What If... Essential Invaders volume 1? - reprint labels

This hypothetical volume would reprint some reprints of Golden Age titles and the labels for them are included here.

Essential Iron Man volume 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Essential Defenders volume 2

This month will see the release of the Guardians of the Galaxy film. In the absence of any dedicated Essentials for any version of the team, let alone the modern one, I'm going to take a look at a volume containing one of the original's earliest storylines.

Essential Defenders volume 2 reprints Defenders #15-30 and Giant-Size Defenders #1-4 plus Marvel Two-in-One #6-7, Marvel Team-Up #33-35 and Marvel Treasury Edition #12. The regular Defenders issues are written first by Len Wein and then by Steve Gerber, with one by Bill Mantlo. Wein and Gerber write most of the Giant-Sizes with Tony Isabella writing a framing sequence in the first that carries reprints of past stories by Stan Lee, Bill Everett and Denny O'Neil from the likes of Incredible Hulk #3, Sub-Mariner Comics #41 and Strange Tales #145, representing solo tales from each of the three founders. The Marvel Two-in-One issues and the Marvel Treasury Edition are by Gerber whilst the Marvel Team-Up issues are by Gerry Conway. The regular issues are all drawn by Sal Buscema, as is the Marvel Treasury Edition, all of the Marvel Team-Ups and one of the Marvel Two-in-Ones, whilst the Giant-Sizes are by Jim Starlin, Gil Kane and Don Heck with the reprints carrying the art of Jack Kirby, Everett and Steve Ditko. The other Marvel Two-in-One issue is drawn by George Tuska. Inevitably the creator labels are in a separate post.

This volume suffers badly from the momentum being interrupted by various extra issues being included. Whilst the Marvel Two-in-One issues are part of a crossover with Defenders, and the Giant-Sizes invariably get collected with the regular series (though only the last one's storyline flows directly into the regular series), the Marvel Team-Up issues are utterly inconsequential to the ongoing series and feel as though they've been included solely to make up the numbers with guest appearances. And the Marvel Treasury Edition is a Howard the Duck special in which he teams up with the Defenders, but the entire tone of the piece is very much that of Howard's series rather than the Defenders, in spite of the two sharing the same writer, and once again it feels rather out of place here. Wouldn't it have been better to advance the regular title a few more issues rather then including these diversions that drag things out? But in spite of them the series has now got a clear sense of its purpose and cast.

By now there's a clear core membership consisting of Doctor Strange, the Hulk, Valkyrie and Nighthawk, but with a good number of other heroes passing through the pages. It isn't always clear in issues themselves with other heroes as to who is a temporary member and who is merely a guest star, but in Giant-Size #4 captions mention the wider heroes Doctor Strange could perhaps call upon and lists the Sub-Mariner, the Silver Surfer and "...perhaps even Power Man ... Daredevil ... Daimon Hellstrom ... Hawkeye" in what is effectively the first canonical list of all the team's "members". But the nature of the beast is such that only the core regulars can be clearly identified. Still it's the heroes on this list who are turned to when most of the regulars plus Yellowjacket are captured by the Sons of the Serpent. Notably steps are taken such that contact methods are cut before the Sub-Mariner, Silver Surfer or Hawkeye can be reached. It would also seem from these lists that Professor X, the Thing and, in the previous volume, Namorita all fall firmly on the guest star side of things, as do the Guardians of the Galaxy and Howard the Duck who pop up later on in the volume. On a different level Valkyrie's sort of ex-husband Jack Norriss winds up aiding the team more than once, even getting transported to the future, but his presence, though useful, isn't really desired either.

Instead we have a clear core membership, and even ex-membership, though the team hasn't taken on the hassle of constitutions, approval processes and formal initiations. The four core members are clearly happy to work together in spite of their disparate origins, powers and personalities. Namor the Sub-Mariner and the Silver Surfer have both left the team and in spite of the volume's cover, reproducing that of Giant-Size Defenders #1, they don't actually show up in the present. Their sole appearances are confined to reprints of past solo adventures in Giant-Size #1, though curiously whilst Namor's is incorporated into the issue's narrative, and thus represented here, the Silver Surfer's reprint was separate and is thus left out. Oddly the introductory blurb that appears on each issue until #25 continues to list Namor as a part of "the greatest NON-TEAM in history", suggesting someone failed to notice that he had left in issue #14 or that his motivation was precisely because the Defenders were now clearly becoming a coherent team.

Of the regulars, it's inevitable the two without their own titles who get the most character development. Valkyrie is steadily coming to terms with being an artificial construct with no past of her own, placed in the body of a mortal woman, and trying to discover more about Barbara Noriss's life of which she has no memory. This leads to a trek to Barbara's home town and encounters with first old friends and then her father, all the time being unable to return their feelings for her. The worst comes with Barbara's husband Jack, who just cannot comprehend that it's not actually his wife in her body and he often acts the devoted, defending husband to a woman who neither asks for it nor needs it. Despite the problems of her past, Valkyrie makes the best of her situation and more than proves herself in battle. Her only weakness is one that feels rather out of place for a Marvel hero and especially a Bronze Age hero - she is unable to fight another female, whether human, alien or robotic, without succumbing to crippling pains. It feels more at home with a vulnerability to fire or crumbling at the sight of a green rock or the inability to use a power against the colour yellow rather than the personality flaws, power limitations or physiological factors that usually restrain Marvel heroes. But in spite of this Valkyrie serves well as an equal member of the team. There are hints early on that she and Nightcrawler might become an item but it never comes off. However at one point he buys an ex-riding school to serve as a stable for Valkyrie's horse Aragorn. Otherwise Nightcrawler is steadily building himself up in his heroic role but also finding that things in his company aren't always in line with his orders. He may be a rich socialite but he also has his vulnerable side, especially when he and girlfriend Trish Starr are caught in a car explosion that costs her her left arm and then he declines to offer sufficient commitment and she leaves him. Meanwhile the Hulk is in one of his best periods, having finally found the permanent friends he has been looking for for so long and seems calmer than usual. He's also getting better at remembering things and realising other points such that his own skin makes him a target of the Sons of the Serpent. Doctor Strange is very much in his traditional form, though at times his powers are used a little too easily to resolve a situation. However this is rare and otherwise he serves well as the team's leading hand.

