underused with the result that there's not much meat to these tales, just an ongoing saga as the Hulk wanders from situation to situation whilst the military and others employ a variety of different methods in order to try and neutralise the monster. The situation is made worse by an inconsistent approach to the monster's intelligence levels with his dialogue varying from extremely childlike to rather more sophisticated and an uncertainty over how much he hates the human race, with some stories seeing him try to protect humans and others showing him far more hostile. The main development of note is the heavy use of characters from other series, although they are primarily lesser known supporting characters and villains rather than the big name stars.

The use kicks off right from the start of the volume as the first couple of issues see the Hulk encounter the Silver Surfer; the latter making his first ever appearance outside of the pages of the Fantastic Four. Then over the course of subsequent issues he crosses paths with the likes of the High Evolutionary and some of his creations like the New Men and the Knights of Wundagore, Namor the Sub-Mariner (in a crossover between the two strips in Tales to Astonish, taking up an entire issue), the Puppet Master, the Warriors Three, Odin, Loki, the Enchantress, the Executioner and other Asgardians, the Rhino, Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D., the Mandarin, Ka-Zar, Zabu and the Swamp Men, and the Sandman. The annual also gets in on the act and sees him encounter the Inhumans, getting caught up in an attempted coup by Maximus against Black Bolt with several other Inhumans seen including Gorgon and Lockjaw. Amongst the new foes are the Legion of the Living Lightning, the Space Parasite, the Missing Link, who is an intermediate stage of evolution awakened and mutated by radiation, Umbu, a robot in the Savage Land, the Galaxy Master, and the Leader's Super-Humanoid. The Hulk also gets out his stomping ground at times, with visits to New York, the Soviet Union, China, the Savage Land and the Inhumans' Great Refuge in a mountain range, as well as trips away from Earth to Wundagore II, Asgard or Berhert.

This is quite a diverse range of characters and settings but it can't conceal the basic problem that this particular incarnation of the Hulk isn't terribly interesting and it's difficult to generate excitement in such circumstances. The adventures take a step away from the continuous epic seen in the previous volume and are now more piecemeal, making them easier to pick for one-off reprints and to use the Hulk in other series but at the same time very little is developed. Few of the new foes are particularly memorable and the only significant reuses are the Leader, brought back to life with an "I took precautions and wasn't completely dead" explanation that now opens him up for future tales, and the Rhino, providing another super-strong foe with recurring potential. Otherwise we get a succession of stories that alternate between Bruce Banner/the Hulk being pursued by the army, sometimes captured, until he either escapes or else a bigger menace comes along and only the Hulk can stop it, or else some powerful being wants to make use of the Hulk for his own purposes. It is possible to base a series around the pursuit of a monster when the pursuing characters are compelling, but unfortunately that's not the case here. Rick Jones is used sparingly, eventually determining the Hulk is a menace who must be stopped, before disappearing into other series. General "Thunderbolt" Ross remains a driven cliché whilst Betty Ross continues to spend a lot of time crying for Bruce and wishing he could be cured of the Hulk curse. Major Glenn Talbot is trapped by the dilemma of the Hulk being his main obstacle for Betty's affections but he cannot bring himself to perform the obvious action to remove his rival, knowing that Betty would just hate him for it.

But aside from Betty's feelings in the matter, it's surprising that nobody is prepared to take the obvious step and execute Bruce on an occasion when he's been captured and is still in human form. Yes Bruce may be a top scientist but he's now been deemed enough of a menace that great amounts of force are devoted to stopping him. The absence of any exploration of this point may be attributable to the comic standards of the era, but from a modern perspective it's a surprising omission. However we do get to see that Bruce has done his best to take precautions, leaving notes for a device that (in a cameo) Reed Richards is able to construct and this gadget is used to transform the Hulk back to Banner, seeming permanently - and just at the wrong moment when the Hulk is all that stands in the way of the Missing Link. Fortunately the latter monster is emitting enough radiation that it restores the Hulk.

Although this volume is overall a meandering, directionless series there are some individual stories that do slightly stand out. One sees the Hulk captured on the orders of the High Evolutionary and transported away from Earth in order to fight the renegade New Men on Wundagore II - it seems the High Evolutionary just can't stop trying to create a new utopia and populate it with his creations. In the final battle the Evolutionary is mortally wounded and has no choice but to undergo an experiment in accelerated evolution, becoming an all powerful being who can instantly set all things to right before going on to become one with the cosmos. It's not as obvious as some later uses of the Evolutionary - most obviously in the original Warlock saga - but it does show a surprising willingness to take a mortal man and turn him into almost a god. The ending suggests that the Evolutionary's story has come to its natural conclusion, though it's always possible to bring back a character no matter how permanent their end seems to be. Such is the case with the Leader who is revived in the last few issues in the volume and he proves himself to be highly adaptable and devious, proving able to restrain the Hulk for ages whilst plotting anew. It all makes for a recurring conflict between gamma-enhanced brain and gamma-enhanced brawn. Although there's not exactly much competition for the role, the Leader is clearly earning his position as the Hulk's archenemy and it's one of extremely few signs of the series starting to develop the characters needed to create exciting sustained adventures.

