Essential Killraven volume 1 - creator labels

Once again there are a lot of creators in this volume, hence a separate post to carry the labels for them.

Omitted material: What If? Classic volume 4

It's time for another look at some of the Spider-Man related issues of What If?

#21: "What If the Invisible Girl had Married the Sub Mariner?", written by Bill Mantlo and drawn by Gene Colan, reprinted in What If? Classic volume 4

This was a sequel to issue #1's "What If Spider-Man Joined the Fantastic Four?". Following the departure of the Invisible Girl in that issue, the team has reverted to the name "Fantastic Four". However Spider-Man's approach is still very independent and early on in the story matters come to a head after the team defeats the Super Skrull. Following an argument Spider-Man resigns and swings off, leaving the story completely. Perhaps it's a sign that Spider-Man just can't be a team player, no matter how favourable the circumstances, or that the Fantastic Four just aren't good at accepting newcomers (though both these points would be challenged in later years).

The rest of the story is an alternate Fantastic Four tale as the remains of the team come to terms with the Invisible Girl's departure. It's a tale of anger and revenge that sees Mr Fantastic nearly wipe out the entire population of Atlantis in his attempt to reclaim her. It's quite a downbeat story that suggests Mr Fantastic has serious issues but it's not a Spider-Man tale in any way. On its own this can be ignored.

#23: "What If the Hulk Had Become a Barbarian?", written by Peter Gillis and drawn by Herb Trimpe,
"Untold Tales of the Marvel Universe: The First Celestial Host!" written by Mark Gruenwald and drawn by Ron Wilson
&
"What if Aunt May Instead of Her Nephew Peter Had Been Bitten By That Radioactive Spider?" written by Steve Skeates and drawn by Alan Kupperberg, all reprinted in What If? Classic volume 4

The lead story is another non-Spider-Man one so I won't cover it here. The second tale isn't even an alternate reality but rather the first part of a multi-part origin of the races the Deviants and the Eternals. But it's the third tale of interest to this post. We get another take on the radioactive spider biting someone else, though this time it's played for laughs and Peter never retrieves the dead spider or (as far as we know) eventually become Spider-Man. Aunt May adopts a costume which looks surprisingly like a version of Super-Gran's costume years before the latter hit the TV screens, albeit with the familiar red & blue design and a mask. As a weapon she uses her pastry decorator loaded with special dough and gets into a fight with Leap-Frog. She finally defeats him in her own backyard but not before Peter sees them and faints. As he recovers a now uncostumed Aunt May wonders if she can fairly divide her time between her responsibilities to her nephew and fighting crime.

This is another tale played primarily for laughs and doesn't offer a great deal beyond showing that Aunt May is tougher than we've often assumed (when this was first printed, it wasn't long since her last major round of heart attacks in the regular Amazing Spider-Man). It's either fun or irritating, I like it for its wackiness.


#24: "What if Spider-Man had Rescued Gwen Stacy?", written by Tony Isabella and drawn by Gil Kane
&
"Untold Tales of the Marvel Universe: The First Eternals!" written by Ralph Macchio and drawn by Rich Buckler, both reprinted in What If? Classic volume 5

The (Spidey-less) back-up story is more of the history of a then-new Marvel race, and frankly seems to have been run in What If? purely because it was the only available outlet to tackle some obscure continuity. However it's only five pages and this issue saw the page count for the series increased so it doesn't detract from the main feature.

Outside of anything to do with the origin, Gwen Stacy living is by far the most obvious and demanded of all the potential Spider-What If?s. As an added bonus it's drawn by the original artist so has the exact visual feel of Amazing Spider-Man c1973. However the writer is someone different and I'm unconvinced that this is how the series would have proceeded had it been decided that Gwen was to live.

This story sees Peter save Gwen from the Green Goblin, and on the age-old "What killed Gwen?" question, this story takes both sides. The opening few pages are set in the regular timeline and feature Peter remembering Gwen at the site of the bridge and commenting "I hadn't considered what the shock of that sudden fall could do to someone without my own spider-strength" (and there are no sound effects). However the alternate tale is based around her surviving that very fall when Spider-Man jumps after her and uses his own body to cushion the impact against the water. My best guess is that in 1980 Marvel truly didn't want to explicitly say it was the whiplash from being snatched by the webbing but was aware of their past statements on the matter.