The various additional issues offer a variety of adventures, ranging from the needless such as the Marvel Team-Up fights with the Meteorite Man, formerly the Looter, or Jeremiah, a religious fanatic mutant, to the team building such as the Giant-Sizes. The first fills out details on the founding Defenders and then subsequent issues introduce the team to a range of guest stars including Daimon Hellstrom the Son of Satan, Daredevil, Yellowjacket and then the Guardians of the Galaxy. The foes in these issues are just as diverse, including individual Defenders' old foes such as the demon Asmodeus from Doctor Strange, Nighthawk's former villainous team the Squadron Sinister or Yellowjacket's old foe Egghead. There's also more general Marvel foes such as the Badoon, the Grandmaster or the Prime Mover, as well as new ones of whom the most significant is Korvac. Over in the Treasury Edition the Defenders and Howard tackle the Band of the Bland, a group of deliberately unoriginal villains made up of Dr. Angst, Sitting Bullseye, Black Hole, Spanker and Tillie the Hun.

Over in the regular issues there's a succession of epics against a mixture of established and new foes, with quite a few ramifications for the wider Marvel universe. We kick off with one of the last X-Men appearances from their wilderness years as Professor X sides with the Defenders against Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants; Magneto's hubris leads him to create Alpha the Ultimate Mutant who judges the Brotherhood unworthy and deages them to babies. (Now there's at least an interim solution to the problem of Magneto being tied to real world history without noticeably ageing.) Then a team-up with Luke Cage, Power Man brings the first ever appearance of the Wrecking Crew as the Wrecker acquires a team around him. Notably the team's black member, Thunderball, is the most intelligent of them, being a nuclear physicist. Valkyrie's quest for her past brings both a crossover with the Thing's title Marvel Two-in-One and also a battle with the Enchantress and the Executioner then with the Nameless One. Then there's an extended clash with the Sons of the Serpent, Marvel's stock group of racists with elements of the Ku Klux Klan about them. This adventure brings the return of several heroes including Yellowjacket, Daredevil, Power Man and the Son of Satan, but also the revelation that the Sons are led by a black man trying to "escape 'my own people'" and to enhance Nighthawk's company's profits. There are also some one-off issues including the introduction of the Headmen, a weird group of villains with distinctly odd heads whether Gorilla Man, a human one grafted onto an ape, Shrunken Bones, whose skeleton has reduced leaving the flesh loose, or Chondu, a mystic whose head has been grafted onto other bodies. And there's Tapping Tommy, who wants revenge for a succession of failures including the musical genre and takes it out on Nighthawk for buying an old studio to turn into housing, using robots in the process.

One of the biggest epics comes near the end as the Defenders meet the Guardians of the Galaxy and travel with them into a dark future where mankind has overcome self-inflicted disasters and invasion to build an empire with bio-engineering diversifying the human form, but the human race has now been conquered by the Brotherhood of the Badoon. It's a tale that incorporates time travel, including Major Vance Astro meeting his younger self, multiple worlds, the fierce gender divide amongst the Badoon, various alien worlds, the mysterious Starhawk and a showdown that begins a revolution. The story shows real epic and ambition, helping to expand the original Guardians mythology and roster no end without feeling like an intrusion on the Defenders. Nor does it end neatly, with Doctor Strange transporting his team back in time upon realising that Starhawk embodies the human race and its hope.

Steve Gerber's writing takes on both a distinctly odd turn and a degree of social commentary, though it's not as pronounced as his work on Howard the Duck. In the Sons of the Serpent story there's also a look at the horrors of the slums and signs of hope when Jack Norriss's surge of courage to save "his wife" spurs a watching crowd of whites to attack the Sons. Later there's an extended history of the Earth from the present day until the 31st century, taking in not only the continuity of Killraven but also ecological collapse, the dangers of unfettered capitalism destroying the environment, colonialism from both ends and much more. Elsewhere we get the odd situations and characters, with the first appearance of the mysterious Elf with a Gun who pops up to shoot a random person for seemingly no reason at all. However one thing I don't like about Gerber's work is the resort to a page of mainly text with a single drawn panel and the story advanced in narration, a device he resorts to more than once. It feels like the issue in question was poorly paced and this was an effort to rectify it.

When the regular series is in full flow then this volume is generally quite good and fun to read, with a wonderful diversity of scope and characterisation, not to mention the weirder elements. However when the series gets interrupted by numerous specials, crossovers and guest appearances then it the momentum frequently fails and the volume grinds to a halt. It would have been much better to leave out all the Marvel Team-Ups and the Marvel Treasury Edition and just concentrate on the core Defenders a bit more.

Essential Doctor Strange volume 2

Essential Doctor Strange volume 2 charts the rise and fall of the character's first attempt at an own title and then his attempts at a comeback. It contains Doctor Strange #169-178 & #180-183 (#179 was a reprint of Amazing Spider-Man annual #2; the cover isn't included here) plus the crossover issues Avengers #61, Sub-Mariner #22 and Incredible Hulk #126. Doctor Strange had a brief back-up strip in Marvel Feature #1 that's included here as part of the return of the character for the Defenders' launch. Then a couple of years later he got a solo strip once again which was run in another tryout book, Marvel Premiere #3-14. Everything before Marvel Premiere, including all the crossover issues, is written by Roy Thomas and then Marvel Premiere is by, variously, Stan Lee, Archie Goodwin, Gardner Fox and Steve Englehart. Art is more mixed - the Doctor Strange issues are mainly drawn by Gene Colan, with contributions by Dan Adkins and Tom Palmer. The Marvel Feature story is drawn by Don Heck then Marvel Premiere has a variety of artists such as Barry Windsor-Smith, Irv Wesley, Frank Brunner, P. Craig Russell and Jim Starlin. Of the crossover issues the Avengers is by John Buscema, Sub-Mariner by Marie Severin and Incredible Hulk by Herb Trimpe. That's a lot of labels so inevitably a separate post has been created for some of them.