The encounters across the wider Marvel universe also include conflict with two of the Hulk's future comrades in the Defenders. His meeting with the Sub-Mariner is complicated by the Puppet Master controlling the Hulk to force him into a fight but it shows how strongly matched the two are, making for a memorable struggle as their strips collide to celebrate Tales to Astonish's 100th issue. The meeting with the Silver Surfer is more interesting and tragic. Both are outcasts pursued by the hostility of humans yet due to the Hulk's anger and misunderstanding they initially end up fighting. Each wants to leave Earth but the Surfer is trapped and the Hulk proves unable to control the Surfer's surfboard after snatching it. But as the Hulk lies subdued there comes the possibility that the Surfer's powers could cure him once and for all by purging the gamma cells. Unfortunately another misunderstanding causes the Hulk to lash out and drive off the Surfer, denying a chance at a real cure. Whether the Surfer might still be able to cure the Hulk or not is something that only a few later writers have addressed, with one showing it was possible but the location of the action required it to be reversed to save Bruce's life, whilst on another occasion the Surfer discovered that the Hulk had been separated from Bruce and thus there was no Banner to turn him back into. Still it's a nice little encounter that shows the two outcasts have much in common and could work well together if they could overcome their suspicions and misunderstandings.

Sadly misunderstandings seem to be almost everywhere as both the Hulk and those around him frequently jump to conclusions and assume the worst, resulting in a succession of fights and denying the creature a chance to show his peaceful side. The Hulk may have a lot of anger but he also wants to live in peace and tranquillity, with friends who will understand and accept him for what he is. That's a goal many of us can identify with, along with the frustration that comes when such simple aims seem to be permanently denied, but it really isn't sufficient to sustain the series no matter how many guest appearances are thrown into the mix. This can make many Hulk adventures extremely turgid and this volume seems to be packed with more than most.

The main saving grace comes in the artwork, with Marie Severin vividly bringing the series to life but then Herb Trimpe takes it up several gears, producing some highly dynamic work that brings both the characters and the battles to life. However the writing just isn't fancy enough. In a parallel to Amazing Spider-Man, we see Stan Lee leave the series only to return after a handful of issues by other writers. The problem is that the series is drifting both with and without Lee, as though his creative energies were starting to wane after such a huge output for many years. However he'd been on many series for so long that it wasn't always easy to step into his shoes and in the case of both the Incredible Hulk and the Amazing Spider-Man it took two departures to finally find the best ongoing successor. Oddly it was Roy Thomas who would prove to be the ultimate immediate successor on Hulk when his Spider-Man tenure was the brief first attempt. But his main Hulk work is in volumes to come. The final story is a taster of things to come, showing the Hulk encountering a mirage of a town in the desert but his enhanced senses bring it to life and just for a brief moment he seems to have found both a friend and a place in life. It's a nice little tale and although I'm not sure why it was chosen for inclusion here, it shows the Thomas/Trimpe team can produce enjoyable individual stories, giving hope for the future.

In the meantime this is a rather poor overall entry in the series; an example of how the Essentials inevitably wind up collecting rather weak periods on some of the longest running titles and occasionally a series can get cut up in such a way that the overall result is just the weaker period without overlapping onto a better time either side or some one-off spectacular issues. But also it shows the fundamental problems inherent in the basic set-up of the Hulk and either some major character development or some significant changes to the status quo would be needed to overcome these problems. However until then what's left is a rather rambling dull series.

Essential Super-Villain Team-Up volume 1

Essential Super-Villain Team-Up volume 1 contains the Dr. Doom stories from Astonishing Tales #1-8, followed by Giant-Size Super-Villain Team-Up #1-2, Super-Villain Team-Up #1-14 & #16-17 (#15 reprinted Astonishing Tales #4-5), plus crossover storylines in Avengers #154-156 and Champions #16. Astonishing Tales was yet another anthology, this one from the early 1970s and its initial issues featured Dr. Doom and Ka-Zar. The Champions was a brief lived superhero team of the mid 1970s that teamed up the likes of the Angel, Ice-Man, the Black Widow, Hercules, Ghost Rider and Darkstar. Bonus material includes the cover of Marvel Super-Heroes #20 (an anthology series which combined try-out new material with reprints from the Golden Age) and a two-page spread omitted from that issue's story when it was reused in Giant-Size Super-Villain Team-Up #1.

