Essential Tomb of Dracula volume 4 - creator labels 2

Here's a volume with a huge number of creators so it takes more than one separate post to fit all the labels in. There's another post as well.

What If... Essential Champions volume 1?

Another look at a series as if it had been collected in an Essential volume, including all the additional issues included in other collections. This one is otherwise found in Champions Classic volumes 1 and 2.

Essential Champions volume 1 would contain all seventeen issues of the 1970s series plus the crossover issue Super-Villain Team-Up #14, the guest appearances in Iron Man annual #4 and Avengers #163, and also the epilogue in Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man #17 to #18. (This is also the combination of the forthcoming Masterworks edition.) That would be a slim volume but there are some Essentials this thin. Bonus material, if it were needed, could include some unused covers - the Classics include one for issue #7 that had only minor changes - and also entries from the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. The writing on the main series is initially by creator Tony Isabella who is succeeded by Bill Mantlo with one issue by Chris Claremont. The art on the main series is by Don Heck, George Tuska, Bob Hall and John Byrne with most making at least one return during the run. The Iron Man annual is written by Mantlo and drawn by Tuska, the Avengers issue is written by Jim Shooter and drawn by Tuska, the Super-Villain Team-Up one is written by Mantlo and drawn by Hall, and the Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man issues are written by Mantlo and drawn by Sal Buscema.

1975 was a big year for team titles at Marvel. As well as the ongoing exploits of the Avengers, Defenders and Fantastic Four it also saw the launch of the All New All Different X-Men, the debut of the Invaders and the start of the Champions. But whereas all the other titles would last for several years, Champions would limp along for just over two years, confined to the odd eight-issues-a-year format that would make multi-part stories take ages to resolve and never really breaking out into a big hit. In the years since there has been little in the way of revivals bar a one-off reunion to work with X-Force in one of the 1998 team-up annuals. Otherwise the team has been mostly forgotten and treated as a joke when remembered, with Iceman once bemoaning "Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a major super-villain in Los Angeles?" (We'll find out in this review.) The nadir must surely have been when the right to use the name was won in a poker game by the team usually known as the Great Lakes Avengers but even they didn't make much of a mark with it before finding yet another name. And so the Champions have languished in obscurity.

Part of the problem may be the sheer difficulty of getting the original team back together under the title "Champions" - after the original series ended a different comic company adapted a role playing game property by the same name and at least twice Marvel has been rebuffed in attempts to reobtain the trademark. (The X-Force/Champions '98 annual was probably part of one of these attempts.) But also the team members are a pretty disparate bunch normally found spread across very distinctive parts of the Marvel universe and it can't be the easiest task to obtain the whole set for even a one-off reunion.

The team itself is initially comprised of five heroes, with another joining midway through. Leading the group is the Black Widow, who has recently left Daredevil and is developing ever more into a strong independent character in her own right. She's also one of the first women leaders of a Marvel team and also brings to the team both her adoptive father Ivan Petrovich and demons from their past in the Soviet Union. Bankrolling the team is the Angel, fresh out of the X-Men, now that newer members have taken over, heavily enriched through inheritance and ditching his secret identity in favour of being open and free with the world. Also recently having left the X-Men, but maintaining his secret identity for now, is Iceman. The youngest team member, he initially feels he wants to get on with his life and plans on dropping aside as soon as the team is fully established, but finds himself staying around to the point that this plan gets forgotten, especially under a new writer. The team's muscle is provided by Hercules, who proves to be the catalyst around which the group is initially drawn together, and he stays around for the adventure. The most distant is all the five is the Ghost Rider, seen here in the early years of his career when Johnny Blaze had full control over his flaming alter ego, who often feels distrusted and out of place amongst his teammates. Midway through the run the team is joined by Darkstar, a new hero from the Soviet Union with dark energy powers and a mysterious past. The main supporting cast member is Richard Feinster, a recently sacked lecture agent at UCLA who becomes the team's business manager.

The Champions are based in Los Angeles and have as their aims to help the "common man" with more down to earth problems, in contrast to the more global and intergalactic threats faced by other teams. It's a worthy aim, as is setting the series away from the New York norm of the Marvel universe. But in practice the team wind up facing quite a number of established larger than life super-villains and take on global and even universal threats. It looks harder to escape the conventions than it seems.

With very little pre-existing ties to bring the team together the series starts by creating a set of coincidences to get all of them to the campus of UCLA in order to get caught up in the same menace. Iceman is starting studies there and is visited by the Angel whilst Hercules has been appointed a visiting lecturer on the reality behind Greek myths. The Black Widow is applying for a post as a Russian language teacher and the Ghost Rider's alter-ego of Johnny Blaze happens to be motorcycling through the campus. The initial menace is the arrival of Pluto the Greek god of death who seeks to force Hercules and Greek god turned little remembering Atlas era hero turned new lecturer in humanities Venus to marry his allies, Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, and Ares, god of war, so that they will be unable to battle against Pluto's planned take-over of Olympus. The opening adventure takes up the first three issues with a journey to Olympus itself thrown in and results in the five working together and realising how well they mesh as a team. It's hard to disguise that most superhero teams have had awkward origins precisely because they rely on cautious loner heroes suddenly discovering how well they work together, but the Champions seem especially forced given the ongoing distrust of Ghost Rider and the initial reluctance of Iceman. It's as though they were thrown together by dictat rather than emerging as a natural combination.

The team takes a few more issues before it's fully constituted, complete with its own transport in the form of the Champscraft and a headquarters in a Los Angeles skyscraper. However both get assembled by dodgy contractors and a minor recurring theme are the problems with equipment failure though it doesn't come to the forefront until the epilogue in Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man. The team's public relations are also a bit of a mess, with their official launch coinciding with an adventure such that only the Angel and Hercules are available for the press conference which gets attacked by the Crimson Dynamo, the Griffin, and the Titanium Man, whilst a photoshoot of the dissolution of the team is an equal damp squib with only the Angel still around when Peter Parker arrives.

When one looks at the foes encountered by the Champions it rapidly becomes clear just how easy it is to find supervillains in Los Angeles including some quite major ones. As well as the initial clash with Pluto there are encounters with a group of Soviet foes including the Titanium Man, a new Crimson Dynamo whose real identity is a shocker for the Black Widow and Ivan, and the Griffin. This group also includes the first appearance of Darkstar but she soon defects. Then there's an encounter with Warlord Kaa of the shadow-people with guest appearances by Hawkeye and the time-displaced Two-Gun Kid. The team's most wide-ranging adventure initially seems to be up against the Stranger but he is in fact looking to save Earth and the real threat comes from Kamo Tharnn (later better known as the Possessor) who seeks to recapture the Runestaff that can save the day. The Avengers appearance sees conflict with the Greek Titan Typhon who forces battle between the two whilst the Iron Man annual brings them up against Modok and AIM. The crossover with Super-Villain Team-Up involves a strange contest between Doctor Doom and Magneto in which the latter must find a way to stop the ruler of Latveria from taking over the world with a special neurogas, forcing the Master of Magnetism to seek out allies, finding them in the form of first the Beast and then the Champions. The final issue sees an attack by the Vanisher, utilising both the Sentinels and the mutants the Blob, Lorelei and Unus the Untouchable. The biggest new foe introduced here is Swarm, a collective sentient hive of bees with the mind and skeleton core of a Nazi scientist. There are a few lesser foes such as new ones like Dr Edward Lansing, a scientist abusing a care home in order to perform experiments, or Rampage, an inventor hurt by the economic downturn who dons an exo-skeleton to initially rob banks. Rampage is the most recurring of the team's foes, being used by the Soviet foes in an action that leaves him paralysed and then coming back for an act of revenge at the very end. There's also an encounter with Stilt-Man that's so forgettable he's left in the hands of the guest-starring Black Goliath whilst the Champions deal with the Stranger's problem.