In the early days of the strip it was notable for doing things rather differently from the standard Marvel approach at the time. However after Steve Ditko's departure the series meandered without a clear sense of direction. This volume starts at the point where Doctor Strange got his own title, but this was clearly a consequence of Marvel expanding en masse thanks to a change in its distribution arrangements (a change that I've noted in more detail in previous reviews) rather than a specific decision to break out the character. The series only lasted fifteen issues (carrying forward the Strange Tales numbering, although a later revival of that title would confuse things by doing the same), with the last three seeing the series go bimonthly, always a sign of problems, and demonstrates the same lack of certainty about what to do with the character, with a drift towards several of the conventions of more traditional superhero titles such that we get variously a masked hero, a secret identity and even a step towards a romantic triangle with one woman pining for the hero but realising he only has eyes for another. Just to add to the mess, some of these developments come out of the blue and offer little. The series is also beset by retreading a lot of familiar ground.

The first issue is devoted to a retelling of Doctor Strange's origin before we get a succession of issues focusing mainly on the return of past foes with some familiar settings. Amongst the returns are Nightmare, Dreamstalker, Dormammu, Umar and Tiboro. A guest appearance by the Black Knight against the Sons of Satannish and Tiboro leads to an epilogue in the pages of Avengers as Doctor Strange works with Earth's Mightiest Heroes to tackle Ymir the frost giant and Surtur the fire demon, both from the pages of Thor. Meanwhile, in his second appearance in this brief run, Nightmare becomes the latest entity to challenge Eternity, with the Juggernaut thrown into the mix. The resolution includes the deus ex machina revelation that Eternity has slightly altered the universe to give Doctor Strange a secret identity as "Stephen Sanders", with all records and memories now reflecting this.

There are a few additions to the mythology in these issues, with the most significant debut being the entity Satannish. Other issues feature followers such as Lord Nekron and the Sons of Satannish, Asmodeus and Marduk. Satannish is another of many demonic beings in Marvel comics who appear to be the Devil in some form (and who go many years without clarity as to what the relationship between them is); his debut actually just slightly predates Mephisto's by a month. The last issue starts a storyline with new foes the Undying Ones, ruled by the Nameless One; however the series came to an abrupt halt and so the story was wrapped up first in Sub-Mariner and then in the Incredible Hulk with additional conflict with the Night-Crawler, the ruler of the neighbouring Dark Dimension. At the end of the Incredible Hulk issue, Doctor Strange decides to retire, abandoning his role and powers, and would not be seen again for a year and a half. However he would then reappear, without his mask or "Stephen Sanders" secret identity, when the Defenders launched in the pages of Marvel Feature and a back-up solo story restores his power and position, with yet another clash with Baron Mordo.

These issues also develop Doctor Strange's romantic life by bringing Clea to Earth and making more use of Victoria Bentley. Victoria has strong feelings for Stephen but is saddened to discover he has eyes only for Clea; however unlike some Marvel heroes he's not a dick who acts nasty in order to scare Victoria off. She may be disappointed but is perfectly willing to help him rescue Clea from another realm when she is the only one who can do so, a more sophisticated solution to the situation than some approaches that might have instead had Victoria jealously refusing and forcing Doctor Strange to find an alternative solution. Clea is brought to Earth where she's given her own apartment (showing an unmarried couple living together might have been too bold a step that Marvel didn't want to take in 1968) and there's some comedic asides as she comes to terms with the strange world around her and Stephen has to react quickly to handle the mess when she tries to use her magic. But aside from the culture clash there's a clear rapport between the two. However she gets largely forgotten when the series suddenly ends with no mention of her as Stephen ditches his role and powers, though once the Marvel Premiere strip gets going she appears as though nothing significant has happened in the interim.

With only fifteen issues, one of which is taken up by the retelling of the origin and another by a reprint, there's not too much time for the solo series. However it seems to squander even what is available, in part because many issues have oversized panels that allows the artwork to show off but which also slows down the narrative. Since the series is also going over a lot of old ground the overall result is rather disappointing and it's hard to get upset about it coming to an end so soon. It just reiterates the standard problem that it's often hard to know what to do with Doctor Strange and so a rest and then restricting his appearances to a team title was probably a good prescription. When he once again got an ongoing solo feature there was both an influx of new ideas and a wider changed environment at Marvel.

Initially it seems the new strip might be yet more of the same, with the first issue containing yet another confrontation with Nightmare. But then under the pen of first Gardner Fox and then Steve Englehart the series gets much more original with a strong sequence of stories that see Doctor Strange face off against a host of monsters and demons, putting him in difficult and novel situations. A trip to the town of Starkesboro reveals the population have been transformed into reptilian humanoids, worshipping the snake demon Sligguth, with its priestess Ebora and the Spawn of Sligguth upping the ante. The defeat of Sligguth only leads to the emergence of another monster, N'Gabthoth the Shambler from the Sea. Meanwhile the Shadowmen of Kaa-U kidnap the Ancient One as part of their worship of Shuma Gorath. Doctor Strange's search brings him into conflict with the demon Dagoth and then the living planet Kathulos. The defeat of the latter sees Doctor Strange stuck on a dead planet though he eventually finds a way to fly home, taking four days. When he finally reaches Kaa-U, he fights the Shadowmen's leader the Living Buddha, before the ultimate confrontation with Shuma Gorath. In the process Doctor Strange finds himself facing the ultimate dilemma when the only way to defeat Shuma Gorath is to kill the Ancient One - something that goes against all his medical and mystical oaths and his mentor to boot. Some of the monsters and concepts encountered in this saga are drawn from the works of Robert E. Howard, best known as the creator of Conan.