The Astonishing Tales stories are written by Roy Thomas, Larry Lieber and Gerry Conway, and drawn by Wally Wood, George Tuska and Gene Colan. Giant-Size Super-Villain Team-Up is written by Roy Thomas and Larry Lieber, and drawn by John Buscema, Larry Lieber, Frank Giacoia and Mike Sekowsky. The regular size Super-Villain Team-Up is written by Tony Isabella, Jim Shooter, Bill Mantlo, Steve Englehart and Peter Gillis, and drawn by George Tuska, Bill Everett, George Evans, Sal Buscema, Herb Trimpe, Keith Giffen, Jim Shooter, Bob Hall, Carmine Infantino, and Arvell Jones. The Avengers issues are written by Conway and Shooter, and drawn by George Pérez and Sal Buscema. The Champions issue is written by Mantlo and drawn by Hall. That's an awful lot of creators, not helped by the first issue of the regular size series having three pencillers on a single issue. The first issue of the Giant-Size is also complicated by incorporating amended reprints of Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner #20 and Marvel Super-Heroes #20 into the actual narrative. Because of this long list some of the labels have been placed in a separate post.

The Astonishing Tales stories come from an attempted revival of the double feature book in the early 1970s, but I don't know if there were any other series of the type at the time. Within these eight issues we get a number of stories with the oddity of the lead character being a villain, yet we don't get many defeats. Instead we see Doom first face off an attempted overthrowal by the pretender to the throne of Latveria with the aid of an alien, whilst also facing an experiment going wrong and releasing an android with his own mind patterns on the country. Subsequent issues see Doom facing off an invasion of Latveria by the Red Skull and his allies the Exiles, a group of ex-soldiers from all the Axis powers seeking to establish the Fourth Reich, or trying to raid vibranium from Wakanda only to be seen off by the Black Panther. But even this latter story leaves open the question of which ruler has won - Doom who escapes unharmed or T'Challa whose kingdom is devastated by an earthquake caused by Doom's mining. The final issue sees Doom attempt to rescue his mother's soul from the clutches of the Devil but fails to defeat her captor's champion. (At this stage Marvel tended to portray various demons, most obviously Mephisto, as being the actual Devil/Satan without always depicting him consistently across series. In later years they'd back away from this idea but at the cost of sowing chaos across some characters' continuity - Ghost Rider can be particularly tricky.)

The series is brief but manages to fill out most of the details about Doom such as why he wears the mask, his past relationship with Valeria, his seizure of the throne of Latveria and the fate of his mother. We don't get an actual flashback to the infamous accident that scarred his face or a reminder of his quest for power but this is probably to the advantage as the details we are given come woven into ongoing stories, rather than taking up the first issue with loads of details a good chunk of the readership would already know. With only eight issues and each instalment just ten pages long there isn't much time to explore things in too much dept, but Doom emerges with his dignity and power intact. That said it's hard to deny that this strip's appearance here is largely filler material to make up the page count as Doom doesn't actually team up with any other super-villains in these stories. Issues #4-5 may have been reprinted in Super-Villain Team-Up #15 but the issues show a confrontation not an alliance between Doom and the Red Skull. Still without their appearance here we probably wouldn't have got to see these stories at all.

Onto Super-Villain Team-Up itself. As ever with a team-up title here's a list of the banner stars in each issue, though formally naming them on the cover doesn't start until issue #3 and the earlier issues have the stars at the top of the intro pages.

Giant-Size 1. Doctor Doom and the Sub-Mariner
Giant-Size 2. Doctor Doom and the Sub-Mariner
1. Doctor Doom and the Sub-Mariner
2. Doctor Doom and the Sub-Mariner
3. Doctor Doom and the Sub-Mariner
4. Doctor Doom and the Sub-Mariner
5. Doctor Doom and the Sub-Mariner
6. Doctor Doom and the Sub-Mariner
7. Doctor Doom and the Sub-Mariner
8. Doctor Doom and the Sub-Mariner
9. Doctor Doom and the Sub-Mariner
10. Doctor Doom and the Sub-Mariner
11. Doctor Doom and the Red Skull
12. Doctor Doom and the Red Skull
13. Doctor Doom and the Sub-Mariner
14. Doctor Doom and Magneto
(15. Doctor Doom and the Red Skull - reprinting Astonishing Tales #4-5)
16. The Red Skull and the Hate-Monger
17. The Red Skull and the Hate-Monger

