Essential Fantastic Four volume 5

Essential Fantastic Four volume 5 consists of issues #84 to #110 and Annuals #7 & #8 although these are all-reprint issues represented by the covers. Bonus material includes some pencils of individual pages and a gallery of photographs of Marvel staffers. The first two thirds are by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, still credited on the actual issues as co-producers and on the contents page with Lee as "Writer" and Kirby as "Penciller". The last issues see Kirby succeeded by first John Romita and then John Buscema, with issue #108 being a Kirby drawn issue from file with modifications by both Johns.

And so we come to the end of the Lee-Kirby run, with the final nineteen issues occupying the first two-thirds of this volume. But this is far from the most memorable part of their run. Instead much of it sees a return to some of the most familiar foes for more of the same but without a great increase in excitement that ramps the adventures up to the greatest ever battles. With one notable exception the new characters and situations remain fairly unimpressive and it's easy to see why they rarely feature on lists of the Four's greatest foes and adventures. And at times the stories feel extremely drawn out, decompressed far beyond the length they would have had in earlier years.

It starts with a multi-part saga in which the Four are captured by Doctor Doom and held in a part of Latveria where they are treated as guests amongst a group of hippies whilst being conditioned to think they have lost their powers as a prelude to their destruction. Then back home Sue has found a new home isolated from other dwellings, but it's a trap by the Mole Man. Afterwards Ben is kidnapped by Skrulls and taken to a bizarre planet where the local Skrulls have based their civilisation on Prohibition era gangster movies. Whilst there Ben is forced to fight the robotic man Torgo, appearing for the first time. Back on Earth comes an attack by the Frightful Four, having seemingly recruited Medusa once more. Then we get one of the few new foes introduced at this stage, the spy known as the Monocle who stands out because of his, you've guessed it, eyepiece. His attempt to start the next World War by attacking a United Nations summit seems a rather bizarre way to trigger it. After this we get the resort to the standard cliché of the identical duplicate story, here in the form of androids built by the Mad Thinker. Then there's a misunderstanding with an alien monster just trying to repair its ship and return home. Other aliens have different plans for Earth as a Kree Sentry tries to prevent the Apollo Moon Landing. Then there's a misunderstanding with the Inhumans, a team-up between the Puppet Master and the Mad Thinker as they unleash a whole range of robot duplicates of old Fantastic Four foes for the anniversary issue #100, followed by an odd issue as the Maggia try to defeat the Four but get divided between those who wish to use corporate warfare and those who prefer the physical methods. The last issue of the Lee-Kirby run begins a multi-part saga in which Magneto is manipulating Namor the Sub-Mariner into launching another war on humanity.

The encounter with the Frightful Four also introduces the baby's new nanny, Agatha Harkness and her cat Ebony. It rapidly becomes clear that she is more powerful than she is letting on, but is also a benign witch who helps the Four on more than one occasion throughout this volume. But her introduction is a sign of the imagination starting to run thin as magic ranks second only to mutation as a convenient short cut for a source of powers. Also there's something a little off about its appearance here as the series has hitherto been primarily an exaggerated science fiction fantasy which has steered away from such themes. Still the introduction of a nanny for the baby, now named Franklin Benjamin Richards after a seemingly inordinate amount of time, does fit into the family themes of the title that remain at its core.

The series is finding the real world catching up with it, most notably in issue #98 which is set around the Moon landings despite coming out over six months after Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon. In the real world this was a moment of great excitement. The issue reflects some of that, showing people the world over rushing to televisions and radios to keep up with the news. But in the context of this series it's all nonsense. The Fantastic Four have already visited the Moon on multiple occasions and gone out to other planets on many others. Numerous aliens have visited Earth and many have been seen by the public at large. And it's hard to envisage a scientist such as Reed keeping all his discoveries in this field a secret from the broader scientific community. The result is that this is one of those times when real life brings up awkward questions about just how different the Marvel universe is from our own and how this has impacted upon society at large. It would doubtless have been better to simply ignore the situation rather than addressing it, especially as this issue originally came out far too late to have been in any way a topical tie-in to boost sales.

Issue #102 is the final one in the continuos run by Jack Kirby. Long runs are rare in comics, unbroken ones even more so but to have the same artist and scripter on a run of this length with the title on a regular schedule is almost completely unheard of. Adding in the six original extra large annuals which were done without taking any time out of the regular series and the achievement is even more extraordinary. It's a testament to the dedication of both Kirby and Lee that they lasted the course for so long on a title that was originally created just to jump onto the latest fad in comics with the twist that they would go for a more human and vulnerable cast than traditionally found in superhero comics. I doubt anyone realised just how long the title would last and that it would get to this point with both creators still on it. But for all the great achievements of the run as a whole, with a revolutionary approach to the genre, flawed but likeable characters and a great stream of imagination that produced the universe around them populated by such memorable allies and enemies, it cannot be denied that this volume covers the fag end of the run. I've written quite a bit about the dropping off in imagination during the contemporary final days of their run on Thor (over in my review of Essential Thor volume 4) so I won't go over all of the same ground again. But as with the last days of their run on that title, these ones too seem to be running on a deliberately near empty tank of imagination, with very little actually added to the mythology of the series. Again Kirby departs on the first issue of a multi-part saga, though it has to be said that the team-up between Magneto and Namor is infinitely more interesting than the conflict with the Maggia in the preceding issue. Once again it's a pity that he seems to have been holding back whilst working out his contract, but equally to blame is Stan Lee for not filling the gap when he is still credited in an equal role.

Kirby does make a brief return of sorts with issue #108 but this comes "with last-minute revisions, deletions, and addenda by S. Lee, J. Buscema and J. Romita", suggesting this was an early example of the stand-by fill-in issue that was dug out of the files, modified to match the current cast and given an addition preceding issue to lead into it. "The Monstrous Mystery of the Nega-Man!" is nowhere near as mysterious as the title suggests, with the Nega-Man himself one of the least memorable of all the foes the Fantastic Four have faced up until now. This is far from a final hurrah for Kirby and instead betrays itself as literally leftovers. Kirby's art is, however, still on top form throughout the volume.

The last third of the volume may be post Kirby but Lee is still around and it's clear that for now the series is going to be building on the lengthy Lee-Kirby run rather than moving forwards. As most of the issues are following up on storylines begun by one Kirby storyline or another this is not surprising. The Magneto and Namor story is soon resolved with John Romita once again taking over on one of the leading Marvel titles and producing art that matches the existing style and holds up well. There's a forgettable two-parter with the strange "Monster in the Streets" that is more notable for cast developments than the actual foe. The Nega-Man story is built on to produce another trip into the Negative Zone where the Four face Annihilus, with Reed nearly lost there until Agatha Harkness works magic and provides a deus ex machina solution.

There's some small changes to the line-up during this run, with at one stage the number Four feeling a little inaccurate. At other times there's a strong sense of sexism, affecting Sue more than Crystal. Indeed at one point Sue tries to call Reed out on it and gets told to not be so "feminine". Sue drifts back into the team as she returns from maternity leave but it's never too explicit at just what point it's formalised. Twice Crystal leaves to return to the Inhumans, once for reasons she fails to explain to Johnny, once because she lacks the immunities necessary to live in the humans' world. The impact on Johnny is devastating. Meanwhile Ben seemingly achieves his dream when Reed performs a bold experiment that results in Ben being able to change between human and rocky form at will. But it seems to be having bad side effects on his personality, to the point that the volume ends on the cliffhanger of Ben storming out of the team in anger.

Overall this is a rather dull period in the team's history. There are no great storylines or much in the way of memorable new characters and instead we get a regurgitation of existing concepts both before and after Jack Kirby's departure. The end of the legendary Lee-Kirby run is far from the greatest part of it and what limited sight we get of the series after that suggests that for now it's going to carry on wallowing in the memory of that run.

Essential Avengers volume 7

Essential Avengers volume 7 consists of issues #141 to #163 and Annual #6 plus Super-Villain Team-Up #9. The writing see Steve Englehart finish his run to be followed by Gerry Conway and then Jim Shooter, with a few issues seeing overlaps and #150 incorporating part of issue #16 scripted by Stan Lee. The main story in the annual is by Englehart and a back-up by Scott Edelman whilst the Super-Villain Team-Up is written by Bill Mantlo. The bulk of the art, including the main story in the annual, is by George Pérez with other issues by Don Heck, Keith Pollard, John Buscema and Sal Buscema, with issue #150 reusing part of the Jack Kirby drawn #16, the annual back-up by Herb Trimpe and the Super-Villain Team-Up by Jim Shooter.