Gardner Fox is so heavily associated with his herculanen output for DC over the decades that it's always a surprise to discover his name on a Marvel comic. Fox's Marvel work was amongst the last of his comics career (although he also wrote many novels) and to both his and editorial's credit he didn't try to recreate his superhero magic at his new company but rather showed his diversity and worked mainly on westerns and horror. The 1970s horror trend may well have been to Doctor Strange's advantage, allowing a greater use of the occult than before and tapping into a prevailing trend in the market. Fox's run may be brief but it really shakes up the character and series, showing that there is so much more to do and exciting us, helped by a succession of strong artists who defy the usual rule that a different artist each issue invariably means fast, poor results. Fox and the rotation are succeeded by Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner who conclude the Shuma Gorath saga and then present a daring saga that confounds expectations and amazes me that they got away with it.

After an emergency reprint (with a new framing sequence) of Doctor Strange's origin, we see the now Sorcerer Supreme seek to end his long-standing rivalry with Baron Mordo, which at first had me worried that we would get yet another retread of all ground, with a battle with the Living Gargoyle en route. But instead both Strange and Mordo get caught in the scheme of the time-travelling sorcerer Cagliostro, real name Sise-Neg, who travels backwards in time absorbing ever more power with the intention of reaching the start of time and influencing creation. He is even open about wishing to become "God" and as the three head backwards through the ages Sise-Neg is responsible for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (here shown as a place of general hostility to all strangers rather than a place practising sodomy), and then, in an earlier period, he creates a garden for two surviving apes. Finally at the start of time Sise-Neg concludes that man cannot be improved upon and so allows things to be created as before. It now seems incredible that a story could see print that effectively portrays its antagonist as the inspiration behind the understanding of God, and gives alternative explanations to some of the best known Biblical stories. Marvel in the mid 1970s was often daring, and highly inconsistent, on religious themes and I doubt they would be able to make such bold moves today.

This volume ends immediately before Doctor Strange was once again transferred to his own title and so comparisons with his first volume naturally arise. Both experience the problems of the Essential format automatically bundling together everything in sequence with the result that two distinct periods are presented in a single volume. And they both show the lengthy search to find a direction and purpose for the character after the initial burst of creation. Here we get the rather dire first solo series which just presents more of the same with greater space for the artwork and it drags. But the cancellation proves to have been beneficial as when the character got a solo strip once more there was now a new approach to magic and horror that allowed for some original and highly magical adventures. The strip once more regains a sense of daring and excitement, and so by the end of the volume things have come almost full circle.

Essential Hulk volume 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A few Sub-Mariner previews

Whenever I complete a full set of Essential volumes for any particular series and character I intend to take a look at any later issues reprinted in other volumes. Other than the Spider-Man and Daredevil titles, Sub-Mariner is the first such series that qualifies, as there is just one solitary volume out so far.


Sub-Mariner #20 written by Roy Thomas and drawn by John Buscema, reprinted slightly abridged in Giant-Size Super-Villain Team-Up #1, reprinted in turn in Essential Super-Villain Team-Up volume 1

It's my understanding that the abridgement consists of panels in adjacent pages amounting to the equivalent of one whole page. It doesn't seem to have affected readability. This is a fairly straightforward tale in which Namor, who has lost both his power of flight and the ability to breathe underwater, flees though New York until he stumbles upon the Latverian embassy where Dr. Doom tries to recruit him as an ally, first by persuasion and then by coercion. It's easy to forget that there was a time when Namor rivalled Doom as the Fantastic Four's greatest foe and the two briefly allied. However they have each gone a long way since and this issue shows how far apart they now are, with a renewed alliance well and truly off the cards. The issue is very much a character piece as it shows the different outlooks and approaches of the two. Ironically it was reprinted at the start of Giant-Size Super-Villain Team-Up despite being a strong indicator as to why a permanent teaming of the two can never work. Doom attempted to overcome the problems, but the story wound up as a premature obituary for that series.

Sub-Mariner #22 written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Marie Severin, reprinted in Essential Doctor Strange volume 2 and also in Essential Defenders volume 1

This was the middle part of a storyline run across Doctor Strange, Sub-Mariner and the Incredible Hulk, wrapping up the leftover threads from Doctor Strange's series. Namor returns to Atlantis where his ability to breathe is restored but then he gets summoned to Boston by Doctor Strange to help in the struggle against the Undying Ones. The crossover is structured reasonably well so that it's possible to just read this issue by itself, but other than the opening scenes in Atlantis this does feel much more like a Doctor Strange issue than a Sub-Mariner one. As a key issue in restoring the title hero's abilities it probably shouldn't have been combined with a wider crossover; an approach that was unfortunately used all too often in later years. There's the start of a strong understanding between Namor and Doctor Strange that would come to the forefront in the Defenders, but as yet no hint of any regular teaming between them.

Sub-Mariner #34-35 written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Sal Buscema, reprinted in Essential Defenders volume 1

These two issues see Namor in search of allies to neutralise a human device that accidentally  threatens the world. In recruiting the Hulk they come into conflict with the military forces of San Pablo, yet another Latin American military dictatorship. Their battle devastates the military forces such that rebels are able to overthrow El General. Then the group, dubbed "Titans Three", head to the island where the device is along with Dorma and the Atlantean scientist Ikthon. Titans Three clash with both the army guarding the device and a squad of Avengers sent in, until Ikthon repairs a flaw and everyone realises the danger that has been averted. These two issues were clearly testing the water for the concept that became the Defenders and show how Namor can assemble some allies when needs be but his confrontational approach isn't always the ideal solution. I find Latin American military dictatorships an excessively used cliché in Marvel comics from this era, especially when they come with rebels seeking to overthrow them. Titans Three is an interesting idea for a team made out of hot-headed loners often at odds with the human world, but such character types are inevitably not team players and some additional unifying element is needed if the group is to work on a regular basis.