Spidey has saved Gwen but in the process she discovers his identity. And rather than running screaming at her boyfriend being her father's murderer, she instead lets him speak then believes & forgives him. Even in 1980 the regular continuity was still reluctant to have any of Peter's girlfriends actually learn his secret, but this is a realistic take on how such a scenario could have played out. The two get engaged but first Spidey has to wrap up the Goblin. This is the less realistic part as first the Goblin reverts to his "I wanna be a crimelord and I'll do it by defeating Spider-Man" approach which hadn't been seen since Amazing #27 (although the Bart Hamilton Goblin did do a bit of this) and then we get yet another almost magic cure for his insanity when the sight of Harry standing up to Spider-Man to defend his father causes the old man to instantly be cured. Well okay this spins off an era when the Goblin persona had regularly been suppressed with equally silly methods, but it just doesn't ring true. The rest of the story sees Peter and Gwen's wedding day (organised amazingly quickly when you consider that Ned Leeds and Betty Brant took over a hundred issues to get from proposal to the big day) but suddenly Jonah bursts in, having been mailed proof that Peter is Spider-Man by the Goblin before he was cured. Once again Aunt May falls victim to stereotype "My Peter? That awful Spider-Man? It can't be! It just can't b... Uunnhh..." and collapses with a heart attack. Okay Peter spent years worrying that this would happen, but in reality two separate writers would go on to show Aunt May knowing the secret without an immediate collapse. To save her Peter bursts out a window as Jonah proudly produces the frontpage of the Daily Bugle with the revelation. Robbie resigns in disgust and leads Gwen away to first get help for May and then get the truth about Peter out there. The story ends with Peter stuck on a rooftop with neither costume nor webshooters, wondering if he's going to be hunted down or become the menace Jonah always claimed he was...

This whole ending brings a mixed reaction from me. It is true that Gerry Conway has stated several times that he felt if Gwen lived it was inevitable she and Peter would marry, but I don't think the series would have gone down that route quite so quickly. It's never made clear just what the actual proof Jonah receives is, nor why he doesn't subject it to any kind of test before rushing a potentially libellous headline into print. However Peter's reaction is more believable, hot-headedly showing off his strength rather than denouncing the accusation as lies and talking his way out. What If?s often end on a downbeat moment rather than show a scenario that the regular comic could have come to, but I think this one could have been made an exception to give Peter and Gwen the alternate happy ending they deserved.


The other tales in the fourth volume are:

• #22: "What If Dr. Doom Had Become a Hero?"
• #25: "What If Thor and the Avengers Battled the Gods?" & "Untold Tales of the Marvel Universe: The First Uni-Mind!"
• #26: "What If Captain America Had Been Elected President?", "What If The Man-Thing Had Regained Ted Sallis' Brain?" & "Untold Tales of the Marvel Universe: Outpost on Uranus"

Omitted material: Marvel Team-Up 79

Once more it's time for a diversion to look at an issue where Marvel no longer have the rights to publish the guest star. This time it's Marvel Team-Up #79, in which Spider-Man teams up with Red Sonja, who is now licensed to Dynamite Entertainment. The issue has had a few reprints over the years – whilst Marvel still held the rights they included it in Mighty Marvel Team-Up Thrillers, a 1983 trade paperback, then in Marvel Tales #208. More recently in 2007 Marvel teamed up with Dynamite to produce a special Spider-Man/Red Sonja limited series that serves as a sequel to this story and the trade paperback published the following year includes the Team-Up issue as well.

Red Sonja herself is a sword-wielding hero from the Hyborian Age, a fictional era thousands of years ago in which many sword and sorcery tales take place, best associated with Conan the Barbarian. This issue is by the-then regular Team-Up team of Chris Claremont and John Byrne, and is Byrne's last regular issue.