I don't normally comment on the other credits in a volume but there's a notable disjoint in this volume and it appears to come right around the period of Editor-in-Chiefship that can be dubbed "The Conway Weeks". I say "appears" because until the late 1970s, after the end of this volume, Marvel was rather loose with the credit "editor", sometimes giving it to a series's regular writer (even on fill-in issues by other writers), sometimes to another staff member who now appears on the canonical list of Editors-in-Chief which seems to involve some retroactive determination, and sometimes to someone else altogether. As a result it's difficult to determine at a glance just when one Editor-in-Chief replaced another, particularly in the period from 1972 to 1978 when there were no less than seven in post and one could be credited for a few months on material all basically approved under their predecessor. But here there seems to be a clear point of changeover with consequences engulfing the series as a long-term regular writer suddenly drops out to be replaced by the incoming then outgoing Editor-in-Chief who then lasts barely half a year, to be succeeded by another staffer who would go on to be Editor-in-Chief when the music finally stopped. The result is an example of an all too common situation in comics whereby big ideas and plans from one writer get taken up by another with minimal interest in them, grand storylines get finished by different hands and in different ways from those intended by those who started them, and there's fill-ins and reprints at completely the worst moments. All this contributes to a volume that is trying to live up to the levels of its predecessor, admittedly quite a daunting task in itself, but which instead winds up plodding along.

The worst moments are the aforementioned fill-ins. Issue #144 is part of the Serpent Crown saga and ends on a critical moment as the Avengers set off for the Squadron Supreme's home dimension. Yet this cliffhanger is not continued until issue #147 and in the meantime we get a two-part fill-in that openly leaves the question of its place in chronology up to the readers as they endure a two-part fill-in as the mysterious Assassin seeks to take the team down one by one. Given its length it may have been prepared for Giant-Size Avengers before that series switched to all reprints or else for an annual, but its presence here is just an irritating interruption. Also suffering is issue #150, where the cover promises "A Spectacular 150th Anniversary Special" but inside what was clearly structured as an extended meeting to refine the active team membership interspersed with a news reporter taking us through the history of the team in bite-sized chunks is instead paused after just six pages and the rest of the issue is padded out with sixteen pages lifted from Avengers #16, reliving the first major change in the membership. There's no denying the significance of that issue, and in later years of giant-sized anniversary issues with some reprints it would have been an obvious candidate for inclusion, but here it just shows itself up as being used as padding in what must have been one of the most eagerly anticipated issues at the time. Issue #151 has the rest of the issue with some drawn out bits to make up the extra pages but overall the whole thing is a very disappointing end to Steve Englehart's run on the series.

Englehart's last issues are not as well known as his earlier ones, and are dominated by the first part of the Serpent Crown saga. Building upon a plot device from other series we get an interdimensional tale in which the Serpent Crown is linked to its counterparts across other dimensions, leading to an encounter with the Squadron Supreme under the most obvious of titles - "Crisis on Other Earth", though the following issue's "20,000 Leagues under Justice" is also less than subtle. The Squadron Supreme's role as a pastiche of the Justice League of America has never been more obvious than here, with a further team member introduced in the form of the Amphibian, clearly the counterpart of Aquaman. Also show is the Squadron's base, a satellite orbiting the Earth. More surprising are the main agents the crowns operate through. On the normal Earth the crown is worn by Hugh Jones, of the Brand Corporation, but on the Squadron's Earth the crown is worn by the President of the United States, who here is none other than Nelson Rockefeller - this world apparently never having experienced Richard Nixon. What the real Rockefeller, then Vice President, thought of this is not known but it was a kind of success after three failed bids for the Presidency. I wonder who would be placed in the role if the story were created today? Next year may show who the perennial also ran candidate is. The story also allows for some polemicism as the Beast lectures the Squadron on blindly accepting orders from politicians and businessmen, to the point that when the Avengers return home the Squadron declines to pursue them. Thus it's only the Avengers who face down Brand in the initial climax, in which the corporation deploys Namor's old foe Orca the Killer Whale.

The earliest issues also contain a coda to the Kang saga. Hawkeye's attempts to recover the Black Knight have led him to travel through time where he gets knocked off course and arrives in the American West in 1873. He is followed by Thor and Moondragon for a final battle with Kang in which the time travelling warlord's weaponry overloads, destroying him. Just to confirm his fate, Kang's future self Immortus sends a projection to explain his role in his younger self's downfall and then to fade out, confirming he has now never existed. It's a rather low key ending for someone who had been arguably the Avengers' greatest foe and it also raises the whole question of how time travel works and just what has and hasn't been changed by Kang's death. With the Serpent Crown storyline also running through these issues it feels rather underwhelming, as though it was an after thought.

More surprising is the team-up with five of Marvel's western heroes, the Two-Gun Kid, the Rawhide Kid, Kid Colt, the Ringo Kid and the Night Rider (who was published under the name "Ghost Rider" but has since been renamed multiple times). It's a bold move to fully incorporate them into the Marvel superhero universe. At the end of the adventure the Two-Gun Kid successfully petitions to be allowed to visit the Avengers' own time where he and Hawkeye settle for adventures and work out on the western ranches. There may have been big plans for the Two-Gun Kid's adventures in the present day but very little seems to have come of them and he's reduced to an occasional humorous side moment such as when the telephone rings at a time of great crisis but the Kid just casually shoots it as he doesn't understand what the device does. Still it's good to see that no Marvel character will ever be truly abandoned.

Also not abandoned is Patsy Walker who shows up at the mansion to demand the Beast repay the debt he owes her and she gets caught up in a raid on the Brand Corporation. There she discovers the discarded costume of the Cat, now Tigra, and dons it, becoming the superhero Hellcat. Her story is one of contrasts, with now ex-husband Buzz Baxter now a jaded cynic after his experiences in Vietnam and working for Brand whilst Patsy retains the optimism of her teenage years. She's clearly being built up as the next member of the Avengers but when it comes to finalising the line-up she's whisked away by Moondragon for a period of intense training, no doubt at the behest of incoming writer Conway. It's a pity as Hellcat shows a lot of promise, but fortunately she would soon reappear in another series.

The change of writers coincides with a revised line-up. Moondragon departs, taking Hellcat with her, but not before she's sewn doubts in Thor's mind about being a god working alongside mortals and he too drops out. Hawkeye has already stepped aside and so the team we get is made up of Iron Man, the Wasp, Yellowjacket, Captain America, the Scarlet Witch, the Vision and the Beast. But they are soon joined by a surprise return - the resurrection of Wonder Man.

The second half of the volume meanders through a string of forgettable encounters with old and new foes. If there's one clear theme it's of the Vision's extended family with storylines focusing upon his "brother", his "brother"'s brother, his father-in-law & brother-in-law, his father and his "grandfather". Wonder Man is revived as a "zuvembie" by a new Black Talon but gains full revival thanks to the effects of the Serpent Crown worn by the Living Laser and then the Golden Age Whizzer shows up once more seeking help in dealing with his son Nuklo, with the adventure concluded in the annual which also shows the Vision facing off against Whirlwind. Later Avengers mansion is invaded by the Grim Reaper who has come to determine which of the Vision or Wonder Man is truly his brother. Then Ultron embarks on a strange scheme to create a female android with the mind of the Wasp to be his mate in a display of a classic Oedipus complex, with his "father" Yellowjacket abused and brainwashed into thinking he's Ant-Man in the early years so as to help his creation without knowing it. The female android is not fully brought to life but would go on to become the appropriately named Jocasta.

There's also a forgettable crossover with Super-Villain Team-Up as the Avengers get caught up in the battle between Doctor Doom and Attuma, but it has all the feel of wandering into another series by mistake without ever really explaining things and leaving no real impression here. Worse still it takes up no less than three issues of Avengers. Then there's an encounter with the possessed stone body of the Black Knight in what feels like another filler. The most notable new foe is Graviton, a man who has acquired power over gravity until it goes awry. There's also the beginning of what feels like a greater use for Jarvis as he takes initiative and rescues one of Graviton's victims. Finally there's a clash with the Champions at the behest of Hercules's old foe Typhon.