The series ultimately lasted only seventeen issues and ends on a mini-cliffhanger as the Champions wonder about Darkstar's true nature. But this goes unresolved and the team is unceremoniously disbanded in a flashback in the pages of Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man which otherwise serves as a straightforward team-up with the Angel (in fact it's a surprise this story wasn't told in the pages of Marvel-Team-Up) as they face down against the Champions' old foes Rampage and the shoddily constructed building. And that was the end of the Champions' story, bar one very brief reunion many years later.

So is Champions a title that should have had an Essential collected edition? The existence of the Classic reprints is the most obvious argument against but there are certainly other titles in the Essentials that have been collected elsewhere in colour. And the bar for inclusion in the Essentials was not actually that high - several short-lived 1970s series such as Godzilla, Ms. Marvel and Super-Villain Team-Up all qualified for a single Essential volume so not lasting long was clearly no barrier. Nor is the series anywhere near as mediocre as some material included in the Essentials. It may not be the most memorable of titles and the team suffers from feeling like it was assembled to fit arbitrary criteria, but there's a sense of trying and purpose to these tales that hold together reasonably well. A single collected edition would be thin without much obvious extra stuff to include - very maybe the X-Force/Champions '98 annual but that would be a much later pick and otherwise that's pretty much it as a contemporary appearance in Godzilla would be a monster of a rights issue. But there's just about enough already. This is a series that certainly does deserve reappraising as whilst it's not the greatest team title ever it's certainly a lot more credible than the dismissive comments and jokes of later years would suggest. I don't know how the trademark situation would have been an issue, though it clearly didn't stop the Classics doing two volumes. All in all the Champions is a good little series that would certainly have earned a place amongst the Essentials.

Essential Avengers volume 6 - creator labels

Once more we have a volume with a lot of labels so here's a separate post for them.

A few Iron Man previews

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


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

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

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

Essential Iron Man volume 5

Essential Iron Man volume 5 contains issues #62 to #75 & #77 to #87 plus annual #3. Bonus material includes the covers of the reprint issues #76, annuals #1 & #2 and Giant-Size Iron Man #1. Most of the writing is by Mike Friedrich with other issues by Bill Mantlo and Len Wein, with one plot by Barry Alfonso and a couple of scripts by Roger Slifer. The annual is written by Steve Gerber. The main artist is George Tuska with other contributions by P. Craig Russell, Arvell Jones, Keith Pollard, Chic Stone and Herb Trimpe with the annual drawn by Sal Buscema.

This volume sees a couple of changes to the costume, one of which is rather better known than the other, as well as the more general ongoing modifications to the weaponry to meet the latest threat. At one stage Tony replaces the collapsible set in his attaché case with a version that can become an ultra thin form worn beneath his clothing until a wrist gesture triggers it to expand out and cover the remaining portions of his body. There may be some attached technobabble but the whole process feels a little too close to a magic or fantastical costume better suited to less scientific heroes. The introduction of this mechanism is used as an opportunity to remove one of the more notorious changes made. This covers the entire period when Tony adds a nose to the helmet "to allow more expression to show". Although it does allow for the art to show more variety in the portrayal of his face, it does also look a bit silly and it's easy to see why it gets ditched as soon as a spurious explanation (that the new method of donning the costume requires the helmet to be symmetrical).

The major storyline in this volume is the "war of the super-villains" which runs from issue #68 until #81 in which the mysterious Black Llama manipulates a succession of super-villains into battling one another in order to obtain a special golden globe of power as the prize in their contest. The saga kicks off with a battle with Sunfire and the Mandarin, who now escapes the Unicorn's body, before the contest really gets going as the Mandarin battles the Yellow Claw in the first confrontation between Marvel's two biggest oriental masterminds with both deploying robots such as Ultimo. Other foes get drawn in as the saga continues, including Modok, the Mad Thinker, the Man-Bull, Melter and Whiplash but not all villains are attracted to an object that offers inner harmony as a precursor to success and we see a montage of big names like Doctor Doom, the Red Skull and Fu Manchu turn it down whilst others like Magneto are missing in action. There is also a trip to Vietnam as both Tony and Roxanne search for Eddie March's brother Marty, encountering both the Crimson Dynamo and a hidden civilisation. Eventually the final battle sees Iron Man overcome the Claw but then all to Firebrand, whom the Llama declares the victor and takes him to his own dimension with Iron Man in pursuit.

Issue #72 has an unusual setting as Tony finds himself with time to kill in San Diego and so opts to attend Comic-Con, using his own armour as a costume. It may be only 1974 but the fandom portrayed show all the familiar signs of people obsessing over first issues, arguing about who did what, arguing about the merits of certain costume changes, parading in fancy dress (the word "cosplay" wasn't in use back then) and generally having a good time with fellow fans. There are fans of other science fiction and fantasy present as well with some Star Trek fans petitioning for a revival. In addition, there are creators who are behind schedule (Roy Thomas, in his last issue credited as editor, is even handing over a pink slip to Mike Friedrich but saying it's just a formality) but still taking time to meet the fans. All in all it's a good affectionate portrayal of the early years of organised fandom. Amidst all this the clash at the convention with the Man-Bull, Melter and Whiplash, as part of the Black Llama's machinations, is very much of lesser interest.

Just as the war of the super-villains is approaching its ultimate climax, we get one of the worst cases of delays seen in any Marvel title of the era. In the space of four issues (#76 to #79) there are no less than three fill-ins, including a reprint and a flashback adventure that normally could be easily inserted into the ongoing sequence with minimal fuss but here it appears as Iron Man is travelling between dimensions and thus it's impossible to make it a sudden spurious flashback, particularly as it's already structured as a flashback to drive a decision in the present day. The tale sees Tony as both himself and Iron Man in Vietnam during the war, testing a satellite guided canon that inflicts devastation in a village in a clandestine operation that's in violation of international law. The result of the canon and the counter attack result in widespread devastation and very few survivors, leading Iron Man to blast "Why" atop a mass grave. It's a piece questioning the whole basis of the Vietnam War, albeit somewhat late in the day as it arrived on the newstands a couple of months after the Fall of Saigon that ended the war and a couple of years after the US had withdrawn its active troop presence. The other fill-in was more timely, being a classic house of horrors story as Tony rescues a couple whose car has broken down and they take refuge in a creepy isolated house occupied by strange beings including a scientist with a funny name who performs life changing experiments. This would have been on the shelves just as The Rocky Horror Picture Show was released though Doctor Kurakill isn't as memorable a character as Doctor Frank N. Furter. Still her henchman, Quasar the mutated ape, does feel like an appropriate homage to the ape obsession of the 1950s. But in general, even allowing for the fact that issue #76 is only represented by the cover and so not interrupting the flow in this edition, these issues show a massive letdown as the momentum on the main story slams to a halt. It should not be surprising that after all these fill-ins Friedrich writes only two further issues. The end of issue #81 may try to present it as a writer bowing out at the natural end of a good run, and I don't know how the contemporary letterspages presented it, but here it feels like a writer missing one deadline too many and consequently being deliberately let go of.