The story is relatively straightforward, focusing on a small cast. Kulan Gath's body was killed in his own time by Red Sonja, but he transferred his spirit to an amulet which has been found in the present day and is now part of a New York museum exhibit. There the amulet possesses a security guard, transforming him into Gath who sets about trying to reincarnate the gods he serves. Peter is dispatched from the Bugle's Christmas party (where one of the guests is Clark Kent!) to photograph the strange events, but Mary Jane opts to follow for the excitement and even pursues Peter into the museum. There Spider-Man fights monsters and Mary Jane finds herself drawn to a glowing sword that transforms her into Red Sonja. Neither hero can understand the other, but Gath's magic allows him to communicate with both as he captures them and prepares to sacrifice them. However they break free and Spidey knocks his foe outside where the confusion of modern New York overwhelms Gath, allow the amulet to be removed. Gath transforms back into the security guard and Red Sonja into Mary Jane as everything returns to normal. Later Peter finds the amulet tries to possess him so he flings it away in the ocean.

With only seventeen pages this is a very brief story that doesn't have much time to do more than throw the two heroes together to defeat the threat. Perhaps that’s why Spider-Man and Red Sonja are unable to understand each other's language when normally this is no barrier in fiction. There's also no exploration of how Mary Jane reacts to having been possessed, or how Peter feels about seeing one of his girlfriends (the opening page has the first ever mention of Cissy Ironwood beginning a brief era of multiple girlfriends) in a steel bikini – for many this would be beyond their wildest dreams. And I'm rather unfamiliar with Red Sonja's continuity and have no idea whether this is meant to be the original or the reincarnated version from her own series, nor for that matter at what point in her life she's come from. Perhaps it would have been best to make this story a two-parter to allow more room to breathe, but that could have brought additional problems with having to bring in another guest character. Instead the emphasis is very much on just having the two heroes in action together – and Byrne draws both of them well.

As is so often the case with omitted material it really isn't something to construct legends around. This is if anything a below average issue of the series, largely due to the different eras of the two heroes requiring more space than usual to bring them together, leaving very little space to tell the story in. It may have spawned multiple sequels (as well as the aforementioned limited series there was also a two-part story in Uncanny X-Men that saw Gath return and transform the whole of Manhattan) but the original is more idea than substance. This is not one to search high and low for.

Essential Ghost Rider volume 1

Essential Ghost Rider volume 1 contains Marvel Spotlight #5-12, featuring the character's debut, the first twenty issues of the original Ghost Rider (although issue #10 carried an emergency reprint of Marvel Spotlight #5 to plug a production delay) and also Daredevil #138 which contained a crossover with the series. For those unfamiliar with it, Marvel Spotlight was a try-out book which carried a succession of new characters before they were launched in their own series. Other series launched by it included Werewolf by Night, The Son of Satan and Spider-Woman. Effectively issues #5-11 are the "real" first seven issues of Ghost Rider in all but name, whilst issue #12 was a crossover at the start of headlining The Son of Satan. Additionally the volume also contains Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe entries for both Johnny Blaze and Daimon Hellstrom the Son of Satan.

Not included are Ghost Rider's appearances in Marvel Team-Up #15 and Marvel Two-in-One #8, even though the former introduces recurring villain the Orb. In this period Ghost Rider also became a member of the Champions, largely because of an editorial edict that at least one team member had to have their own series regardless of how much sense the team made. Events in The Champions get referenced on occasion, and it can be a little confusing when Ghost Rider is reflecting on his actions there. Hopefully one day The Champions will get the Essential treatment - there's just about enough material for a volume (and one issue had already appeared in Essential Super-Villain Team-Up).

The writing is primarily by Gary Friedrich and Tony Isabella, with Doug Moench, Marv Wolfman (who also wrote the Daredevil issue), Steve Gerber and Bill Mantlo all contributing scripts, plus Roy Thomas plotted the first Marvel Spotlight issue. The art sees runs by Mike Ploog, Tom Sutton, Jim Mooney, George Tuska and Frank Robbins, and individual issues by Herb Trimpe, Sal Buscema, Bob Brown and John Byrne, who also drew the Daredevil issue. (Because there are so many names, I've created a separate post to carry the relevant creator labels.) The character was created by... erm... this is a point of contention. The very first issue in the volume states "Conceived & written by Gary Friedrich" but there's some dispute over how much he contributed vis a vis Roy Thomas and Mike Ploog. The name "Ghost Rider" had previously been used for a 1967 Western series and character but there was no connection between the two, with the earlier version later renamed the "Phantom Rider" to remove confusion. (However the 2007 movie did connect the two characters but that's another story altogether.)