By coincidence these issues between them show Namor interacting with nearly all the characters he's best known for teaming up with; the main exception is Captain America. (His interaction with the Fantastic Four over the years is rather more complicated.) There are signs of just how prickly he can be but also how well he works with those he respects and/or needs. Otherwise the issues show glimpses of wider developments in the series such as his temporary power restriction or steps towards marriage to Dorma, and wet the appetite for another Essential Sub-Mariner volume.

Essential Sub-Mariner volume 1

Essential Sub-Mariner volume 1 contains the Sub-Mariner strips from Tales to Astonish (the anthology that also featured the Hulk and previously featured Ant-Man/Giant Man) #70-101, Iron Man and Sub-Mariner #1, a rare one-shot anthology that came amidst a glut of new title launches, Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner #1, the resulting first issue, plus also Daredevil #7 with a guest appearance and the Iron Man story from Tales of Suspense #80 as part of a crossover; another crossover comes within the pages of Tales to Astonish itself when the Sub-Mariner and Hulk strips converge in issue #100. Bonus material includes the original cover art from issue #88, original interior art from issues #94 & #96, the cover of Tales of Suspense #79 (which features Namor prominently on the cover but only on one interior page) and Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe entries for Atlantis, Atlanteans and the Sub-Mariner.

Nearly everything up to issue #92 (including the Daredevil and Tales of Suspense issues) is written by Stan Lee bar #82 where his plot is scripted by Roy Thomas. Thomas writes most of the rest of the material apart from one issue by Raymond Marais (a name no-one seems to know anything about) who co-writes another with Thomas, and the last couple of Astonishes are written by the brief return of Lee then Archie Goodwin. The art is mainly by Gene Colan, who also does the Daredevil and Tales of Suspense issues and later by Namor's creator Bill Everett, with contributions by Jack Kirby, Jerry Grandenetti, Dan Adkins, Werner Roth and Marie Severin. John Buscema draws the first issue of Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner. Once again that's a long list of labels so a separate post has been created for the creators.

The Sub-Mariner's arrival in the Essentials was surprisingly late, coming in 2009. Amongst other Silver Age superhero features, only Captain Marvel had anywhere near as long a delay before getting a first volume. Perhaps this was down to the availability of remastered material - the first Sub-Mariner Masterworks didn't appear until 2002 and the rest of the material in this volume wasn't collected there until 2007. Or it could be down to the perception that the Sub-Mariner doesn't sell well - none of his series have ever made it past a hundred issues (although if we add the Tales to Astonish issues to his 1968 series they just scrape over that line) whilst in the late 1990s he took over the second series of Marvel Team-Up from Spider-Man, only for that title to end after just four issues of him. Whatever the reason, the result was that this volume was much wanted and anticipated. It doesn't disappoint.

At its core this is a series about a monarch whose kingdom faces threats from both without and within. Atlantis is a small kingdom in a remote part of the world - the depths of the ocean - but it contains ambitious royals and military leaders, whilst its location and obscurity often result in accidental damage being caused by the humans on the surface, leading to tension and conflict. Namor is a just and generally merciful ruler, but prone to moments of temper that cause him to lash out in anger either when he believes he has been betrayed below the sea or else when he assumes the humans have attacked his kingdom. Most of the issues in this volume are parts of multi-issue stories that often flow from one to the next, providing a strong continuous flow as Namor seeks security and vengeance against the various threats to his kingdom.

The most recurrent foe is Warlord Krang (he actually has that title), an Atlantean general who seizes power in a coup at the start and then after he is toppled he is sent into exile and plots anew. Like several of the foes seen here, he originated in the pages of Fantastic Four. Another from there who threatens Atlantis is the external warlord Attuma and his army of barbarians, whilst from Daredevil comes the Plunderer, a would-be world conqueror and the brother of Ka-Zar. Meanwhile Namor has another rival for the throne, namely Byrrah, who is described as both Namor's "cousin" and the stepson of the old Emperor, who was Namor's grandfather. Either Atlantean society uses the terms for relatives differently (which seems unlikely for the era, especially as the point is never specifically addressed) or someone goofed. Byrrah had previously appeared in the brief 1953-4 revival of the Sub-Mariner, and is described as being from the "Golden Past"/"Golden Age" of Marvel. I wonder just when the term "Golden Age of Comics" was nailed down to finishing no later than 1949/50. The pre-Silver Age is also addressed at the end of the volume with the debut of Destiny, a foe that Namor has forgotten (though he had never appeared before). On top of all this there are also a variety of sea monsters such as the Seaweed Man or the Faceless Ones and their leader Zantor, the Diamonds of Doom. Or there are the artificial creations like the Behemoth, a monster created to protect Atlantis from attacks but which gets out of control, the fire creature on Inferno Island, "It", a humanoid revived by the dumping of radioactive waste, or Dragorr, apparently the ruler of a Caribbean island nation but actually a robotic exo-skeleton controlled by his "adviser" the Gnome. Other foes from other series include the Puppet Master, once again from the pages of Fantastic Four, and the original Number One of the Secret Empire, from the Hulk's strip in the other half of Tales to Astonish. But it's the underwater foes Krang, Attuma and Byrrah who stand out the most.