When the series eventually resumes the war of the super-villains story it takes a decidedly odd turn as the Black Llama, Firebrand and Iron Man arrive in a parallel universe in which the United States is covered by a patchwork of independent states and the Llama is the king of one of them. The Llama's actions are explained away as the consequence of madness brought about by a cosmic imbalance when people cross between dimensions and he's actually the rightful ruler who has returned just in time to face a revolt by his daughter & regent's main advisor and wife, who deploy a mechanical dragon. Although there's some good character work as Iron Man nearly succumbs to the madness of the cosmic imbalance, the whole thing is such a jarring contrast with the earlier issues that it feels like it was conceived for another series altogether. It's a very disappointing end to both a lengthy storyline and Friedrich's run, made worse by the extra delays and fill-ins.

There are other foes who show up over the course of the volume including an inconclusive battle with the villainous Doctor Spectrum, the Marvel homage of Green Lantern. Iron Man has at times been matched with Green Lantern in comparisons of Marvel's Avengers and DC's Justice League of America, but it's never been the easiest fit and feels more like a default of picking the most prominent male heroes after Captain America & Batman and Thor & Superman have been lined up. Consequently such a fight seems a mismatch and this one drags on over several issues, even dragging in Thor to battle Iron Man who's been possessed by the Power Prism that gives Spectrum his powers. The story also sees Tony's friend Eddie March don the armour only to be severely injured. His life is saved but at the cost of his ability to walk and in the process he's temporarily transformed into the monstrous Freak, a fate previously shared by Happy Hogan when undergoing special energy treatment.

One theme that pops up again and again throughout the volume are the different expectations of men and women in relationships. Happy Hogan takes some time to accept that Pepper is now a high flying corporate assistant and is not going to meekly head to the kitchen to play housewife; this causes some strain on their marriage and at one point Pepper turns to Tony. However the marriage is soon restored and they remain friends even after Happy impersonates Iron Man at a party and gets injured by being drawn into action when Tony is kidnapped. Whiplash also has expectations of his fiancée Vicki Snow who is the manager of a Stark Industries plant when the villain is working undercover as head of research. Tony's own attitude to Roxanne Gilbert is more respectful but her relationship with Tony is increasingly forgettable.

The last six issues see a quick succession of writers as the series tries to find its direction. There's a forgettable encounter with the Red Ghost and his super apes in which Happy is injured; the treatment sees him become the Freak once more but this is getting overused. An ongoing subplot involves police officer Michael O'Brien investigating the death of his brother Kevin back in issue #46, convinced that Tony has arranged a cover-up, but it's been so long since the death that it becomes hard to find the subplot that compelling. There's also a move to toughen up and make more serious one of Iron Man's earliest foes as Jack Frost returns but now using the name Blizzard.

The annual follows the formula of teaming up two heroes to fight a villain more usually associated with a third in a sequel to one of the last's stories. Here we get a meeting between Iron Man and the Man-Thing in the Florida swamps that follows up on an early Marvel Two-in-One story as the Molecule Man returns from the dead, along with further social commentary as the people of Citrusville react with suspicion and hostility as Stark International (renamed in the regular issues from Stark Industries in acknowledgement at diversification of holdings) sets about rebuilding Omegaville. However the latter thread doesn't really go anywhere and just feels like a jibe at small towns for the sake of it. The Molecule Man's resurrection may have seemed like exciting fantasy and psychological thriller in 1976, but today this tale of a grown man possessing the body of a nine year old girl feels extremely dodgey even though there's no overt hint of anything sexual in the situation. Beyond that the story suffers the problem that afflicts so many Man-Thing tales in that interaction between the monster and other characters is rather limited, resulting in him stumbling through the story including a needless encounter with Iron Man on the road before turning up at the climax to provide the ultimate containment for Molecule Man. All in all this annual is a fairly typical example of the forgettable tales that were commonplace in original 1970s annuals. It also feels more like a Man-Thing tale than an Iron Man one, with Gerber taking the opportunity to return to the character after his run and the original series had ended.

It's telling that the main thing anyone remembers about this era of Iron Man is the nose, a short-lived modification to the armour that doesn't last very long. Otherwise this is a very average volume with occasional bursts of momentum that get squandered amidst excessive fill-ins and bizarre conclusions. The foes are mainly so so and there's sometimes too much reuse of ideas such as one of Tony's friends donning the Iron Man armour, getting injured and then the treatment accidentally transforms him into the Freak. Little in this volume really stands out.

Essential Avengers volume 5 - creator labels

Once more we have a volume with a lot of labels so here's a separate post for some of them.

Essential Iron Man volume 4

Essential Iron Man volume 4 consists of issues #39 to #61 including a back-up in issue #44 featuring Ant-Man. The writing sees runs by Gerry Conway and Mike Friedrich plus other issues by Robert Kanigher, Gary Friedrich, Roy Thomas, Jim Starlin and Steve Gerber. Most of the art is by George Tuska with other contributions by Herb Trimpe, Barry Windsor-Smith and Jim Starlin. The Ant-Man tale is written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Ross Andru.

This volume comes from the early 1970s and sees a slow attempt to update the character at a time when real life events had made arms manufacturers not particularly popular in the States. At the same time it also tries to modernise the portrayal of some of the characters and roles, with the most notable success being Pepper Hogan who returns to her old job position but is now much more a strong executive assistant rather than the simple typist, telephone answerer and diary keeper she had been in earlier years. On multiple occasions the factory is surrounded by protestors, whether students protesting the manufacturing of weapons or the workers out on strike due to devious propaganda, and eventually this leads Tony to start diversifying the output. However it takes a while to assert full control.

The early issues see Tony facing a challenge in the boardroom as Simon Gilbert, the chairperson of the board of Stark Industries, tries to have Tony removed as president of the company, only to be threatened with his own removal as chairperson by Tony. The problem with this kind of corporate drama is that it relies on the reader having a clear knowledge of the basics of corporate governance in order to understand how such power is wielded when Tony holds the majority of shares. Boardroom drama can be exciting when the threat is obvious and the resolution dramatic but here it descends into two men in suits each trying to remove the other through the exercise of some undefined power or other. Eventually Tony succeeds in the boardroom leading to Gilbert hiring the Firebrand to blow up a munitions plant, only to die in the explosion himself. The Firebrand is revealed to be Gilbert's son, adding a new level to his enmity with Iron Man.