In all my years of collecting, Ghost Rider is probably the longest running character I have had the least contact with. The second series was still running for the first few years of my collecting, but the only issue I ever purchased was #-1 from "Flashback Month" This was one of Marvel's big events, the idea being that almost every title would have a special issue with odd numbering set in the past before Fantastic Four #1 and presented in retro style with old fashioned logos and colouring. Unfortunately the idea in practice resulted in a set of random issues that weren't very good introductions to many series because it was years before most characters gained their skills, powers and friendships and really did anything, and so instead young characters and their supporting cast often wandered around rather dull situations. This was certainly true of Ghost Rider #-1 which I can barely remember the details of but by definition it couldn't actually feature any of the Ghost Riders once powered up. (Flashback Month was also a disaster saleswise with many retailers and readers seeing it as an opportunity to take a month off without a gap in the ongoing narrative or the numbering of their collections.) Otherwise the Ghost Rider passed me by. Perhaps it was because there weren't any in crossovers that I collected. Perhaps it was a consequence of the "Marvelution" whereby for a significant chunk of those years the Marvel line was divided up between five separate group editors-in-chief and crosspromotion between titles in different groups was rare. Maybe it was sheer bad luck.

Going by just this volume it's clear that I was missing out. It's incredibly well written, with events flowing from one issue into the next and really making one want to keep going. (This can create problems for other appearances in this era and some are explicitly stated as taking place between panels but that's their problem.) There may be some individual stages where the series drifts from its course, particularly when one issue ends promising something and the next has either a reprint (#10) or a fill-in (#16) and indeed at one point an issue ends with "Next: We honest to goodness really don't know! How's that for honesty?", perhaps a sign of the general problems plaguing Marvel's schedules in this era. However, in general it's able to get things back to normal. The first Marvel Spotlight issue describes Ghost Rider as "the most supernatural superhero of all!" but the early issues in this volume are less superheroey than the average Marvel title of its time. Instead, it's far more of a horror title, exploring the struggle between Johnny Blaze and the Devil himself. On a secondary level the title and character was launched at the height of Evel Knievel and we get a protagonist who is a motorcycling stunt daredevil, though wisely there isn't too much time actually spent on showing him actually undertaking stunts, since it's difficult to translate the awe of achieving real life astounding feats into a medium that has long done just that. As the series goes on it also taps into another theme of the wandering young man searching both the country and themselves that was in vogue at the time but which also goes back to classic westerns.

Ghost Rider's origin is quite downbeat even by the standards of many heroes, as Johnny Blaze loses not one, not two, but three parents, all in separate incidents - his father, Barton Blaze, dies in a cycle stunt, then his adoptive mother, Mona Simpson, dies when a cycle explodes, and finally his adoptive father, Crash Simpson, contracts a terminal disease. Blaze is also very quick to make promises without thinking through the consequences and also relatively easy to break them - on his adoptive mother's deathbed he promises her that he won't ride in the show but never reveals this pledge (although his adoptive sister Roxanne deduces it) even though it weakens him in the eyes of his adoptive father. Then when his adoptive father dies performing a stunt Johnny quickly breaks that promise and completes the stunt himself. But most notably of all he is suddenly revealed to also be sufficiently knowledgeable in the occult to summon up Satan and pledges his soul in exchange for Crash not dying of the disease. But literally the devil is in the detail as Crash instead dies in the arena. Then Johnny tries to resist Satan when he comes to collect, though it takes Roxanne's purity to drive off the Devil, leaving Johnny with the ability to turn into a flaming skull with fire powers at night time. It's incredible how Johnny so easily turned to the ultimate evil rather than break a pledge that he wound up easily breaking anyway. And before the panel of him seeing the Devil there's nothing preceding in the flashbacks that even suggests he had the interest and knowledge to go this route. And then there's the being he dealt with.