After his reintroduction, Byrrah rapidly becomes a rival to the throne, which appears to be semi-elective through the people demanding a "plebiscite" which will mean a new "election". I wonder if Stan Lee actually knew a great deal about how monarchies operate - it's true that in times past some were elective to a degree, but by the second half of the twentieth century it became standard in much of the west to distinguish between "monarchies" as states where the headship passes by heredity and "republics" as states where the headship is selected on someone's consideration of the individual (whether that's the population as a whole considering the merits or a military officer personally considering themself to take power). "Plebiscites" (or referendums) on monarchies tend to be about their continuation or restoration rather than choosing between competing contenders and/or their lines. Just to add to the confusion, Byrrah's reign is undone when Dorma discovers he has used a hypnosis ray to win over the people and she cancels the effect, with the result the Atlanteans quickly see Byrrah as an impostor without any talk of new plebiscites. Did Dorma sneakily hypnotise them in the other direction, did the Atlanteans forget anything that happened whilst they were hypnotised or did they immediately realise what had happened and automatically dismiss the change as illegitimate? There's no such implication of constitutionality at all when Krang deposes Namor earlier in the volume and instead Namor has to embark upon a quest to find Neptune's Trident to prove he is the rightful heir to the throne. Strange people lying in water distributing weapons is... an interesting basis for a system of government and when Byrrah makes his take-over or even later when the Atlanteans mistakenly believe Namor has betrayed them and exile him, his recovery of the trident isn't mentioned at all.

The guest cast is limited with the most prominent member being the Lady Dorma, Namor's childhood companion and main romantic interest though their relationship is turbulent, not least when Krang forces Dorma to agree to marry him in exchange for saving Namor's life (a lie as Namor has already survived). Dorma had appeared in Sub-Mariner stories since the 1930s but only really rises to prominence here. During Namor's quest for the trident he is aided by an elder of Atlantis called Vashti who risks his all to support the former king's restoration; in gratitude Namor appoints him as his Grand Vizier and he appears through the rest of the run. Beyond these two, Krang and Byrrah, the Atlanteans aren't focused on regularly and there are no other notable recurrent characters.

But there's one feature about Atlantis that surprises me and that is that whenever we see the kingdom itself it doesn't look as though everyone is at the bottom of an ocean. There's the odd ripple effect on panels and the occasional fish, but the Atlanteans walk about as though they were on land, wearing clothes that would be suitable on land - Namor moving about in just his swimming trunks is very much the exception - including capes that flow freely. Namor can fly and often his movements through the seas are drawn as though he is in flight rather than swimming. And he rarely looks wet when he emerges above water. It's not just the people and their clothes either - when Atlantis is damaged, as it is several times in various locations in this run, the rubble tends to fall as if it were in air not water. Still none of this detracts from the excitement in the various battles, especially with other Marvel characters.

In spite of the growing interconnectedness of the Marvel Universe in this era, Namor's own series surprisingly limits encounters with other heroes to crossovers. The volume kicks off with Daredevil #7 (incidentally the issue where Daredevil changes his costume to the more familiar red outfit) in which Namor goes searching for lawyers to settle the grievances of Atlantis through peaceful channels, but the effort fails and he clashes with Daredevil before returning to his kingdom to face down an attempted coup. Later on he is pursuing Krang and Dorma and in the process clashes with Iron Man in "When fall the Mighty" which, according to The (Almost) Complete Marvel Crossover Guide, appears to be the very first Marvel crossover where a story was told in more than one title. Finally near the end of the volume whilst in exile once more, Namor considers the Hulk as a potential ally, but the Puppet Master takes control of the Green Goliath and the result is an extended fight that is a rare crossover within a single series as both characters' strips are fused to tell the extended story.

But curiously there are two notable omissions amongst the guest stars. The only appearance of the Fantastic Four is limited to a flashback in Sub-Mariner #1 when Namor's origin and history are recounted, whilst Captain America, the other major Marvel Golden Age hero revived in the Silver Age, makes no appearance at all. Namor spent the early years of the Silver Age largely around the Fantastic Four so it was a bold move for this series to keep away from rehashing what had gone before. However a couple of big continuity questions had been raised by Fantastic Four and never adequately resolved there - why was Namor an amnesiac drifter in New York when the new Human Torch found him and what had destroyed the original Atlantis and forced its inhabitants to wander the seas? These points are left unaddressed throughout the Tales to Astonish issues whilst Namor's origin is only hinted at by brief passing mentions. It doesn't surprise me to discover that the writer under whom the problems are resolved is Roy Thomas, in one of his earliest efforts to add the pre-Silver Age Timely & Atlas material to the continuity of the Marvel universe. The first issue of Sub-Mariner is a middle part of a storyline as Namor tackles Destiny, the foe who gave him amnesia and destroyed the original Atlantis, but the issue doesn't forget it's the start of a series and devotes a large chunk of its space to retelling Namor's origin and adventures up to his first encounter with the Fantastic Four, although much of the period between Namor's birth and the fall of Atlantis is explained very briefly over a couple of pages and with no reference to his interaction with other superheroes in the 1940s, whether in stories published at the time (such as his clashes with the original Human Torch or membership of the All-Winners Squad) or subsequent additions (though Thomas's creation of the Invaders was some years off). Still it's a good introduction to the character even if starting the new title midway through a storyline could limit its use as a "jumping-on point".

Unfortunately the volume ends with Namor seeking vengeance on Destiny, and even four years later there's still no sign of an Essential Sub-Mariner volume 2 (let alone the volume 5 it would take to cover both the Spider-Man appearances missed in my looks at guest appearances from 1962-1971 and 1972-1981). But hopefully this will be eventually rectified in due course. Otherwise we currently have a rare later Essential that ends on a stark cliffhanger.

Despite the ending, overall this is quite a good volume. Namor is something of an anti-hero to the surface world, sometimes a threat, occasionally a saviour, but as the devoted ruler of his own people - a devotion that is usually reciprocated - he is shown in a rather different light. He may be quick tempered and distrustful of the human race, even if he is half-human himself (though it's not unknown for people with multiple heritages to focus almost exclusively on just one), but his motives are good. Some of the ideas in the series have dated, particularly the quest for the trident to prove his right to the throne which feels more at home in traditional mythology than in 1960s literature, and it's easy to see why the second tale of his brief deposal is instead wrapped in political language, but overall the series holds up pretty well as a fast flowing adventure. The art may not always remember that Atlantis is a realm full of water not air, but it's strongly competent and Bill Everett's return to his creation doesn't jar with the rest of the run. Overall this is quite a solid run from one of the more unfortunately forgotten Silver Age strips.