There's a protracted storyline involving Tony's engineer and friend Kevin O'Brien who adopts the Guardsman armour to protect Stark Industries but inexperience and paranoia overwhelm him, not helped by his jealousy of Tony over Marianne Rodgers. Partially egged on by Gilbert and other board members, Kevin winds up facing a group of students protesting over arms manufacturing and deploys his repulsors on them, apparently killing four of them. (We're subsequently told they were only injured but as it comes solely via dialogue and captions it feels like emergency editing to tone down the storyline.) This leads to a confrontation between Iron Man and the Guardsman over their respective methods and ends in tragedy when Kevin is caught in a tank explosion. The funeral leads to soul-searching on Tony's part and triggers an issue mainly devoted to recounting the origin, which also supplies the cover, used for the volume as a whole.

Marianne Rodgers is probably the best woman that Tony's yet been involved with. She has a degree of Extra Sensory Perception that leads her to heightened concern for Tony, and also leads her to realise that he and Iron Man are one and the same, but contrary to his long standing fears she doesn't reject them. Instead they grow ever closer, to Kevin's disappointment, and soon get engaged. However her ESP leads her to visions of Iron Man's doom if she stays with him and after a battle with the Super-Adaptoid that leaves Tony desperate for help in recharging his power, Marianne instead deserts him. When the final confrontation comes with the Adaptoid in its new form of the Cyborg Sinister, rebuilt by Tyrr and Jarr from a microworld called Bast, Iron Man ultimately defeats the prophecy by overwhelming it with acid and then destroying it but trust has broken down between Tony and Marianne, leading them to call off the engagement. Marianne goes off to work but finds her ESP wreaks havoc in the workplace and she is subsequently hospitalised. Meanwhile Pepper Hogan returns to Tony's life when she accepts once more the job of his personal secretary but amidst the jet setting it becomes clear Tony still has feelings for her even though she is now married. Meanwhile Happy Hogan is getting more and more jealous of the situation, especially when the newspapers start assuming Tony and Pepper are an item, and soon announces he is leaving by means of a telegram.

The early part of the volume sees a string of incredibly forgettable foes, whether introduced here or reused from another series. Those in the former category include the White Dragon, a Chinese scientist and inventor with troops who feels all too like a Mandarin knock off, the Slasher and Demitrius, a pair in silly costumes, Mikas the Soulfather, an android with ESP powers who believes himself to be an all powerful mutant, a robot copy of the Night Phantom, Raga, the "Son of Fire", a cult leader with the ability to control flames, and his teacher, the Black Lama. There's also an encounter with Princess Python, temporarily solo from the Circus of Crime, and her pet snake Precious. All in all it's a very dull set, made worse by several being agents of the mysterious "Mr Kline", who also appears in the contemporary Daredevil. Unfortunately that seems to be the main place for explaining and dealing with him, with the result that in this volume he's just a shadowy figure responsible for some events but ultimately left unexplained.

Towards the end we get two issues that have the biggest impact on long term Marvel continuity although their impact on Iron Man is rather less. Issue #54 sees the introduction of the space travelling Madame MacEvil, later better known as Moondragon, who takes control of Iron Man's armour remotely and pits him against Sub-Mariner as part of scientific investigations into human hybrids. She's the kind of character who appears to have a large unrevealed backstory that explains her actions but all we get here is an amoral scientist who swears vengeance when her plans come to nothing. The following issue is much better known as it sees the introduction of both Thanos and Drax the Destroyer. And also of the Blood Brothers but they don't get talked about so much. The issue debuts a powerful alien conqueror foe with a strong backstory and a pre-existing nemesis, making for a memorable confrontation and it's hard to deny the significance of this issue given that Thanos has been incredibly successful for Marvel in the long run. The tale as a single piece is quite strong and leaves the reader wanting more. But, as is often the case with big cosmic events and particular those involving Thanos, the host title can wind up feeling a rather odd place for the event. Iron Man does not generally get caught up in interplanetary conflict and this story would probably be more at home in Fantastic Four or Thor or Avengers. And when read with the issues around it, it feels like part of a general ream of randomness near the end of this volume as the writers struggle to find a new direction and purpose for the title.

As they search we get an odd confrontation with the "menace" of Rasputin, a magician with poor powers who brings a statue to life. Then we get a strange tale that starts off with the Mandarin in disguise fomenting unrest amongst the Stark Industries workforce but which diverts into a tale of a search for new power rings and sees the Mandarin and Unicorn temporarily swap bodies. There's a return by a vengeance seeking Firebrand and then finally a clash with Daredevil's old foe the Masked Marauder. None of these tales feels in any way spectacular and the result is just a drudge through the end of the volume.

There are some signs of further developments for Tony with the situation of him crawling away from a successful fight in search of a power recharge now starting to get tired (though read in an era of fast draining smartphones it feels even more familiar now than over forty years ago), and towards the end there are signs that he is increasingly able to survive for periods without a functioning chest plate pacemaker, suggesting that his transplanted heart is finally being accepted by his body. I have no idea how scientifically plausible this scenario is, but the signs are encouraging that Tony is finally conquering his main physical weakness and showing hope for the future in spite of the stunted series around him.

One possibility for diversifying things up a bit would have been to introduce a back-up strip featuring a second hero, as happened in a number of other comics at this time, though mainly over at DC. Issues #43 & #44 contain first an Ant-Man reprint and then an original tale respectively at a time when Marvel expanded the size and cost of the comics, only to contract them back after a couple of months. The original tale is included here but it's a rather forgettable piece of a sweet shop owner attempting an insurance scam through arson whilst Hank Pym encounters the intelligent Scarlet Beetle once more, with his foe coming to an extremely undignified end. It doesn't leave the reader desperate for a regular series of Ant-Man back-ups and suggests the subsequent reversion to normal sized issues was wise and Marvel heroes don't generally prosper when hiding in the back of others' titles.

In general this is a rather slight and disappointing volume. In spite of the ongoing threads involving Marianne Rodgers, Simon Gilbert, Kevin O'Brien or Mr Kline, overall the whole thing feels slow and disjointed. The first half or so of the volume does make an effort to find a direction and stick with it even though it's not the most exciting thing, but the latter half shows a series just floundering about and trying all manner of situations and foes in the hope that something will eventually stick. This is not the series at its best.

Essential Captain America volume 6 - creator labels

Yet again there is a volume with lots of creators so here's a separate post for some of them.

Essential Iron Man volume 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Essential Defenders volume 3 - creator labels

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

Essential Avengers volume 3

Essential Avengers volume 3 contains issues #47-68 and King-Size Special (i.e. Annual) #2. Everything is written by Roy Thomas and mostly drawn by John Buscema, with individual issues drawn by George Tuska, Gene Colan, Barry (Windsor-)Smith and Sal Buscema and the annual by Don Heck and Werner Roth. Bonus material consists of the team's entry from the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. Also relegated to the back of the original edition are a pin-up and "Avenjerks Assemble", a comedic parody of the creative team in action, but both these come from the annual.