I have previously expressed my surprise that Marvel would create Mephisto, a character initially presented as being all but named as the Devil but there was enough potential ambiguity to avoid being drawn too close on that point. But Ghost Rider goes a step further and doesn't even avoid calling a character "Satan" or "the Devil". What relationship he has to Mephisto is not explained at this stage - was this Marvel's equivalent of DC's Atlantis problem whereby different series portrayed the same basic concept in wildly different ways?  But even more surprising is the appearance from issue #9 onwards by a stranger with long hair and a beard who sees off Satan and understands about sin and the soul. If it wasn't for how daring a move this is, the stranger's identity would be all too obvious. Indeed by issue #18 Johnny/Ghost Rider has worked it out even before he sees an image of the stranger being crucified by several villains which should dispel any remaining doubts. However the following issue backtracks on the idea (by all accounts due to an editorial rewrite to overrule on this point) and instead declares the stranger was always a illusion created by the Devil. So it was deemed acceptable to portray Satan but not Jesus Christ. They even went as far as to release a series entitled "Son of Satan". Marvel in the 21st century has shown more caution - whatever the other arguments for it, the first volume of Essential Marvel Horror is really "Essential Children of Satan" (there's also Satana, the Devil's Daughter) but in this day and age it's hard to see such a title being used on shelves. True there was a mini-series in 2006-7 entitled "Hellstorm: Son of Satan" (the spelling of Daimon's surname jumps about a bit) but the emphasis of the logo design was heavily on "Hellstorm" and there's a difference between the specialist comic shops and the general market.

What is quite overwhelming is just how many times the foes are either Satan or servants of him. These include variously a gang of motorcyclists led by the spirit of Crash Simpson, Snake Dance, the head of a native American tribe who can become a giant serpent, Witch-Woman, his daughter who has succumbed to Satanism whilst at college, Roulette, the spirit of a gambler who looks like Death, One-Man Zodiac, formerly Aquarius who is now able to impersonate all eleven of his ex comrades, Slifer/Inferno, a demon augmenting him, Legion, a multitude of possessing demons, and Challenger, an arch demon. There are a few who aren't so directly connected, such as Big Daddy Dawson, the leader of another biker gang, or Hermann von Reitberger & Phantom Eagle, combatants from the First World War who present a scenario where things are not as they seem at first, whilst from other titles we get the Trapster, the Orb (introduced in Marvel Team-Up despite his connection to the Simpsons), and seemingly Death's Head, who is in fact Death Stalker, along with sidekick the Smasher, all Daredevil foes.

The wider Marvel universe doesn't make too many appearances despite this volume reprinting some twenty-nine issues in total. There's a crossover with Daredevil at the end and the Hulk pops up but otherwise existing characters are alluded to rather than actually appearing, though in issue #18 the Challenger produces illusions of the Thing, Spider-Man, Hercules and the Black Widow as part of his torment of the Ghost Rider. The early issues of the series also see the debut of Daimon Hellstrom, the Son of Satan, who returns later on. But it's two supporting characters who prove the most surprising imports. The Stuntmaster had previously appeared in a handful of issues of Daredevil where he started off as a villain but reformed and went off to Hollywood where he now has a television series and Johnny Blaze gets roped in as another stuntman to work on the series. This brings him into contact with Karen Page, who is also familiar from Daredevil where she had initially worked as Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson's secretary before seeking new career horizons in acting. Here she's still working as a mainstream actress (her more infamous work came later), and there's an extended tease about whether she and Johnny will become an item, with the Daredevil crossover largely serving as a way for her to fully cut her romantic ties with Ol' Hornhead. However any developments with Johnny are compounded by the presence of "Katy Milner", Karen's stunt double who turns out to be a disguised Roxanne Simpson.