It would be wrong to imply the first half of the volume is truly spectacular when it actually feels like it's only marking time and tying up loose ends, with the next big thing to come later. But it nevertheless keeps up enough momentum from the previous volume to maintain the promise. However it all gets derailed by reprints, fill-ins and a change of writer, leaving the series stumbling around with a few good ideas such as the resurrection of Wonder Man and a lot of dull ones like the crossover. Only towards the end does it start to get exciting again. Overall the whole volume feels rather disappointing.

Rocket Raccoon: Guardian of the Keystone Quadrant

Another look at a series that is not touched by the Essentials.

Rocket Raccoon: Guardian of the Keystone Quadrant is a Panini pocket book that reprints the four part Rocket Raccoon limited series from the 1980s plus the story introducing Groot from Tales to Astonish #13, Rocket's first appearance from Marvel Preview #7 and another Rocket tale from Incredible Hulk #271. Everything is written by Bill Mantlo bar the Tales to Astonish story, which is written by Larry Lieber. The limited series is drawn by Mike Mignola, the Tales to Astonish story by Jack Kirby, the Marvel Preview tale by Keith Giffen and the Incredible Hulk issue by Sal Buscema.

I first encountered the limited series as a back-up strip in back issus of Marvel UK's Transformers. There it suffered the fate of a lot of strips that when broken down into five or six pages an issue the flow can be jarring and I dismissed it as a piece of silliness. Reading it altogether brings a very different perspective. It's quite a good take on one of the traditional themes of science fiction - the long isolated planet that has evolved from its mission without really understanding it. Halfworld in the Keystone Quadrant is a strange planet, half a lush paradise occupied by anthropomorphic animals looking after the mentally ill, half a technological dystopia occupied by robots who manufacture toys the aforesaid mentally ill whilst also perpetually building a giant spaceship to breach the "Galacian Wall" barrier surrounding the system.

How this state of affairs came about is a mystery that is only slowly resolved when the inventor and scholar Pyko steals and deciphers the Halfworld Bible. In the meantime Ranger Rocket Raccoon gets caught in a power struggle between rival toy manufacturers Lord Dyvyne and Judson Jakes, the latter being the guardian of Rocket's girlfriend Lylla and proprietor of her firm, Mayhem Mekaniks. Dyvyne seeks to kidnap and marry Lylla as part of a hostile take-over, but his agent Blackjack O'Hare proves uncontrollable with ideas of his own. Rocket and his first mate Wal Russ, who is also Lylla's uncle, set out to rescue her aboard the ship Rakk 'N Ruin.

This is a tale that works well on two very different levels. On one, it's a simple adventure tale that uses animals instead of humans as its characters but otherwise presents a classic story of rescuing the girl and saving the world with Rocket himself as the hero. On another, it's a strong piece of social commentary, both about the intense rivalry and take-over business culture but also a plea for the plight of the mentally ill. Here they have been abandoned and left to be indulged for many generations, yet it's thanks to Rocket and Pyko that a true cure is found. The use of the term "loonies" may now seem insensitive but otherwise this is a strong plea for understanding the mentally ill and not writing them off. All in all this is quite a good little tale that would have been overlooked but for Rocket's later incorporation into the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Three additional stories are included as well. Groot's first appearance is a simple monster tale of its era where the hero is an intellectual who shows to his wife there's more to being a hero than being physically strong. Groot himself is just a strange alien that grows his body by absorbing wood and the main mystery is why a monarch is personally collecting specimens for examination. Rocket’s own debut in the pages of Marvel Preview is equally unmemorable bar for the very different location from what is to come. This black and white tale of Prince Wayfinder, "a modern Ulysses", sees a space wanderer come to Witch-World, a forest planet of wild trees and strange creatures, ruled by its own Kirke. On the planet he encounters a hunter in the form of Rocket, a talking racoon. It's very hard to fit this appearance with what's revealed in the limited series.

Also difficult to fit is Incredible Hulk #271, which sees the Hulk land on Halfworld and meet many of the characters in their first appearance but it's a slightly different set-up from the later limited series. There are no mentally ill on the planet and many of the item and company names are different. As a one-off tale of a strange planet visited by the Hulk it works but it's easy to see why more had to be added for the limited series to tell a mini-epic.

Despite exposing the continuity differences, this is a nice little collection that was released to tie in with the sudden new popularity of Rocket Raccoon and Groot when the Guardians of the Galaxy movie came out. It's a nice showcase of their early adventures and nearly thirty years after Marvel UK's split printing it's nice to see the limited series now reprinted here in one go.

Sampling Two-Gun Kid 60

It's time for another look at some of a long running series that is are unrepresented in the Essentials.

As with many of Marvel's non-superhero titles, Two-Gun Kid hasn't had many reprints in the modern age. Things were different in the 1960s and 1970s when Marvel's Western titles carried many reprints and some stories were printed more than twice. But in more recent years the issue that's had the best reprint is issue #60, with all three stories reprinted in issue #15 of the Marvel Milestones series in 2006. Individual stories from the issue have popped up in Marvel Visionaries: Jack Kirby volume 2, which does as it says on the tin, and Gunslingers #1, a reprint one-shot from 2000 that contained several Marvel Western stories.

Two-Gun Kid #60 contains three stories, all scripted by Stan Lee. The two featuring the Kid are drawn by Jack Kirby and the non-Kid tale is drawn by Don Heck. Issue #60 was in fact the launch of the third incarnation of the title and the second character to hold the name. The original Two-Gun Kid was the first big name Marvel Western hero, though at a glance the outlaw Clay Harder in a dark suit is more the forerunner of the second Rawhide Kid than of the second Two-Gun Kid. The title was launched in 1948 and lasted ten issues with the character carrying on elsewhere and then regaining his own title in 1953, resuming the numbering from issue #11. The series lasted until early 1961. Then in late 1962 it was revived but with a completely new character in the title role.

The original character is briefly acknowledged here when Matt Hawk adopts the name, stating "Back east I remember reading about a fictitious gun-fighter named the Two Gun-Kid! I don't know what ever happened to him, but I think I'll borrow the name!" It's a rare case of Marvel explicitly retconning away a character in order to introduce a successor, and doing so in much the same way that DC retconned away the original Flash. The original Two-Gun Kid would later suffer the further indignity of having some of his adventures modified and reprinted as tales of his successor. Of course it should be fairly easy to reinstate him in continuity by simply establishing the stories Matt Hawk as having actually been accounts of a true character. But for all the claims that Marvel has traditionally not gone in for the kind of reboots associated with DC, this stands as evidence that they too have explicitly swept away continuity and characters when needs be.

As for the issue itself, the two stories quickly establish the set-up with some concepts that pop up again in other Silver Age titles. The main character is a young lawyer called Matt, who gets picked on by bullies from the very start of the story, whose main guiding force is a father figure called Ben. The hero is attracted to a young professional woman but she dislikes his costumed identity because of the circumstances of her brother's death. You can see elements that would be reused for both Spider-Man and Daredevil, but also the Rawhide Kid learnt his skills from a father figure called Ben (and that very issue is included in the Marvel Milestones reprint). Matt Hawk is truly an outsider, a lawyer from the eastern United States who has arrived in the small town of Tombstone in Texas and finds a lawless environment where few need his legal skills. He also quickly learns he needs to handle a gun and is trained in all the skills by Ben Dancer in just eight panels. Captions tells us this took months but Matt's relations with the Carter family have barely changed in the interim. As protection Matt adopts a costumed identity and accepts a horse called Thunder. He soon takes down a gang of robbers and demonstrates his incredible shooting skills. However he lets one robber go as Clem Carter is the stepbrother of Nancy, the local school teacher whom Matt is fond of and doesn't want to give any heartbreak.

This initial thirteen page story seems to have set up all the basics of the hero, his skills, his horse, his romantic interest and a potentially recurring foe that he can't bring himself to dispose of. However in the second story Clem and another gang steal some money, only for Clem to die in an argument about how to share it out. But when Matt returns to town he finds the townsfolk believe the Two-Gun Kid was the killer and Nancy hates him for it. Matt is scared to break her heart again with the truth about either his identity or her brother. It provides a point for ongoing tension that merely fighting her brother wouldn't, but it feels a rather sudden development when there was potential to expand the enmity first.