This volume sees a run of creativity and development with new members added to the team, several existing members departing to focus on matters closer to home, and new and recycled identities for remaining members. Meanwhile two of the team's best known villains are introduced here whilst there are also some new heroes developed, though only one joins the team immediately. Early on we get the replacement of the villainous Black Knight with his heroic nephew, who swears to right the wrongs of his uncle's criminal career and also explicitly links the character to the 1950s character whose adventures were being reprinted around this time. It's not hard to spot the writer's motivations in "correcting" a perceived earlier mistake and incorporating a pre-1961 series into the Marvel universe (although the Black Knight's thoughts and captions leave open the possibility that the Arthurian adventurer may have just been a legend with readers encouraged to make up their own mind - was this editor Stan Lee trying to rein in Roy Thomas?). That the Black Knight is a continuity tidy rather than a story development is confirmed by his taking off after a single issue rather than teaming with the Avengers for at least the rest of this phase of the Magneto storyline and only pops ups again for occasional issues throughout the rest of the run.

Another sign of attempts to add the Golden Age heroes comes in the form of the Vision and I suspect the original intention was to simply revive the 1940s character and perhaps nail down his origin once and for all. Instead we get a lookalike - and black and white makes the similarities stand out even more - android (although Hank Pym coins the term "synthozoid") who has been given the memories of Wonder Man and a near complete set of artificial body parts. The result is an artificial being with emotions, the power to alter his body's density from diamond solid to intangible and the power of heat vision. He is soon accepted onto the team in spite of the revelation that he was created by Ultron. I would have the Avengers would exercise greater caution about such a potentially deadly being spawned by their newest foe and this does come back to bite them later on.

The membership revolving door continues in these issues as Captain America largely drops out in order to focus on his life, though he comes back for a memorable time travel storyline. There are also returns by Thor and Iron Man at the end of the volume but it's unclear if they'll be sticking around for the long haul. Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch leave under less ideal circumstances as the former especially becomes repulsed by the hostility to mutants that even an Avenger experiences and succumbs to Magneto's lure of a separate mutant nation, though later on in a crossover with the X-Men they finally escape from all the warring sides and fly off with the Toad. Hercules also leaves to take his place in Olympus after he and his teammates have rescued the Olympians from being banished by the Titan Typhon. But the team continues to grow with the addition of the Black Panther on the recommendation of Captain America. However at first the character is referred to only as "the Panther" as if someone had heard of the Black Panthers and had cold feet about still using the name. He also wears a different mask that leave his nose and mouth exposed - was this an early design used in error or an attempt to transfer "black" from the name to the colours? Whatever the reasoning within a few issues he's back to being "the Black Panther" and a full mask without comment about either. Nor for that matter is it initially addressed just how he can easily leave his country to go and be a New York based hero. By issue #62 it's established he left a regent in place but M'Baku launches an attempted coup d'etat under the costumed guise of the Man-Ape. The Black Panther saves his thrown with some help from his teammates but subsequent issues alternate between his defence of his homeland and his Avengers work in New York, not a situation that's sustainable for the long run.

Meanwhile we get yet another change of identity for Hank Pym as he adopts the role of Yellowjacket and marries the Wasp, albeit under the impression he's someone else altogether. "Yellowjacket" is one of those names that is lost on me because the term isn't used outside North America except perhaps for a fashion disaster. (Or part of a uniform such as the one in Hi-de-Hi! but there the garment in question and one who wears it is instead called a "Yellow Coat".) Now although it's good to see the relationship take a step forward the circumstances of the wedding feel awkward and a sign of how badly the story has dated. In 1968 the decision of the Wasp to take advantage of Hank/Goliath/Yellowjacket's change in persona and amnesia and to marry him whilst he was under the impression he was a different person may have seemed like the reasonable action of a woman tired of waiting and playing second fiddle to experiments seizing her moment to get her fiancé to finally come out of the laboratory and actually walk down the aisle with her. Today our knowledge of psychosis is far more advanced (even if the word "schizophrenia" is still frequently misused in fiction for what is actually "multiple personality disorder" or "dissociative identity disorder") and it feels as though Jan is taking advantage of Hank's mental condition to entrap him into marriage - and she's the one to declare the law says the marriage is still legal after his original persona recovers. This is Hank's fourth costumed identity in sixty issues and it's amazing nobody has started asking questions about his state of mind. Nor is it immediately clear just why the team is better served by having a second hero who can shrink, fly and sting instead of one who can grow in size. Issue #63 sees Hawkeye ditch his arrows and identity and instead take up the growth serum to become a new Goliath but the limited level of forward planning in this volume suggests this was a rapid correction of a perceived mistake rather than a deliberate decision to net replace the archer with a second kind of wasp derived hero.

It's not just the line-up of heroes which is expanded but also that of the villains. The annual introduces the Scarlet Centurion, who distorts the timeline by promising the original Avengers the chance to create a utopia on Earth by adjusting the balance of forces in the world, resulting in their taking down just about every hero and most villains. He then brings the Avengers from the original timeline to this altered world in order to ensure the teams wipe each other out. Conceptually it's a good idea in theory but it's not clear just how this world has been created by the team travelling back to 1945 to play a role in the events of Captain America's freezing that seem to have been part of the original timeline, or how the Wasp is transported to the alternate world when she's been left at the controls and her counterpart is present. And the original team prove highly gullible even if the Scarlet Centurion is exercising mind control powers that he's otherwise never been seen to use. For this villain is another identity of Kang/Rama-Tut. And then there's the rushed conclusion which seems to boil down to Goliath running around in a time machine to exercise some technobabble to reverse it all, then this magic is followed by the Watcher popping up to fill in the gaps about the Centurion's identity. All in all it's a rather wasted effort and there's no real need for another identity for Kang.

The aforementioned time travel story sees a return by Captain America as he checks himself to see whether or not Bucky could have survived the famous explosion and settles that his partner was definitely killed that day. But this isn't the only death to haunt the Avengers with the spirit of Wonder Man evoked twice. Once is when the recording of his brain patterns is used for the Vision. Before then the Avengers are attacked by Wonder Man's revenge seeking brother, the Grim Reaper who nearly takes down the entire team but for the intervention of the Black Panther. Another brother to appear is Barney Barton, Hawkeye/Goliath's criminal brother who goes straight to help the Avengers discover Egghead's space station and then sacrifices his life to destroy the villain's death ray. Not long afterwards we learn more about Barney and Clint's past in the circus and their dealings with the Swordsman, suggesting Barney will be one of those characters to make a greater impact dead than alive.

And then there's Hank's "son" and the Vision's "father" who quickly establishes himself as perhaps the toughest foe for the Avengers. Ultron is steadily built up over several issues, starting off as the mastermind behind a new incarnation of the Masters of Evil (made up once again of the Melter and the Radioactive Man, plus Klaw and Whirlwind, with the new Black Knight responding to the invitation only to spy on them) but not directly tackling the Avengers just yet. We finally learn his origin in issue #58 as Hank uncovers the memories the android suppressed of the creation of an android that rapidly evolved and developed an Oedipus complex. But the preceding issues show how little this was planned out as it's not until the origin issue that Ultron shows particular interest in targeting Hank over the other Avengers. Ultron is physically tough to begin with but subsequently obtains the new indestructible metal adamantium and uses it to build a new body. The first appearance calls himself "Ultron-5" and the second "Ultron-6" but wisely on his next upgrade he drops the numbering otherwise he'd be a recipe for continuity chaos and constantly reminding readers just how many times he's been destroyed and rebuilt. But in another sign of the times there's no attempt to hold Hank accountable for being a modern day Frankenstein inadvertently unleashing a monster into the world.