Essential Super-Villain Team-Up volume 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Essential Defenders volume 1

The Defenders were very different from the teams that came before them. They weren't a formal gathering of heroes drawn together into a regulated organisation like the Avengers or the All-Winners Squad. They weren't a family of adventurers like the Fantastic Four. And they weren't an outgrowth of a school for training the powered like the X-Men. Instead they were a "non-team", a disparate group of individuals with no real organisation and no clear definition of membership, working together as needs be.

The original Defenders ran from 1971 until 1985, almost exactly matching the traditional dates for the Bronze Age of Comics. In a further twist the set-up stories included here cover the years 1969-1971 where the beginning of the Bronze Age is unclear, whilst at the other end of the run the last twenty-seven issues, running in 1983-1985 when the Bronze Age was winding down, saw the team heavily transformed into the "New Defenders". Few titles so perfectly match the period and show the various trends that ran through it.

Essential Defenders volume 1 reprints Defenders #1-14, plus Doctor Strange #183, Sub-Mariner #22 & #34-35, the Incredible Hulk #126, Marvel Feature #1-3 and Avengers #116-118 plus an extract from issue #115. The Doctor Strange, Sub-Mariner and Incredible Hulk issues feature first a crossover and then a team-up between different combinations of the three title characters and the Silver Surfer before they were made a regular team which was tested in the pages of Marvel Feature, one of Marvel's many try-out titles (later in its run it carried Ant-Man and then team-ups involving the Thing before the latter spun off into Marvel Two-in-One), before being given its own series. Early on in the run the Defenders clashed with the Avengers in what was at the time a lengthy crossover, and the issues from both series are included here.

The Marvel Feature issues are written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Ross Andru, then the Defenders issues are written first by Steve Englehart and then by Len Wein, and all drawn by Sal Buscema. The Doctor Strange issue is written by Thomas and drawn by Gene Colan, the Incredible Hulk issue is written by Thomas and drawn by Herb Trimpe, the Sub-Mariner issues are all written by Thomas and drawn by Marie Severin or Buscema, and the Avengers issues are all written by Englehart and drawn by Bob Brown.

So what precisely is a "non-team"? The Defenders differ strongly from most Marvel teams in that there is no real formal organisation. There's no home or base for the members, no formal rules of incorporation, no regular meetings replete with rigid meeting protocol, no clear definition of membership or criteria for who actually is and isn't a "member" and so forth. At this stage it's just a group of heroes drawn together when needed, who work with others they encounter in the course of such gatherings. But even here there's also the start of disagreements over just how organised the Defenders should be, with Namor being very firm until the end that there are no members whilst the Valkyrie wishes to join. Doctor Strange may see himself as the "leader" of the Defenders, but he commands far less authority over the others than the likes of Mr. Fantastic or Professor X over their respective teams.

Despite the protests of Namor and the traditional "non-team" status of the Defenders, it is possible to identify some clear members. At this stage the members are all amongst the heroes most commonly associated with the team. A popular image has built up of the Defenders having four founders, Doctor Strange, Namor the Sub-Mariner, the Incredible Hulk and the Silver Surfer. But this volume is a revelation of how that isn't quite the case as the four don't all appear together until Defenders #2, which is the fifth issue to go out under that title (Marvel Feature also included the individual strip's logo on the cover) and the tenth in the volume overall. It's questionable as to how far the Titans Three teaming of all bar Doctor Strange counts as a proto-Defenders story - they don't use the team name and, as we'll see, the good doctor is the initial keystone of the team. The initial Undying Ones crossover with Strange, Namor and the Hulk is on firmer ground here as it is revisited early on in the series. So the Surfer is really an add on, even if he has subsequently been included in many a founders' reunion, even within the original Defenders run itself (but that comes in much later volumes). The cover to this volume reuses that of Marvel Feature #1 and so we get just the other three heroes, thus doing a little bit to correct latter day revisionism. It's significant that all four heroes are strong loners, with Namor, the Hulk and the Surfer traditionally hostile to being pulled in to help others, a hostility that recurs throughout these issues making for some tense situations when the heroes are drawn together once more, with Namor in particular angry with the way he's drawn in. However over time Doctor Strange steadily works on developing a friendship with the Hulk to the point where at the end the Green Goliath is becoming more trusting and willing to stay around and work with the others. In contrast Namor is increasingly losing the battle against the Defenders becoming an ongoing team and being summoned against his will to help on missions, and so he withdraws altogether for the time being.

Several other heroes fight alongside the Defenders in these issues. The Valkyrie is a sort-of new character, the result of a fusion of an alter ego previously used by the Enchantress with a mad human woman. There's some initial discomfort amongst the others about this arrangement but the ethical side and any attempt to undo the spell are quickly forgotten and the Valkyrie becomes the first real committed recruit to the team who actually wants to be there. At the end of the volume Nighthawk works with the team and joins on the very last page, taking the place of Namor and showing the first signs of the Defenders becoming a slightly more coherent team. Namorita pops up but only for a single issue when her cousin is transported away and she helps find him. Hawkeye works with the Defenders for several issues, but his own comments at first place him clearly as a guest star rather than a "member" and when he departs he comments on having only stayed around for a specific job rather than anything permanent. That job involves the Black Knight who is even more firmly in the guest star category, encountering the Defenders on an adventure where he gets turned to stone. Later his spirit is sent back in time and the team go after him, but he opts to stay in the past and so never really becomes a Defender in any way. The volume also contains a couple of encounters with the Avengers, but the two groups are clearly delineated throughout.