The middle story is a non-Kid tale of the West, telling of a tribe of Native Americans being driven to a war they can't win by an ambitious medicine man whilst the chief's son counsels peace and is exiled for it. It's a nice little piece focusing on the futility of conflict, the ambitions of the hawk and the true bravery of the dove in resisting calls for war. It may contain some of the old stereotypes but in the space available it manages to present the Navajo tribe as sophisticated and complex rather than a bunch of unthinking savages.

Overall the Two-Gun Kid represents an interesting of the Western and costumed hero genres. It is no coincidence that this approach was launched in the same period as the ongoing Thor, Ant-Man and solo Human Torch strips and the first attempt at Spider-Man. This issue isn't the most sophisticated of stories but then quite a few heroes' first issues aren't that spectacular. It would certainly be interesting to see more of the series to show how it developed.

Essential Thor volume 4

Essential Thor volume 4 reprints issues #167 to #195. The first half is the end of the Jack Kirby and Stan Lee run. Kirby is succeeded by John Buscema, with a couple of issues in between by Neal Adams, whilst near the end Lee is succeeded by Gerry Conway.

The first half of the volume covers the last year of the Lee-Kirby partnership plus a few fill-ins to wrap things up. And it may just be the bad luck of where the volume breaks come but this last year feels extremely tired and repetitive. There are very few new original foes introduced in these pages, just a couple of robots in the forms of the Communist created Thermal Man and the mad scientist invented Crypto-Man, plus forgettable ruthless rich man Kronin Krask and Loki's wizard henchman Igron. Otherwise, it's a heavy dose of more of the same. We get yet more conflict with Loki, another take-over of Asgard, another attack by Surtur, another mission in deep space for Thor, another encounter with Galactus, another fight with the Circus of Crime, another battle with the Wrecker, no less than two storylines involving foes trying to take over Thor's body and so forth. There's a one-off return appearance by Jane Foster together with the doctor she now works for and has fallen for, Jim North, but there's no real tension between the current boyfriend and the ex even as they have to work together to rescue Jane from Krask. Only a brief sojourn into the realm of Mephisto and a battle with the Abomination whilst the Stranger is coming feel in any way original, at least for this series, and significantly both moments come under fill-in artists. Beyond that the most substantial addition to any of the mythology is the origin of Galactus, yet even this is let down by the announcement that this knowledge was the sole reason for Thor's mission rather than conflict. Otherwise, this is a case of just doing Thor by numbers. The artwork does, however, hold up quite well with Neal Adams having a big task when he steps in to finish off the Thor-Loki body swap storyline but he produces strong art that matches the existing style for the series.

Issue #179 is the last issue to be drawn by Jack Kirby and frankly it's one too many. Had he instead stopped at issue #177 (#178 is a fill-in drawn by John Buscema and ignored by the next one), he would have ended with on the climax of the Surtur storyline, going out on the nearest to a high there is in this final part of the run. Instead Kirby's last issue sees Loki use what seems to be a piece of dough to cover Thor's face, causing them to trade bodies and powers, but not clothes until Loki swaps the manually. The storyline runs into Neal Adams's issues, making for a very disappointing last job for Kirby. (And he would never return to the title so, other than the occasional reprint, it would be the last time ever that his work appeared here.)

What could have caused the series to sink into a quagmire of dull repetition? The answer is probably to be found in Jack Kirby's yearning for better terms and conditions and in particular greater creator benefits. Although there's been endless debate about just who contributed what on the Lee/Kirby creations, it's generally agreed that in their last years Stan Lee was primarily just scripting Kirby's finished pages, with Kirby doing most if not all of the story ideas and plotting as well as the pencilling. Consequently, it seems that the flow of imagination had been arrested at his end, perhaps deliberately. His subsequent career at first DC and then a return to Marvel show that he still had many big ideas in him, so here he was either going through a phase of writers' block or else he was deliberately holding back on new ideas until he could deliver them under perceived better terms and conditions. That he the ground running upon his arrival at DC with the Fourth World suggests that it was a case of the latter. And given his feelings that his creative contributions had been somewhat overlooked and insufficiently rewarded, it's not surprising that he wanted to get a better outcome with future creations. But what was the best course of action for Jack Kirby wasn't necessarily the best for Thor. The result is a set of work that's almost phoned in, recycling concepts and stories that were not that old at the time and showing all the hallmarks of someone just working out the end of their contract (or the equivalent in an era when the paperwork was appallingly handled). I don't know when in the course of this volume Kirby ultimately decided to accept DC's offer rather than carry on at Marvel (he may have been negotiating with DC for a couple of years, but was that a move definitely in mind or was it with a view to getting a better offer out of Marvel) but the time between his last Marvel and first DC work was very brief, suggesting there was clearly a period of notice. Looking at the results it might have been better for the series to let him immediately and indeed these issues are a good counter to criticism of other creators who leave series and companies on a hurry.

Of course Kirby's isn't the only name on the credits and whatever the debate about what he was actually contributing at this stage, Stan Lee was still taking credit and responsibility for the output so cannot evade blame for the shortcomings. Lee stays on the series for a year further than Kirby and there are some original ideas but it's not clear if these come from Lee or Buscema, a partnership credit that has not received much in-depth analysis compared to some others. The final three issues in the volume are scripted by Gerry Conway but as he's mainly wrapping up existing storylines it's hard to detect if he's a burst of new imagination or someone will just regurgitate much of what has come before. And that has been a problem with a lot of Thor over the years. Lee and Kirby may not have given the strip the greatest attention when it started but once the pair took full control they went in to produce an amazingly imaginative run that offered something truly epic. Unfortunately it seems they also cast a shadow that has often proved difficult to escape from, and this volume shows that it began on their watch. It's also a rejoinder to those who wished the Lee-Kirby partnership could have gone on forever and that the solution to all perceived deficiencies in either's work post-1970 would have been to get the other onto the project as well. I suspect the results would have been much more like their work here than during the earlier years of their collaboration, and fans would be arguing over who was holding who back and suggesting Kirby either going solo or working with a different scriptwriter for a change.

Following the wrapping up of Kirby's last storyline by Neal Adams, the new~ish era begins with a two-parter that pitches Thor against Doctor Doom and gives a strong sense of doing things differently from before. Then we get a saga involving the mysterious entity Infinity that is steadily consuming the universe into the world beyond but harbours a dark secret. The story shows originality in its threat and resolution but is let down by a subplot involving Loki launching yet another attempt to seize power in Asgard, this time by direct conquest with the aid of the Frost Giants. With Infinity dispatched, Thor has to face down looming death itself in the form of Hela. Meanwhile Loki seizes power in Asgard and proceeds to force Sif to agree to marry him. To deal with Thor he has Karnilla use her magic to create Durok the Demolisher, an incredibly strong and powerful fighter who proves incredibly hard to overcome, resulting in Balder calling in help from the Silver Surfer. As is so often the case, Lee's last issue ends on a cliffhanger midway through an ongoing story, here being the arrival of the Silver Surfer on the scene.

Looking at this post Kirby year, it's not exactly awash with bold new ideas and long lasting new characters. Loki has been responsible for the creation of other incredibly strong foes in the past and Durok offers little sign of long term staying power. Infinity shows more originality but has an origin and resolution that makes it hard to set up a decent sequel. Otherwise it's mainly taking existing elements and offering up new twists on them, though Doctor Doom at least hasn't been seen in this series before.

The last few issues under Gerry Conway see an extra long resolution to the threat of Durok that rather forgets just who is the star of the series. Then we get a showdown with Loki in Asgard, followed by an odd issue at the end of the volume that sees Thor and the Warriors Three dispatched to prevent the return of Mangog whilst Sif is unceremoniously sent to another world by Odin. Oddly for a volume released in the full cover era of the Essentials it ends on a cliffhanger with Mangog's threat to Asgard unresolved.