Issue #53 is the conclusion of a crossover with the X-Men. Similar issue #61 is the final part of a crossover with Doctor Strange and issues #63 to #64 overlap on events in both Sub-Mariner and Captain Marvel to explain the fate of various villains. But in all three cases only the Avengers issues are included here and the reader has to rely on flashbacks, captions and/or dialogue to know what's going on. In two cases there's sufficient explanation to make the story work but in the middle case it may have helped to include the relevant Doctor Strange issues. However back in 2001 it didn't seem to be the practice to incorporate crossover issues in the Essentials (though this change by 2005 when the relevant Doctor Stranges were Essentialised).

Despite not including these, this volume is a good solid run. The Avengers are by now well beyond a simplistic teaming of Marvel's main solo heroes and are instead evolving as a coherent team where members work together to sole one another's problems and collectively face the emnity earned by individual members. There may be some occasions where the stories have clearly dated, and the female members of the team still aren't being given a chance to show their full potential, but overall this volume shows the direction the team will follow for many years to come.

Essential Iron Man volume 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Essential Defenders volume 2 - creator labels

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

Essential Hulk volume 6

Essential Hulk volume 6 consists of the Incredible Hulk #201-225 & Annual #6. Bonus material includes Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe entries for Jarella and the Constrictor. The writing on the regular series sees the end of Len Wein's run and the start of Roger Stern's plus scripting contributions by Gerry Conway and Chris Claremont and plots from Herb Trimpe and Jim Starlin. The art is mainly by Sal Buscema with individual contributions by Herb Trimpe, George Tuska, Keith Pollard and Jim Starlin. The annual is written by David Anthony Kraft and drawn by Herb Trimpe.

When going through the previous Essential Hulk volumes I had concluded that Herb Trimpe is the best Hulk artist yet, but here Sal Buscema more than gives him a run for his money and I may have to reassess the accolade after seeing the rest of the latter's run. As well as handling the ever diverse cast and settings with ease, Buscema captures the full range of the Hulk's emotions from angry brute to kindly, sympathetic child. The Hulk is a tormented soul, often just trying to find peace and tranquillity, and he can be very kind and caring to those he had befriended. It's a tricky task to depict the diverse characterisation of him but Buscema achieves it quite well. The writing is on an upswing, bringing a number of adventures that give both Bruce and the Hulk some strong character moments as well as providing excitement and action.

The greatest tragedy comes early on when the Hulk and Jarella are finally reunited, first in her world where they're set to be married. However they then get transported back to Earth and the slide now containing the atom upon which Jarella's world is located is destroyed. The couple seem set for a life of happiness on Earth, with Jarella used to the transformations between Bruce and the Hulk, and the monster in turn more responsive. But it's not to be as in a battle with the Crypto-Man Jarella dies saving a young child's life. This sends the Hulk into an even more angry rampage than usual, leading to a fight with his fellow Defenders, before Doctor Strange tries and fails to restore Jarella to life. In spite of the comfort offered by the other Defenders, the Hulk has never seemed more alone as he walks away crying.

Whether as Bruce or the Hulk, subsequent encounters with women fail to fill the gap left. Bruce tries to settle some more permanent roots by renting a flat in New York where he attracts the attention of his flirtatious landlady April Sommers who helps him find a job in construction. However April gets ever more suspicious of Bruce, with the complication of the return of the flat's previous tenant, magician Kropotkin the Great. Eventually Jim reveals that Bruce is the Hulk, but April is nearly won over by Bruce's assurances that he has the Hulk under control - until the transformation is triggered. Elsewhere the Hulk encounters a group of circus performers who have escaped the Circus of Crime, and especially befriends a sea nymph called Meriam; however she cannot survive long out of water and eventually he agrees to return her to the sea. It seems that the Hulk will never get the peace and companionship he desires.

And another couple find that the ever after isn't always so happy. Glenn Talbot has now had his mind restored but is a changed man who feels guilty about the grief he's brought to Betty and wishes to find himself. Consequently he and Betty split and go away separately. She decides the time has come to step out of the shadow of the various men in her life and to establish herself as her own woman, settling in a distant unnamed city and undergoing an extreme makeover. Meanwhile her father continues his military work, aware of how often things have gone round and round with the Hulk and other monsters, but still persisting in his mission.

The series has a rather odd time travel story in issue #204 where Bruce's attempt to cure himself of the Hulk results in his being sent back in time, seemingly taking the place of his younger self. This time he made it to a protective shield and so escaped the gamma bomb, going on to a life married to Betty - but Rick died in the blast and Bruce is haunted by both this memory and his time as the Hulk. Eventually his guilt overwhelms him to the point where he opts to go back in time and restore things to how they were. As with many time travel stories there are huge questions over just how the process works and just what memories of the past are retained. Early in the story Bruce and Jarella seem to be under the impression they will still be together in spite of removing the Hulk, but this doesn't come to pass in the resultant future. Nor is it clear whether Bruce has possessed his younger self's body, Quantum Leap style, or if he's somehow removed his younger self from the picture. And as in many a tale, the time traveller retains his memory of the original timeline when he arrives in an altered future. The whole story feels like a rushed filler, which it may well be as it's drawn by a returning Trimpe instead of the regular Buscema, and doesn't really reinforce the long term concept that Bruce will sometimes accept that getting rid of the Hulk isn't always the most important goal. Indeed at the end of the volume when it seems Bruce has been cured purely by means of a natural burn off of his body's gamma radiation, it's Doctor Samson who ultimately turns Bruce back into the Hulk to fight the leader, rather than Bruce himself succumbing to the argument for this course of action. However Samson may come to regret both this and his calling the monster stupid to provoke the right reaction as the very last panel of the volume shows, now that now the Leader is seemingly destroyed, an angry Hulk turns on Samson.

There's a good mixture of foes throughout this volume with some new creations. Although only one has had much impact in the Marvel universe, another may have had an influence elsewhere. The new foes start off with Kronak the Barbarian, a thinly disguised knock-off of Conan the Barbarian, the ruler of a sub-atomic world the Hulk passes through en route to Jarella's world. Then there's the Quintronic Man, a giant robot controlled by five different men (maybe the forerunner of the Transformers Special Teams). And there's a horrific encounter with "Billy", a human child mutated by radioactive waste into a cannibal, who lives in a cave with his brother and sister and consumes other humans. But the biggest new creation is the Constrictor, another in the long line of supervillains with a battle suit and a gimmick weapon, here the use of electrically charged adamantium cables. 