As can be seen from this list the overall approach to the series was rather different from the format of Marvel Team-Up and Marvel Two-in-One where the guest stars rotated virtually every issue. Instead the first half or so of the run is about the only time in the Bronze Age that I'm aware of when Marvel successfully launched a "buddy book" title of two pre-existing characters. (Marvel Team-Up was initially going to be a regular Spider-Man and the Human Torch series but rapidly switched to the rotating format, which was then adopted from the outset for Marvel Two-in-One. The Champions was originally going to be a duo of the Angel and Ice-Man, but during conception it morphed into a more general team title, albeit one that selected characters to fill various boxes.)

However it's quickly clear that this series wasn't exactly a conventional teaming. Neither the Red Skull nor Magneto actually team-up with Doom in the issues in question but instead battle with him, and much of the rest of the first sixteen issues (including the Giant-Size) are devoted to the strained relations between Doctor Doom and the Sub-Mariner as the former tries to recruit the latter to his scheme to conquer the world, rather than actually showing the two engaged in this plan. Part of the problem, as Doom eventually realises, is that the Sub-Mariner is primarily an anti-hero seeking the advancement of his undersea kingdom and only attacks the surface world in anger for perceived actions against Atlantis. Back in the early issues of Fantastic Four the Sub-Mariner was a wandering loner whose kingdom had disappeared and he did take on a more villainous role, even teaming up with Doctor Doom to take on the Fantastic Four. But the character had come a long way since then and a series that tries to recapture the spirit of Fantastic Four #6 just isn't going to work without major alterations to at least one of the characters. That's probably why new directions are announced for both issues #4 & #10, and then issue #14 brings another, though the end of the issue announces it's the end of the series. I'll come back to that claim in a bit. In the meantime the main bond forced between Doom and the Sub-Mariner are the-then recent alterations to the latter's body chemistry making it impossible for him to last out of water, especially when the life support suit he's wearing in the early issues begins to fail. Doom's supply of a cure results in Namor being honourbound but it's an uneasy process.

In the course of the alliance Doom and Namor face a number of both heroes and other villains, most of whom have previously clashed with at least one of them before. Early on they clash with Andro, the android from Astonishing Tales, and later on the Latverian legitimist pretender and the Red Skull. Namor's past conflicts soon bring Attuma, Tiger Shark and Dr. Dorcas, then later Krang. We also get a brief visit to Latveria by the Circus of Crime. The Fantastic Four also come into conflict with Doom over attempts to save the Sub-Mariner from being honourbound into the alliance. The Avengers crossover involves further conflict with Attuma but also brings a couple of encounters for what I think are the first time in the modern era - Namor and the Whizzer, and a fight between Doom and Iron Man. Finally in the original run we get a clash with both Magneto and the Champions. This brief team has often been mocked in hindsight for its unlikely combination and being located in Los Angeles - a famous line by the Angel in later years was "Do you know how hard it is to find supervillains in Los Angeles?" - but here they come across as reasonably competent, if beset by personality disputes. The more surprising portrayal is Magneto who initially seeks an alliance with Doom, proclaiming them to both be "homo superior". It's a reminder that Magneto hasn't always been the militant mutant superiority fighter he's best known as, and for many years was a more generic would-be world conqueror.

We get a few new creations such as the Symbionic Man, but the most significant is the Shroud. A mysterious figure in a dark costume with an origin that combines elements of Batman's (young boy sees his parents shot by a street criminal, vows vengeance on all crime and trains himself accordingly) and Doom's (makes his way to a Himalayan cult where he learns more but has his face burned in the process). It seems Steve Englehart wanted to write Batman but at this point he was at the wrong company, though all that would change the following year. Apparently he was actually drawing on the Shadow rather than Doom, but then again rather a lot of fictional characters have acquired special skills and magic from near mythical places in the Himalayas.

Issue #3 has a particularly dramatic moment when Betty Dean, Namor's original romantic interest, sacrifices herself to save Namor from being shot by Dr. Dorcas. Given the character's long term significance, she's dispatched rather suddenly even if she had only made a dozen or so new appearances since the 1960s revival of the Sub-Mariner. There are some other odd moments relating to women. We're occasionally reminded of Doom's loss of Valeria, but a really odd moment comes in issue #7 when he goes to a peasant's house and asserts droit de seigneur ("right of the lord") - which isn't fully spelt out here (Doom merely states he has "absolute right to the company of any woman in the land") but it was the purported feudal right of lords to bed virgins on the estate. There's no historical evidence that such a custom existed in medieval Europe but that wouldn't necessarily stop Doom. However it seems completely out of character for him to be pursuing such lust with any random woman and feels like a clumsy attempt to reinforce the character's wickedness. But Doom doesn't need to be shown asserting such rights to achieve that.