Although the writing is generally weak across the whole volume, the art holds up very well and continues to present a strong dynamism. Kirby has a distinctive style but both Adams and Buscema do well to match it at first, with Buscema slowly evolving into a distinctive pattern of his own. There's also some good adaptation to the format restrictions of this era. This volume covers a period when most Marvel comics had twenty story pages but with two of them covering only the upper half of the page. Often these pages work as just one page cut in the middle and with reprints simply pasting them back together into a single page. But sometimes we get a more imaginative use of this restrictive format with a number of issues having a double page spread across the halves that presents an effective widescreen image.

The art may be good but there's no disguising that the stories feel repetitive and tired. Much of this volume is by one or two creators at the tail end of their run and there's a combination of burnout, wallowing in past successes and holding back on new ideas, all combining to produce a very disappointing conclusion to what had been a strong strip in the past. Though the art gets a strong replacement there's little sign by the end of the volume that new imagination has been infused into the title. Overall it's a disappointment.

Essential Captain America volume 6

Essential Captain America volume 6 consists of Captain America and the Falcon #206 to #230 ("and the Falcon" is dropped from #223 onwards) plus Annual #4 and the crossover issue Incredible Hulk #232. The early part of the volume, including the annual, is written and drawn by Jack Kirby. The rest of the run sees a lot of creators including writers Roy Thomas, Don Glut, Steve Gerber, David Anthony Kraft, Peter Gillis, Roger McKenzie and Roger Stern plus a couple of back-ups by Scott Edelman. The most persistent artist after Kirby is Sal Buscema; others include George Tuska, Dave Cockrum, John Buscema and Mike Zeck plus Bob Budiansky and Steve Leialoha on the back-ups. One issue also contains a framed reprint of a Human Torch story from Strange Tales #113 drawn by Jack Kirby and scripted by Stan Lee. The Incredible Hulk issue is plotted by Roger Stern, scripted by David Michelinie and drawn by Sal Buscema. And with so many creators, invariably there's a separate labels post.

The early part of this volume contains the tail end of Jack Kirby's 1970s return to the title. And whilst the art remains as powerful as ever, the writing still doesn't feel terribly spectacular with the only long term addition of note being the geneticist Arnim Zola. Truly an artist's creation he has replaced his original body with a new one that has the brain in the more protected chest, with a camera in place of a head and a video screen to display a face on his chest. Zola has created all manner of creatures that he deploys, of which the most notable is Doughboy, an organism that can adjust its entire body to form itself into the equipment Zola needs to hand. Zola is certainly a bold creation but some of his impact is limited by the revelation that he's working for the Red Skull and undertaking a project to give Hitler's brain a new body. Hitler surviving by some strange scientific means was a common trope in 1960s and 1970s science fiction but today it feels cliched. It's also a sign of Kirby's habit of ignoring Marvel continuity where it suited him and it would eventually fall to the final issues of Super-Villain Team-Up to tidy the various Marvel accounts of the last days of Hitler.

Issue #207 contains a scene that has caused quite some debate, especially due to the panel on the right. As Steve changes costume in the Latin America jungle, he thinks about his experiences and the sadistic prison commandant:

Whoever runs that banana jail seems to get his kicks out of kicking the inmates! This man they call "The Swine" must be typical of the kind of bully that flourishes in these two-bit dictatorships. But this is not my country and not my place to fight for causes I know nothing about. My immediate problem is to beat this jungle -- find my way to a fair-sized town and... home!

This triggered off some debate in the blogosphere a few years ago - see Scott Edelman: Shame on you, Captain America!, Kirby Dynamics: "Shame on you, Captain America?" Part 1 and Kirby Dynamics: "Shame on You Captain America" Part 2 for the main posts on this (although be warned they drift into the different matter of 1970s Marvel staffers' attitudes about and actions to Kirby). On its own though this feels like a very clumsy attempt both to move beyond the simplistic morality of Golden Age and early Silver Age comics and also to reflect the changed outlook on US foreign policy in the post-Vietnam era. The idea that every situation has clear-cut goodies and baddies and that heroes should jump aboard every rebellion going was now being challenged, not just in the comics themselves but also in the wider world as once heroes of liberation and independence had become authoritarian dictators. The problem is the dialogue isn't terribly nuanced and the situation up to now hasn't really been presented as such. Instead the Swine has been portrayed as a latter day Nazi, right down to the uniform (but not insignia) and even drawn to resemble Himmler whilst dealing out sadistic torture. Nor is Captain America acknowledging the complexities of the situation. Instead he's just turning his back on the matter and looking to flee the land. This is not a man weighing up the difficulties of what is worse out of the current situation or the potential chaos that can be unleashed by simply overthrowing a regime without a clear successor infrastructure. Nor is he declining to back an ambiguous group of unknown rebels because they may contain even worse elements. Rather this comes across as a "None of my business" dismissal even if such cack-handedness was never the intention. And indeed the story doesn't see Cap take on the dictator but instead the Swine is killed by one of Zola's creatures, with Zola himself taking Cap back to a castle in Switzerland for the rest of the story.

There's some improvement on Kirby's earlier issues in regards the treatment of women with both Leila (who has had a massive quick recovery from her brainwashing at the end of the previous volume) and Sharon showing greater boldness and intelligence. In particular Sharon holds her own with the Red Skull. However it's also clear that Kirby had little time for the Falcon, keeping him largely out of the picture during most issues. The final two see a temporarily blinded Cap in hospital where the shady Corporation sends the Night Flyer to assassinate a patient known as "the Defector". The Falcon has a run-in with the Night Flyer but it's Cap who ultimately triumphs despite his temporary blindness. The final piece of 1970s Kirby work in the volume is the annual which sees Cap battling Magneto for the fate of a strange mutant with two separate bodies. It feels rather run of the mill with Magneto a rather generic cackling villain who wants the smaller body to investigate a tiny spaceship. All in all the Kirby run on the title has been so-so and not the return to the greatest ever days of Cap that it was hyped as.

Kirby's departure leaves a hole in the series and its not really filled for the remaining sixteen issues in this volume. Instead we get all the hallmarks of a series in creative chaos as no less than seven writers (not including the reprint or the Incredible Hulk issue) struggle with key storylines without really knowing where they're going or how long they'll last for. (The art is, however, more stable from issue #218 onwards with Sal Buscema providing at least breakdowns on all but one issue.) There are fill-ins, although efforts are made to actually include them in the ongoing narrative, and two other staples of a series in a rush - a retelling of the origin and a reprint.

These both come at the start of a run in which Captain America is slowly exploring his past to find out just who he is and who Steve Rogers is, The reasons behind this level of introspection are never made totally clear; nor is it explained just why Cap appears to have amnesia about his life before he received the Super Soldier Serum. But the result is an exploration that doubles as an exercise in retroactive continuity as new elements are added and some of what we were told before is shown to be questionable at least. The origin retelling in issue #215 runs through all the basics but for the first time in the series the two replacement Captain Americas of the late 1940s are included, following a What If? story that reinstated to continuity the Cap stories published in 1945 to 1950 as well as the All-Star Squadron. Also recapped is the previously seen Captain America of the 1950s. Following this we get a single new page as the real Cap sets out to discover about the one other Captain America, but we never learn if he does and instead enjoy a reprint of the Strange Tales story where the Human Torch battled a fake Captain America who was actually the Acrobat in disguise, complete with a floating helicopter platform including a rocket ship & launcher plus an asbestos lined lorry. It's reprinted as in the original with no attempt to explain away some of the early Silver Age silliness or just how Cap could maintain a secret identity when it was published in comics the Torch read as a child.

Back in the present, Cap's quest for his past brings up the notion that his childhood in New York was an invention and he was actually from a small town in Maryland. Through returning memories and a chat with a local he learns how Steve Rogers was a weak younger brother, more interested in art than in following in his elder brother's footsteps as first a sports star and then a soldier, much to his father's disapproval. However news reports from Europe and his brother's death at Pearl Harbour led him to attempt to enlist but he was rejected on medical grounds until a government agent identified him as suitable for a project. Although Steve's weak physique had long been an established part of the character, his family background feels like an attempt to increase his identifiability with the presumed readership of this era. It also feels like an attempt to root him in a stereotypical small town America rather than the exceptional urban New York, though with his family all dead it seems hard to build much on this at this stage and it's not followed up on in this volume.