As well as the new creations, there is a horde of foes from other series, starting with Dragonus, a warlock previously seen in Werewolf by Night. The Crypto-Man had made just one previous appearance in Thor and so it seems rather unworthy that such an obscure foe should be the one to (indirectly) cause Jarella's death. A team-up with Doctor Druid brings conflict with Maha Yogi, previously the "Merlin" who fought both Thor and the X-Men in the Silver Age; this story also affords the opportunity to establish him as a phoney who impersonated the real Merlin. Maha Yogi is now accompanied by his henchman the cosmic gladiator Mongu, previously seen in Fear. Later at sea the ship Bruce is on is attacked by the pirate Captain Barracuda, first seen in the Human Torch's strip in Strange Tales. And of course there are return appearances by established foes such as Psyklop, the Absorbing Man, the Rhino and the Leader. There are also encounters with other heroes, albeit from the less well-known end of the Marvel universe. As well as the Defenders, consisting of Nighthawk, Valkyrie, the Red Guardian and Doctor Strange, and Doctor Druid already mentioned, there are appearances by both the Jack of Hearts and Stingray. Meanwhile the annual brings a one to one team-up with Doctor Strange to battle the Hive, originally seen in Fantastic Four, and their new creation Paragon, a product of the same cocoon that birthed Adam Warlock.

Although the writing shows an uptick in maintaining excitement and momentum, there's also the curse of the long running subplot that takes forever to be resolved. In issue #208 an ill and amnesiac man is found in the desert near the now-renamed Gamma Base. Over subsequent issues he fails to recover his memory but instead sneaks into a key laboratory. It's not until issue #223 that the man is revealed to be the Leader, infiltrating the base in order to launch his plan to conquer the world. Though the story itself is strong and makes for an exciting climax to the volume, the subplot drags on for far too long given just how much actual development it contains and tellingly is not actually resolved until a new writer has taken over.

The last handful of issues in this volume coincided with the launch of The Incredible Hulk television series, Marvel's first, and to date the longest lasting success with live action television. Running for five seasons and then three latter day "reunion" television movies, plus no end of reruns, The Incredible Hulk brought the character to much wider public attention for many, many years, However there were some notable changes to the origin, the character's name and the absence of his traditional supporting cast. The television series did have a slight impact on the comics by spurring the creation of She-Hulk, whose debut issue showed signs of the television influence, but in the main series there's no sign at this stage of any changes to match the screen - no change of the name to "David Banner" or any appearance by Jack McGee, although the reporter's quest simply wouldn't work in a comic book series where Bruce's survival and identity as the Hulk is publicly known. Nor is there any sign of the classic line "don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

At this stage the main sign in the comics world of the Hulk's growing profile would come in ever more appearances on the newstand, thanks to a mixture of his second title Rampaging Hulk (although its launch predated the television series by some months) plus appearances in Defenders, Marvel Team-Up (where he occasionally displaced Spider-Man as the lead star), Marvel Two-in-One (where the Thing was luckier) and the occasional Marvel Treasury Edition, plus various reprints. He wouldn't be the first or last character to be spread all over the racks, but rather than the multiple ongoing current titles Spider-Man now had, the Hulk was diversified with past set series, team appearances, guest appearances and one-offs. Consequently the character was not being excessively used in the same way as the wallcrawler and so a single creative team controlled his direction and fate.

And one development is a slight uptick in the Hulk's intelligence level, remembering more names and forming more complete sentences in order to better interact with those he encounters. It's to the comic series's credit that it didn't mimic its television counterpart and switch to an inarticulate version of the monster, but instead developed him a little more to open up the story possibilities. It's a subtle process with no great event causing a transformation, but the result is definitely an improvement for the better. So too is the general trend of the series, as ever putting the Hulk through a wide variety of situations but also emphasising the character in both human and monstrous form. The result is one of the better Essential Hulk volumes.

Essential Tales of the Zombie volume 1 - creator labels 3

This volume has by far the largest number of creator credits so the labels need three extra posts. This one focuses on the reprinted material. Links to post 1 & post 2.

Essential Daredevil volume 6 - creator labels

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

Essential Captain America volume 1

It's Thanksgiving Day in the United States so it's time for a look at the most American of heroes...

Essential Captain America volume 1 contains the Captain America strips from Tales of Suspense (the anthology series which also featured Iron Man) #59-99 and then, following the 1968 expansion of the Marvel line, the series became a solo Captain America, with issues #100-102 included here. All but thirteen issues are drawn by Cap's co-creator Jack Kirby who provides layouts on another three, with finishes by George Tuska, Dick Ayers and John Romita. Tuska and Romita also draw a few issues as do Jack Sparling and Gil Kane. As a bonus is a story from the 1940s Captain America Comics drawn by Joe Simon, Cap's other co-creator. Everything is written by Stan Lee, bar one issue by Roy Thomas.

Looking back it's astonishing how long it took to revive Captain America in the Silver Age. A new version of the Human Torch was present from Fantastic Four #1 and the original Namor the Sub-Mariner was revived as early as Fantastic Four #4, but Captain America took longer to appear and was first given a try-out via an impostor in the Human Torch's strip in Strange Tales. Eventually he was resurrected in Avengers #4 but as a team member and it took several more months before he finally got a solo strip. By this point all the big name early Silver Age Marvel titles and characters had appeared, and so the Captain America strip comes from Marvel's second phase of the Age when the main burst of creation had now passed and the focus was upon consolidation and giving deserving existing characters their own strips. Captain America's came just a few months after the Hulk's strip had been restored, whilst some months later the Sub-Mariner would also swim forth in solo tales.

The early stories in this volume suggest part of the reason for this hesitation was down to Kirby and Lee simply not knowing what to do with the character. We get an initial four strips in which little is developed and instead there are three tales of Captain America simply fighting large numbers of foes and one where he goes to Vietnam (long before the US's presence there became controversial back home) and confronts an ex-Sumo wrestler turned general. The whole thing is still heavily tied into the Avengers with the first story starting at Avengers Mansion whilst the already established Jarvis and Rick Jones are the only supporting characters and Baron Zemo the only significant foe appearing.

Issue #63 sees a serious change of pace by retelling Captain America's origin, followed by further adventures from his war years. At the time war comics were still part of the landscape and as well as tapping into that vein this approach also allowed readers to see Cap's early years at a time when the originals would have been hard to access. Issue #65 even declares "we wrote it in the style of the 1940's because so many of you have wondered how these stories were written years ago". I'm not convinced the tale printed actually answers such curiosity and anyway at this point (early 1965) most of the glimpses of the Marvel Bullpen given in other comics had focused upon writers and artists brainstorming ideas rather than the nuts and bolts of whether the dialogue was written at the same time as the plot or after the pictures had been drawn. However it helps reinforce the nostalgic approach to this part of the series.