The Defenders-Avengers conflict kicks off in earnest in Avengers #116, which starts with a note that it's the tenth anniversary of the start of the Avengers. It's an odd way to celebrate what is admittedly only a small milestone. The storyline itself was groundbreaking in being about the longest crossover to date in terms of both the number of issues and the publication time. Alongside the Undying Ones crossover that first brought Doctor Strange together with the other two founders, it was a sign of the way the comics industry would steadily develop to the stage where more and more storylines would require readers to buy additional issues from series they didn't normally read in order to get the whole story. It's great for providing extra material to fill collected editions decades later, but at the time it could lock out readers who for one reason or another didn't have access to the other title(s) on their local newsstands, and I don't know if subscribers got advance warning or special offers to receive the other issues as well. The storyline itself is relatively simple with one villain tricking the Defenders into a quest for a powerful item and another villain tricking the Avengers into fighting them, with each team assuming the others have impure motives. A significant chunk of the adventure is then taken up with fights between individual members of the team in different locations around the world before they realise they've been duped and team up to confront the villains and save the world. When summarised it does feel a bit like a standard Justice League of America plot. The emphasis is very much on the characters, with opportunities to see some clashes that hadn't been done for a while, such as Hawkeye against Iron Man or Namor against Captain America.

The Defenders face many villains in the course of these adventures. The Undying Ones debuted in Doctor Strange but in the final issue #183, which starts this volume off. The Nameless One and the Nightcrawler each debut in Sub-Mariner #22 and Incredible Hulk #126 respectively but these issues were tying up Doctor Strange's story after his own title was cancelled. The Titans Three story sees the trio fight first El General, the (oh what a surprise) military dictator of a Latin American country (also later on during the Defenders/Avengers clash there's a visit to an ex-Nazi's castle in a Latin American country) and then a clash with the Avengers in order to prevent a new device from inadvertently destroying the Earth. Once the Defenders proper get going, they fight a mixture of new and pre-existing foes. The New foes include Omegatron, a magical computer with a doomsday nuclear weapon attached, Necrodamus, a dark sorcerer, Calizuma, the leader of a group of warrior wizards, Cyrus Black, another evil sorcerer with a longstanding grudge against Doctor Strange, Chandu, a twelfth century mystic, and Nebulon the Celestial Man. Note just how many of these foes could easily have debuted in Doctor Strange had it still been running. Foes from other series include Yandroth and then Dormammu, both from the Doctor Strange strip in Strange Tales, Xemnu, who first appeared in Journey into Mystery in the pre-superhero era, the Giant Squids and later Casiolena, both having debuted in Avengers, the Enchantress, the Executioner and later Loki, all of whom are originally from the Thor strip in Journey into Mystery, Attuma and the Red Ghost, both from Fantastic Four, Mordred, from the 1950s Black Knight, and the Squadron Sinister, also from Avengers. The latter are evil copies of the Squadron Supreme and both are a deliberate erm... "homage" to DC's Justice League of America, allowing for substitutes for inter-company crossovers before they actually happened. The Squadron members shown here are Hyperion (based on Superman), Doctor Spectrum (based on Green Lantern) and the Whizzer (based on the Flash) plus renegade turned good Nighthawk (based on Batman). Overall there are rather fewer pre-existing Doctor Strange foes in this volume than I'd come to expect, but many of the new creations could have been cut from his series's cloth. Invariably with the Defenders initially consisting of two physically very powerful heroes and one of the most powerful magicians, the threats they face have to be similarly strong and this doesn't really change with the addition of extra members and guest stars. Instead, the team continues facing predominantly magical and mythical foes, with a smattering of other fantastical and cosmic types.

The threats the team face are a mixture of the small and personal as well as the grand scale to the Earth or even the entire dimension. At the end of the team's first story in Marvel Feature #1 Doctor Strange suggests the name "Defenders" - "A fitting name for such a grouping as we -- if we've need to meet again." The name is convincing, especially as it is initially picked for a team assembled just in emergencies. And the team may increasingly congeal as the series proceeds but there is still a lot of defending going on. On the smaller scale the members do look out for each other somewhat, with an ongoing plotline as Doctor Strange tries to find a cure for the Black Knight's stone form. This leads to a small personalised adventure in issue #11 as everyone is transported to the twelfth century Middle East during a Crusade. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to have been a great deal of research with both "King Richard the Lion Hearted" and Prince John out there, fighting the "Mohammedeans" or occasionally called "Arabs" - not the most sensitive terms to use. It's not the more nuanced and sensitive view of the Crusades that was emerging at the time.

As mentioned above, Defenders ran for the duration of the Bronze Age. Looking at just the early issues here there are some signs of the changes but others would come later. The team itself is structurally very different from the more grand and formalised teams established in the Silver Age. The crossover with Avengers began a trend that would grow over times. And there's a brief sign of some of the growing trend towards more socially aware comics, primarily in the form of the Valkyrie's feminism. But whilst she demonstrates her worth as a member of the team holding her own when she destroys the Omegatron early on, she's not the best representative of liberated women as after all she's one persona occupying another's body and was created by an Asgardian goddess (although that would get retconned later on) and so lacks actual experience of the human world. Otherwise much of the emphasis of the series is on fantastical adventures rather than on more down to earth affairs.

This is a volume that encompasses the team going through three different writers as one sets up the series, a second then has a year and a half long run (albeit only eleven issues as the series was initially bimonthly) before a third takes over for the last few issues. It surprising how the changing writers aren't particularly noticeable with the series maintaining its themes and not veering off in a new direction and having everything changed under a new regime. Consequently momentum is maintained and there's a good clear sense of what the Defenders are, even if there isn't a precise definition of membership, and how they carry out their objectives. The team contains quite a diverse set of individuals but manages to hold together and they're a believable force. The team was very different to much of what had come before, but that works to its advantage and it wasn't just another variation of already tried themes. It had a good strong start.