More bizarre is another adventure told in flashback as the series sets out to explain how, in looking back at the end of the Second World War, Cap could recall falling off a missile launched from the coast of the English Channel and land in waters off Newfoundland. This could have been explained away as a confusion caused by a disoriented man just revived from suspended animation or a case of poor geographic knowledge, or just become a lettering error to be corrected in reprints. But instead we learn how Cap was picked up by a submarine commanded by renegade Nazi scientist Lyle Dekker, then taken to a base on Newfoundland before escaping in a plane carrying nerve gas , only to be shot down with the gas interacting with the Super Soldier Serum to put Cap in suspended animation with amnesia of his last battle.

There was simply no need to complicate the wonderful resurrection story by adding on this interim adventure. Nor is Dekker a particularly memorable foe even after he transfers his consciousness into the oversized artificial body dubbed the Ameridroid, who soon realises he has sacrificed his humanity for no great gain. This is retroactive continuity for the sheer heck of it and adds no more than another flashback tale in which Cap plays himself in a wartime movie serial of his life. Ultimately the search for Cap and Steve Rogers's past just rings hollow and seems to make no significant addition to the character or the series at all.

Making an addition of a rather different nature is the Corporation storyline. Picking up a thread from the last of Kirby's issues the battle with this sinister organisation runs through the second half of the volume, and also in the contemporary issues of the Incredible Hulk, before climaxing in the crossover at the end. There are a number of long-term changes in the series in the interim, including the ending of the team-up between Cap and the Falcon. Sam has been largely relegated to a bit part in many adventures here before he accepts the role of leading the Super-Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., a short-lived team of new and obscure super powered beings including Marvel Man (later Quasar), the Texas Twister, the Vamp and Blue Streak. The team doesn't last long with the last two members revealed as agents of the Corporation whilst the Texas Twister leaves in disgust at the Vamp's brutal killing of Blue Streak (in fact to silence her fellow agent). Another Corporation agent is Veda, supposedly the daughter of a wartime agent present when Cap first received the Super Soldier Serum. She briefly becomes Cap's new romantic interest, with Sharon running away in pain, only to be killed off in internal power struggles within the Corporation without Cap even realising it. Other Corporation agents include the Hulk's past foes the Constrictor and Moonstone, plus the alien Animus who turns out to be the real form of the Vamp. There's also a separate attack on Cap and S.H.I.E.L.D. by the Red Skull. Tensions between Cap and Nick Fury are increasing ever more, with the former sick of being used by the agency so often.

The crossover at the end is a rare one that builds on events in both series, bringing a climax to the separate struggles with the Corporation as well as establishing the Falcon as the uncle of the Hulk's sidekick Jim Wilson. All the plot threads are tidied up which is no small achievement given the high turnover of writers. However some of the characters and events from the Incredible Hulk are not really introduced for readers of Captain America only. Consequently the whole thing can be a little confusing when read on its own.

Overall this is frankly a dull pedestrian volume. Neither Kirby nor those who followed him have been able to lift the series to new heights and instead we've had a mix of rather slow and dull adventures plus some needless retcons that try to fix things that frankly weren't broke in the first place. Captain America is a difficult series to do well and needs good long-term writers to have a real impact. This volume fails to find them.

Essential Fantastic Four volume 4

Essential Fantastic Four volume 4 carries issues #64 to #83 and Annuals #5 & #6. All the issues are by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, credited on the actual issues as co-producing them and credited on the contents page with Lee as "Writer" and Kirby as "Co-Plotter & Penciller". The stability is further enhanced by everything bar a couple of back-up features in the first annual being inked by Joe Sinnott. Bonus material consists of several reproductions of art boards, mainly from issue #66, showing Kirby's margin notes for Lee. There's also an early version of the cover for issue #65.

By this stage the series has firmly settled into a clear pattern, though this volume shows that the complete status quo is not set in stone and developments for the characters can and do happen rather than sinking into a lazy inertia of just rehashing all that has come before. There's also a continuation in adding elements to the series's mythology as the Four's adventures continue to reveal new worlds, both in outer and inner space, and encounter new beings. The creative streak doesn't let up but there are also attempts to consolidate the existing extended character base and prepare some of them for their own series.

Annual #5 feels less like a special adventure of the Fantastic Four and more of a try-out for several other characters as the main focus is on the Inhumans and the Black Panther as they team up to battle new villain the Psycho-Man, with some help from Johnny and Ben but Reed and the just announced pregnant Sue stay behind. Adding to the Inhumans' exposure, they also dominate the gallery of pin-ups. The annual also contains a short Silver Surfer solo adventure plus a brief comedy piece showing Lee and Kirby larking around in the office as they try to come up with ideas for plots. With all three properties getting greater exposure in the near future, whether in solo series, back-ups in another title or just as a member of the Avengers, it's difficult to deny the annual was a success as a try-out piece but as a Fantastic Four tale it's severely lacking, particularly as it was the big special for the year.

Fortunately there's a return to form with annual #6 as it goes back to the core characters, with Reed, Ben and Johnny undertaking a desperate quest into the Negative Zone to find the thing necessary to save both Sue and the baby as she approaches labour. It's the first appearance of Annihilus and for once the story doesn't simply end with the obtaining of the item - in this case his cosmic control rod - but there's then a desperate race to shake off their pursuers and get out of the Negative Zone. The end of the story sees the birth of a son, later to be named Franklin, and the whole issue feels like a special occasion for the team and deserving of an extra large issue on a par with Sue and Reed's wedding in an earlier annual.

It is now impossible to discuss the birth of any child to the regulars in a comic without addressing the great debate about whether or not this damages the characters for the long run by making them seem "aged" and "difficult to relate to". By the logic of the naysayers the birth of Franklin would constitute a point at which the series becomes too remote from its readers. Frankly this approach to the Four is total nonsense. Right from the outset we've had not so much a team as a genuine family with loyalty and affection for one another mixed in with dysfunctionality. Reed has always been the mature father figure of the team and Sue has always long combined youth and vigour with a maternal approach to the others. That she is Johnny's older sister rather than his mother makes no real difference. For Reed and Sue to have a child is simply an extension of the existing family structure and as long as there are ways to combine parental responsibilities with work then it makes no difference. When you're reading the adventures of a scientist who excels at everything and has a rubber body to boot, a woman who can turn invisible and project forcefields, a teenager who can set his body on fire without hurting himself and a man trapped in the form of a rock monster, there's already a bit of suspension of disbelief. The idea that the birth of a child can damage the title and is a make or break affair for the audience is clearly ludicrous. In the long term there's the question of just how fast Franklin can be allowed to grow but there are any number of ways a fantasy series can handle this should it become a problem.

Where the pregnancy and birth does have a notable impact is in sidelining Sue even more than usual, with Reed becoming ever more protective and refusing to take her on journeys at times. Although there is concern for the baby it also plays into the prevalent sexism at the time. It's not until issue #81, after Franklin has been born, that the logical solution is found with Crystal stepping in to take Sue's place for the time being. She has to prove herself first but more than does so in battle with the Wizard. It's the first time there's been any change in the membership of the Four and there's a risk that such an approach will eventually lead to the group being treated as a team with a revolving door membership rather than a family with clear personal bonds between them. But Crystal has been hanging around the Baxter Building for pretty much the entire volume and is in a strong relationship with Johnny so she feels the natural choice to stand in for Sue. However it's a pity that before this issue she has been sidelined much of the time, rarely contributing to action or showing what she's made of.

More generally the series maintains its creative streak but it does so in some surprising ways. Issues #64 & #65 introduce the Kree, but instead of a visit to a grand empire or an encounter with part of an invasion force we instead meet them via a giant robotic soldier that has long been buried on Earth to monitor the situation but it has lost all contact with its army, like the real-life Japanese soldiers who stayed active on Pacific islands decades after the end of the Second World War. But the Kree empire is still around and the Four's defeat of the sentry attracts the Kree law enforcement officer Ronan the Accuser, with the Supreme Intelligence also making a first appearance. This is an odd way to introduce what would go on to be one of the main intergalactic powers in the Marvel universe but it also feels somewhat appropriate for a team of adventurers to stumble across one of the empire's outstretched tentacles instead of finding the core homeworld in all its glory.