The sequence itself establishes some details, most obviously restating Cap's origin albeit in a condensed form, and then showing the importance of Bucky. Also revived in these strips is Sergeant Duffy, who routinely puts Private Steve Rogers through his paces at the army camp, little realising he's ordering Captain America around. There are a few other appearances of Golden Age characters, most notably both of the 1940s Red Skulls, with the precise relationship between the two restated, perhaps to see off any confusion if some of the original stories were to be reprinted. Issue #64 features an American female spy identified only as "Agent 13", but it's not clear if this was meant to be a deliberately unnamed Betsy Ross (to prevent confusion with the character in the Incredible Hulk strips), later the Golden Girl, from the Golden Age stories, or instead to be a new character, later expanded a little as Cap's wartime romance and the sister of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s modern day Agent 13, or if she's a completely one-off character and it's just a coincidence the code name was reused. I suspect she was most likely intended to be a new character to take the place of Betsy Ross in the modern telling of Captain America's war years - at this stage Marvel wasn't following exact continuity with its pre-1960s superhero titles (Captain America having been out of action since the end of the war being the most obvious example) and in as far as the point was actually considered this was a soft reboot of the character rather than retellings and new tales slotted around two decades-old comics that next to none of the 1960s readership were likely to have seen. However she isn't seen again in this run of war stories.

Otherwise the stories are broadly true to the spirit of the earlier tales, with Captain America and Bucky taking on a mixture of saboteurs at home, including a new take on the first ever appearance of the Red Skull, attempts to steal weapons and assassinate key officers, and taking on a scientist who has developed special weapons. This last one is probably the least likely to have appeared at the time as it focuses upon Nazi spies and traitors in the United Kingdom seeking to use rockets to destroy London, technology that came late in the war and probably wouldn't have been the focus of fiction at the time. The stories also give us the origin of the true Red Skull, setting him up for the future. Overall these tales are okay but beyond establishing some key points about Cap's past - something that later issues will do even better whilst staying in the present day - they don't really add much. It just reinforces the idea that Kirby and Lee just didn't know what to do with the hero. He served a strong role in the Avengers, to the point he was fast being recognised as the definitive member, but on his own he seemed an anachronism. Perhaps this is why in the strip itself in the present day we would often see Steve Rogers feeling the weight of the years and the curse of being a man out of his time. The gap between 1945 and the mid-1960s may not seem much from today's perspective, but a lot can change in twenty years. On the same scale, today is about the same distance from the end of the Cold War, the first Gulf War and major leaps in technology. There may have been a connected network of computers and portable telephones then, but nothing like the modern internet and the mass use of mobiles and smartphones of today. The number of channels available on the average television set has exploded. Global terrorism has soared as the great concern in world affairs. Fashions have changed a lot. Political ideas have risen and fallen. A person from the early 1990s who awakened today would find many things different and strange.

One thing that doesn't change so much is the concept of patriotism and loyalty to the flag. In many subsequent eras writers on Captain America would delve into the nature of this, at times exploring just what the flag and "America" actually symbolise, how Captain America could be loyal to the country yet opposed to the actions of the government of the day, just what his own vision of the American Dream is and how it squares with alternative visions, and the darker side of America. But here there's very little of that. One issue sees Captain America on a mission in Vietnam but it's the only time he goes there and there's not much overt propagandising in the story. Nor is there in another issue when Cap goes to a Far East Communist country to rescue an agent working under cover - it could be any hostile power for all the difference it makes. The retelling of the origin does state that Cap is "A new defender, born in an hour of need -- destined to be a living symbol of the glory that is America!" but that's about the fullest extent of it. Captain America may have a patriotic name and a costume based on the flag but here there's no actual development beyond this and he's just a big name superhero from the Second World War revived in the present day.

In the present day Cap frequently can't escape the shadow of the war. The return to the present kicks off with a multi-part story in which a giant robot built by the Red Skull and stored in three parts, called "Sleepers", emerges from hibernation after twenty years and tries to destroy the world. Later on the Red Skull is revived in the present day in issue #79 and over the next twenty-four issues he appears in no less than three multi-part stories. It's even more noticeable when bearing in mind that the half-length format of the strip until #99 means that this is the equivalent of just thirteen and a half full-length issues. Other foes include Batroc the Leaper, a French fighter with zees outrageous accent. Maybe he was a rare example of the influence of world politics at a time when the Americans (and many, many others) found de Gaulle to be a right pain. Cap also takes on a number of shadowy organisations, most of them already seen in the Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. strip over in Strange Tales. Amongst them are new group "Them", the nucleus of the existing A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics), who develop the Super Adaptoid. Meanwhile the wider A.I.M. creates the Cosmic Cube, which the Red Skull steals to gain incredible power, though he doesn't use much of it before he is defeated and the Cube lost. Later on A.I.M. appear again, led by their own creation, the genetically advanced Modok. Then there's the terrorist group Hydra. A trip to Wakanda and team-up with the Black Panther sees Cap at first think he's up against a resurrected Baron Zemo, but it turns out to be Zemo's ex-pilot taking on the mantle. Other one-off foes include the Swordsman and Power Man, both from the Avengers, who are both briefly used by the Skull, plus various assorted thugs or the Sniper, a top marksman.

At times the series seems to forget that Cap has spent most of the time since the war trapped in an iceberg, as we find him looking over old items such as the Red Skull's list of locations of the Sleepers, or old photographs including the mysterious woman who worked with the French Resistance who he fell for during the war. He wonders why she never tracked him down afterwards, as though he was around all the time to be found. He eventually finds a woman who resembles her, but she's too young to be the same woman. In fact, although Cap doesn't discover this on panel, she is his wartime sweetheart's younger sister (a point that has had to be retconned in recent years as the war grows ever further distant in time). "Agent 13" is never actually given a name in the series even though she already knows Cap's real one. The two find themselves drawn to each other without realising it and at one point Steve actually proposes to her, but she declines because of her duty to S.H.I.E.L.D. This leads to Steve briefly retiring as Cap, and actually admitting his identity to the world in the process, but he comes back after a succession of copycats come to grief. He and Agent 13 continue together and it's clear her skills make her a good partner for him.

On two occasions Cap faces foes who want to steal his shield to make use of the transistors Iron Man installed in it back in the pages of Avengers. The first time is in issue #62, not long after Cap has realised what a mistake this is and removed them, but issue #87 sees a similar plot years later, albeit from a fill-in writer, Roy Thomas. Perhaps this is a early example of a fill-in story being held in reserve for so long that by the time it was needed it was out of date?

Overall I felt this volume shows a series that's really treading water more than anything else. There's very little attempt to develop much, whether a civilian life for Steve Rogers or a substantial Rogues' Gallery. At times his connections to either the Avengers or Nick Fury provide him with some support and directions towards adventures, but there's not much that really gives the series its unique flavour. Nearly a fifth of the volume is taken up with wartime adventures, and many other issues also draw on those days, most obviously the encounters with the Red Skull and both the real and fake Baron Zemo. This limits somewhat the effect of showing the effects upon Cap of being a man out of time and adapting to life in this strange new world. Instead we have the "Living Legend of World War II" all too often trapped by other legends of World War II. Only Agent 13 represents any real sign of development for the future. Other strips in the anthology titles had managed to develop a lot within the confines of just ten to twelve pages a month so it's not as if the available length is an excuse. There just seems to be a lack of bold imagination and too great a willingness to wallow in the memory of the Golden Age.