More curious is a moment in issue #6 where it's revealed that Doom has conducted a peace treaty with the United States that gives him greater protection from US based heroes who are now at risk of causing international incidents. The treaty is personally concluded with none other than Henry Kissinger. I presume that in the mid 1970s there weren't Republican watch groups who would pounce on portrayals in media and publicly attack companies for "misrepresenting" their side. But the whole incident feels a little clumsy again as it leads to rants by the Fantastic Four about appeasement and Kissinger's realpolitik. It's hard to escape the conclusion that these issues (#6-7), published in early 1976, was being used by Englehart for naked political soapboxing. It's also amazing that he could get away with it, but 1976 was the Year of The Three Editor-in-Chiefs at Marvel and amidst such turbulance oversight standards were presumably not the best.

Overall the initial run of the title takes a rather bizarre concept and does its best to try and make it work. Some of the issues have ambiguous endings and Doom sometimes triumphs over other foes. But in general it's very hard to base a series around villains and even harder to do so when one of them doesn't easily slot into the role the title implies. The series came out in a period when the length of regular sized Marvel comics shrank from nineteen to eighteen and then seventeen pages per issue so the stories fly pretty fast. But it's hard to escape the idea this series never really had a clear idea of what it was for or where it was going, hence the two new directions and the eventual shift away from the Doom/Sub-Mariner relationship to a more general Doom and a rotating guest star title. However it was too little too late and it's easy to see why issue #14 ends with "This is the last issue of Super-Villain Team-Up".

Yet somehow despite the series announcing its ending in 1977, three more issues came out, one per each of the following years. I'm not sure why this was but as issue #15 is a reprint, it's probable it was a rush job. Maybe it was a fill-in to take the place of a delayed title at the printers at a time when publishers were fined if the presses went empty. Alternatively the issue was on sale in August 1978 which seems to be the exact month the effect of the "DC Implosion" hit the newsstands with a dramatic cutback of the number of DC titles - was Marvel rushing some extra books into print to capitalise on the released marketshare? Presumably the issue sold well enough for someone to give the title another chance, but this time going for a more general team-up of villains. So six months later issue #16 appeared in early 1979... and then nothing for over a year before the story was concluded with the publication of issue #17. Was this a monumental production delay, was the revived series never properly scheduled or was it just being printed as and when gaps in printing were looming?

The final two issues tell a brief story that seems to be motivated more by tying up an obscure part of Marvel continuity than with actually doing anything major with the Red Skull. We get the tale of how the Skull and the Hate Monger are running a Nazi island in the Caribbean - it makes a difference from the Latin American jungle I guess - where they're using technology to create a new Cosmic Cube whilst fending off the interference by agents of Mossad and SHIELD. However there's a twist as the Hate Monger is none other than Adolf Hitler.

Part of the story's purpose is to tidy up Marvel continuity with the revelation that Hitler is occupying a clone of his original body with his mind having been projected out when he was "killed" in the Berlin bunker at the end of the Second World War by the original Human Torch. In the 1950s Marvel had created this alternate take on Hitler's death and it may have seemed a great idea at the time but it now seems rather crass. They then made an alternative version of this crassness in 1963 when a Fantastic Four issue ended with the revelation the defeated and dead Hate Monger had been... Adolf Hitler. At the time the idea of Hitler having survived the war was a fairly popular idea in fiction (and Marvel was ignoring its 1950s stories altogether) but again it can seem to trivialise one of the most evil men real history has thrown up. It would probably have best to have just dismissed the original Hate Monger as one of Hitler's doubles. But instead we now get a tale teaming up Marvel's most prominent Nazi with the real world's greatest Nazi. The story itself is tame, show how the Skull fends off the attack but also out double-crosses the Hate Monger, trapping the latter inside the new Cosmic Cube which is in fact merely a prison.

The story allows the Red Skull to put Hitler the man behind him whilst still pursuing Hitler's goals and philosophy. But the Skull didn't need such a moment - Hitler could have been left dead and the Hate Monger dismissed as an old double of Hitler. If a confrontation and continuity tidy was needed, this would have allowed the Skull to establish himself as the supreme heir to Nazidom without the crass treatment of the founder. Overall this story is rather dissatisfying and a pretty low ending for the series. It had never really found a direction and by this point it was just Super-Villain Team-Up in name only.