Also introduced through a steady build-up is the artificial being known only as "Him" (later renamed as Adam Warlock), and his creators, the scientists grouped together as the Enclave. There's a real sense of build-up to the opening of the cocoon to reveal what the scientists hope will be the ultimate in human evolution. Somewhat undermining this is their inability to see Him due to the bright light and the odd solution of kidnapping Alicia in the hope that a blind sculptor will be able to get close enough to touch Him and then create a sculpture so the scientists can see what he looks like. Another artificial being to debut here is the Mad Thinker's android, which proves impossible to defeat outright and is instead exiled to the Negative Zone. But the real focus of these issues is upon Ben who has been brainwashed by the Thinker into turning on the Four. The Thinker's other artificial creation, the Android Man, also debuts in a Ben focused story as Reed once again finds a potion to cure him of being the Thing, but Ben discovers many, including Alicia, actually preferred his monstrous form and he undoes the transformation to save his friends even though he knows this change will be permanent. Less interesting an artificial being is the Tomazooma robot, impersonating a Native American living totem so that an oil company can drive Wyatt Wingfoot's people off their land.

Most of the stories are escapist adventure, rarely stopping to make overt comments about the state of the world. An exception comes when the Silver Surfer briefly decides that the problems humanity face could be overcome if they had to deal with a common enemy and sets out to be that enemy, embarking on a wave of destruction. It's a rare case of using the series as a mouthpiece for the creators and a forerunner of the commentary that would come in heavy doses in the Surfer's own series. But it also demonstrates the naivety of turning to quick fix solutions or outsiders imagining they can simply walk into a place with problems and put it all to rights. The Four and a missile eventually convince the Surfer of the error of his ways by showing there is good in humanity and that he was mad to even try and fix them all by his attacks on them. In his second appearance in this volume he returns to a more traditional role of conflict with Galactus as the world eater seeks to reclaim his herald, who in turn flees into the Microverse to escape and enjoy the freedom of a whole universe.

There are some odd moments in this run, particularly issue #73 which serves as the climax of a storyline in Daredevil in which Doctor Doom has briefly swapped bodies with Ol' Hornhead. Daredevil has now recovered his body but seeks help from the Fantastic Four who assume he's still Doom, leading to a battle with Spider-Man and Thor thrown in for good measure. The whole thing is resolved when Sue turns up and declares she's seen Doom live on television, as though a master of duplicate robots couldn't be in two places at once. All in all this is an odd issue that feels like an intruder on the series, crossing over with Daredevil for the sheer heck of it.

Despite the occasional misfire in general this volume shows the title still continuing to produce a strong mixture of fantastic and very personal adventures. Compared to earlier volumes there may not be many stories that have achieved a great deal of fame but nevertheless there is still a good level of creativity and development, both adding new elements to the series and enhancing the ones that have worked. We also get bold steps such as Sue's pregnancy and Crystal eventually taking her place on the team, showing that the status quo is not set in stone. This volume represents a series still at the top of its game and no let up in Lee and Kirby's astonishingly long run.

Essential Thor volume 3

Essential Thor volume 3 reprints issues #137-166, bar an Inhumans back-up strip that ran in issue #146 to #152. Everything is by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The stability is further enhanced by all but one issue being inked by Vince Colletta.

It's the format of the series which demonstrates the most variation. There's a final epic "Tales of Asgard" back-up feature which gives way to an Inhumans back-up strip then the second half of the volume sees issue length stories set in the present day. This is a series that has found a firm purpose as a mixture of Norse mythology and cosmic space adventure, with most time on Earth mainly serving as interludes between the big events. Thor is almost completely bereft of a human supporting cast with Jane Foster only making a single cameo to show she is getting on with her life and now has total amnesia of Thor. The other outstanding human element is also dealt with in a respectful way that confirms what the series has evolved into.

Throughout the volume Thor retains his identity of Donald Blake and his medical practice, although it's increasingly a sideshow. The two identities are by now clearly established as the same being but curiously when he's in the form of Thor he seems to lack Blake's medical knowledge. It's understandable that Thor's large hands and huge strength would not be suitable for delicate surgery, but less so that he would not know as much. And we finally get a resolution to the longest running uncertainty in the series so far. Issues #158 & #159 finally address the confusion about the main character - how can he be both the original Norse God of thunder with a life stretching back over many centuries and yet also a mortal man who discovered the hammer and gained the body and power of Thor? As he says, "If I am truly Thor... then who is the real Donald Blake? And if I am Don Blake... Where was Thor before I took his identity??" The first issue incorporates a reprint of Journey into Mystery #83, exposing the contradiction starkly as Donald Blake ponders the matter himself. (It also neglects to reproduce the original credits, a failing the Essential's contents page repeats) Then in issue #159 we get "The Answer at Last!" (the story's title) and learn how Donald Blake has been Thor all along. In order to teach his son humility, Odin had forcibly changed him into mortal form and given him both amnesia and a physical disability so that he would know weakness and learn "that any handicap can be endured... and overcome!" and sent him to Earth where he arrived in mortal & lame form on the first day of medical school with artificial memories. The hammer was disguised as a stick in a cave to await being found once humility had been learned.

This is one of the first overt retcons in Marvel history, with the original state of affairs addressed head on and explained away, rather than being simply ignored or flashbacks altering the original events. It may well have been driven by incessant questions on the letterspage and/or by the first generation of fans now working for Marvel, but in general it represents an elegant attempt to reconcile the original idea of a man acquiring the power of a being from mythology with the subsequent shift to depicting the adventures of the actual being. No retcon is ever perfect and this one doesn't explain how Blake could suddenly appear in adulthood with no recorded past, or why, if Thor is deemed to have learnt his lesson by now, he still has the Blake alter ego. But the biggest omission is any explanation as to why it took time for Thor's original personality and memory to come to the fore. Nevertheless the retcon has stuck to the point that any latter day readers are surprised to discover Thor and Blake were ever depicted any differently. I am aware of only one attempt to retcon this again, from the mid 1990s, and that was so convoluted and ultimately inconsequential that, as far as I am aware, it has been generally ignored and forgotten about every since the writer in question left the series. (If you don't know the details it's probably best to keep it that way.) But here we get Lee and Kirby putting almost a finishing touch on the character's background, overcoming the confusion from the earliest days of the series when they weren't in full control of it.

Thor's identity may have been cleared up but he retains his medical practice and loyalty to Earth, going so far as to defy an order from Odin to return to Asgard. At this stage Odin is acting somewhat out of character, being more power obsessed and angry than normal, and he opts to punish Thor once more by stripping him of all power bar his strength. The same subsequently happens to Loki, Sif and Balder. The power is eventually restored but in the meantime we see Thor trying to survive on his wits, unable to even revert to the form of Blake, and eventually taking a job with the Circus of Crime as a strongman who pretends to be none other than Thor himself. This leads to his being hypnotised into taking part in a robbery. This, even more than his Blake form, truly humbles Thor but also shows there is more to him than his powers though he does eventually regain them.

The series continues to thrust forwards with a good mix of existing and new elements. The early issues contain the final (for now) "Tales of Asgard" feature focusing on Hogun of the Warriors Three as his village is attacked by the sorcerer Mogul of the Mystic Mountain, leading to an epic journey as Hogun seeks vengeance. Successive issues show the group battling their way through a variety of monsters as they search for Mogul, with Volstagg's laziness and cowardice often on display along with excuses for it. However he also demonstrates his skills when he secures the Rod of Wondrous Wizard Power and uses it to deal with both beasts and Mogul's army. There is debate between Hogun and the others over how much help he should accept from them in his own duty to his people but ultimately the four journey together. This story is generally okay in collected form but five pages a month for nine months must have been tedious for contemporary readers and it's easy to understand why the feature is dropped for the time being.

The main strip doesn't hold back on character creation with this run including the first appearances of various trolls, of whom Ulik is the most notable. Others seen from the Troll kingdom are the ruler, Geirrodur, and his slave, Orikal, a mysterious being from another realm who is held captive to power the trolls. There are the mysterious Enchanters, made up of the trio Magnir, Forsung and Brona, who rule another dimension and now seek to conquer Asgard. In one brief adventure Thor battles longstanding Avengers foe Kang the Conqueror and his new weapon, the Growing Man. Another sees Thor take on both the crime boss Slugger Sykes and the ever adapting android Replicus, who feels like another variant on the Mad Thinker's Android and the Super Adaptoid. Asgard comes under attack from the Trolls and the Enchanters but the biggest threat comes in the form of Mangog, the gestalt embodiment of a race defeated long ago by Odin. Mangog is a giant monster that seems impossible to stop as it rampages towards Asgard to seize the Odinsword and cause Ragnarok, the ultimate day of destruction, making for a desperate struggle to stop him.

Loki's schemes and improvisations are responsible for a number of battles including with pre-existing foes such as the Super Skrull but also new ones. In order to regain his own powers Loki turns to Karnilla but at the time when she sends the power Loki's helmet has been taken by a burglar known as the Wrecker and he gets empowered instead. Armed with a now enchanted crowbar, the Wrecker takes on the role of the ordinary mortal empowered by Asgardian magic just before the retcon removes the last possibility that Thor himself falls into this category. Still the Wrecker makes for a good physical foe.

The last few issues see Thor in deep space, this time helping the Rigellians to confront Galactus who in turn is going after Ego the Living Planet. This leads to a confrontation between two very different kinds of gods, with a dramatic showdown. Later Odin shows part of the origin of Galactus. Following this there's another confrontation with Pluto and finally a battle with the mysterious "Him" (later renamed Adam Warlock), created by the Enclave, now seeking a mate and settling on Sif. Thor defeats him but is now succumbing to the Warrior Madness and has to seek redemption. The volume ends with Thor about to embark on a deep space expedition to achieve this.

In some of the adventures Thor is fighting solo but at times he has regular aid from variously the Rigellian Recorder, Balder and Sif. Balder is built up as a good loyal ally of Thor but faces his own problems when Karnilla falls for him and goes courting in her own unique way, even turning to the sorceress Haag to enchant him. But it's Sif who's given the strongest attention. Time and again she is shown as a strong warrior and though she's not a physical match for Thor she can more than hold her own. The affection between the two is strong though it brings its own dangers when Karnilla tricks Sif's spirit into occupying the Destroyer to help Thor only for the armour to overwhelm her, take control and nearly kill him. Later she takes a blast intended for Thor and nearly dies, but Blake's skill as a surgeon saves her. The two work well together and she is a far more suitable companion for Thor in this style of adventure than Jane Foster.

Although there are some problematic pages, in general the reproduction in this volume is quite good and in particular reproduces Vince Colletta's inks sympathetically. Also of note are some of the later issues where in certain shots space and/or Ego appear to be represented by photographs of either paintings or sculptures - it's a bit difficult to tell in black and white but the actual pages have reproduced quite well without the mix of line drawings and photographs turning into the mess seen in other volumes.

As a whole this volume shows a strong coherence and direction. With the totally consistent presence of Kirby and Lee this volume feels like the definitive take on Thor. Over the three volumes so far they have tried and tested a variety of elements and refined them to the point where it's now clear what works. At the same time they have either explained away or steadily phased out some of the more problematic elements. The result is now a solid run showing the series at its height.

Sampling Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. in Strange Tales #150-168

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. begins its second season this week so it's time to sample some of the agency's original adventures..

The Essentials managed to cover nearly all of Marvel's superhero output from the Silver Age. But one strip at the edge of that definition was notably left untouched. It's even more noticeable given the ongoing television series (though that doesn't star the lead character) and there are some other collected editions about. Today I'm going to take a look at one of them.

Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. is a rather generically titled tradepaperback from 2001, containing the strips from Strange Tales #150-168 (plus only the covers that feature S.H.I.E.L.D.), focusing on one creator. The first issue of the series is written by Stan Lee and the drawing sees Jack Kirby doing layouts that are pencilled up by John Buscema. Over the next few issues Roy Thomas briefly takes over the scripting but steadily all the drawing and writing tasks are assumed by Jim Steranko, who is fully writing and drawing from issue #155 onwards.

The book is in colour but it's not the original 1960s colouring. Instead Estudio Fénix provided then modern recolouring that in theory enhances the pages with a more in-depth pallet but in practice can work against the original art and produce a worse result. Computer recolouring was a fad around 2000 but it has fortunately faded away in favour of using the original colours. The digital remastering is also all too clear when looking closely at the art and lettering as it as rather too pixelated, showing the limitations of computing power at the turn of the millennium.

This volume covers the middle period of the strip's run. It had displaced the solo adventures of the Human Torch from #135 onwards and then after #168 it would get its own title as part of the general expansion of 1968, though it only lasted fifteen issues with Steranko departing after issue #5.

Steranko is possibly the comics creator with the greatest reputation per output with Mike's Amazing World of Comics showing just thirty credits, almost all of them in a three year period at Marvel. Maybe there are some missed out but it's clear that this was a brief contribution of huge influence rather than the mass work done by many of the big names. It's even more noticeable that nearly all his contributions are either on this strip or the sometimes-related Captain America.

This collection contains Steranko's first eighteen issues, plus the start of the first storyline, and what's immediately clear is that he took time to develop his style to the point where the art reaches the experimentation of fame. In the early issues he's still working from Kirby's layouts and once he takes over the full pencils he only slowly develops the bold ideas, with much of the impact instead coming from a dynamic style and imagination. But over time Steranko starts using the page as more than just a string of individual pictures, making intriguing use of the panel layout and going for greater sized spreads. The ultimate comes in issue #167 where there's a four page spread as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents storm the Yellow Claw's base. A caption by Stan Lee suggests that readers will have to buy another issue and place them side by side to get the full effect, but even accounting for inflation US $19.99 in 2001 was a rather higher price than US $0.12 in 1968 and so the spread is presented as a gatefold that looks impressive but is also a pain to fold back in without damaging it. The art also makes use of abstract and psychedelic images and photorealism, with the cover to issue #4 of the solo series (reused as the cover for the collection despite the issue not being included) being perhaps the ultimate expression. It's easy to see why this series gained a cult following not just in the States but around the world - indeed this collection originated in Europe.

The story content follows closely with the contemporary fad for action hero spy agencies staffed by amazing heroes with special gadgets that caught the public's imagination then and now. (By accounts the real life spy and security agencies actually despair about this when they have to explain to endless politicians that their work isn't quite like that.) S.H.I.E.L.D. is all the rage with fun equipment like a flying headquarters, colour changing cars, invisibility pills, cufflinks containing weapons and more that all match the likes of the James Bond movies or The Man from U.N.C.L.E. television series. There's even one scene where equipment is issues by a man named Boothroyd. The agency comes with an acronym name that makes no sense whatsoever - at this point in its history S.H.I.E.L.D. stands for "Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-enforcement Division" - beyond meaning that someone really wanted the initials to spell out "shield".

Nick Fury himself is the modern day incarnation of the star of Marvel's war comic, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, and his comrades "Dum-Dum" Dugan and Gabriel Jones also serve with S.H.I.E.L.D. along with younger agent Jasper Sitwell and various others Fury is physically older, and his hair starts going grey at the temples during these issues, but physically active and brave, going into danger against ridiculous odds and surviving. At first it seems his romantic interest will be Laura Brown, the rescued daughter of the first Supreme Hydra, but later on she's phased out in favour of Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, a woman who challenges Fury's prejudices about female agents by showing herself just as capable at taking him down and who has the look of a Bond girl a decade before they were regularly presented as Bond's equals.

The villains are also hi-tech organisations, starting with Hydra which has a new leader, eventually revealed as Fury's wartime nemesis Baron von Strucker, and undertaking a scheme to destroy the world with new technology. Following this is a saga with the Yellow Claw, revived from a brief 1950s title, bringing with him both his niece Suwan (who has been given a make-over to become another strong fighting female) and his nemesis Jimmy Woo. The Claw is subsequently revealed to have been a robot, with the implication that the now dead Suwan is also but not before a dramatic moment as Suwan dies saving Woo's life whilst Fury and the Claw are more concerned with fighting each other than rescuing their own. From afar it is revealed that the entire situation has been a living game of chess between Doctor Doom and the Prime Mover. The final issue sees Fury in a bizarre landscape fighting monsters only to wake up and realise it was a dream - but then some real life events copy it...

Being the middle part of the original strip's run this collection lacks some introductions but also lack the early days when any strip is learning what does and doesn't work before settling into a solid run. But as a learning curve for Jim Steranko's work this book achieves its aim even if it is let down by the pixelisation and computer colouring. It's no full substitute for an Essential Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. volume but it does show the series well.

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.