Roxanne is by far the most prominent recurring character, successfully transitioning from the early issues when Johnny is still attached to the Simpson carnival, to the later issues based in Hollywood. She is in the awkward position of being both Johnny's adoptive sister and romantic interest though the potential complications are never explored here. At this stage she is deliberately presented as a young naive, innocent woman - factors that play key parts in storylines first when her innocence saves Johnny when Satan first tries to collect his soul, and later when she is tricked into renouncing that protection as she believes it will save her father's soul from suffering. After this she feels she has to mature and leaves Johnny for a while, but in what feels like another editorial rewrite she is later revealed to have been unknowingly disguised as Katy Milner, perhaps as a way to quickly get her back into the series after a change of writers. There are various other recurring characters such as Bart Slade, Johnny's crippled road manager, or Coot Collier, a Hollywood director, but none are of too great an importance.

As for Ghost Rider himself, the character undergoes some development throughout this volume as he leans from repeated encounters with Satan and steadily becomes less selfish. His powers undergo a subtle shift in line with this - at first Johnny Blaze turns into Ghost Rider every night at sunset but later on his power shifts after three occasions when he opts to help others instead of merely escaping he finds himself now changing only when there is danger. His physical powers are primarily strength and his hellfire energy, which he most notably uses to create a motorcycle from nothing when more corporal ones are other of action. Early on he seems a little too willing to use his hellfire blasts to kill or at least put his foes in real jeopardy, with thoughts such as "Don't like killing anyone -- but better he die than innocent drivers!" As the series progresses this becomes less notable. Of more prominence are his cycles, with the hellfire versions usually reflecting the physical versions. I know nothing about motorcycles but visually I prefer the design he originally uses, as shown on the cover of this volume, to the "Skull-Cycle" he uses in the latter part with the windscreen and headlights integrated into a skull-like design on the front of the bike. Ghost Rider's identity is generally not a secret, although there's the occasional moment when this isn't so certain, but I feel the Skull-Cycle is somewhat of an overkill and a more conventional design works better.

Overall, this volume turned out to be quite a surprise. It may have a heavy focus on a single foe and his minions, but this works to the series's advantage, allowing it to show the extended struggle and journey Johnny Blaze is on as he steadily attains redemption. This isn't in anyway an overt religious preachy story but rather an adventure/horror series that follows one man through his trials and tribulations. I am amazed at how much the writers were able to get away with in regards to the religious elements, but combined with everything else they make for quite a good run. I am amazed at just how much Ghost Rider has passed me by before now.

Essential Ghost Rider volume 1 - creator labels

As noted in my review of Essential Ghost Rider volume 1, there are a lot of creators involved so I've created this separate post to carry all the labels for them.

Essential Marvel Team-Up volume 4

Another volume of Essential Marvel Team-Up has now been released, slowly closing up one of the gaps in the overall Essential programme. Volume 4 contains issues #76-78 & #80-98, plus Annuals #2 & #3. As previously predicted, omitted is issue #79 which contains a team-up of Spider-Man and Red Sonja, a character Marvel no longer holds the rights for. (However the issue has had a few other reprints and I'll come to it in a special post.) As bonus material the volume also includes three original covers used when some of these issues were reprinted in Marvel Tales.

Writing-wise, the issues in this volume cover the end of Chris Claremont's run and the start of Steven Grant's, with fill-ins by Bill Kunkel, Alan Kupperberg and one plotted by Marv Wolfman & scripted by Roger McKenzie. The annuals are by Claremont and Roger Stern. The art is more mixed with the main artists being Sal Buscema, Mike Vosburg and Carmine Infantino, but there are many other contributors including Alan Kupperberg, Howard Chaykin, Jeff Aclin, Don Perlin, Bob McLeod, Gene Colan, Michael Nasser, Rich Buckler, Pat Broderick, Tom Sutton, Mike Zeck, Jimmy Janes and Will Meugniot. One annual is drawn by Kupperberg and Buscema, the other by Herb Trimpe. Because of all these credits I've created a separate post for the non-regular creator labels.

As per usual here's a full run down of the stars of each issue:

76. Spider-Man and Dr Strange
77. Spider-Man and Ms. Marvel
78. Spider-Man and Wonder Man
80. Spider-Man and Dr Strange and Clea
81. Spider-Man and Satana
82. Spider-Man and the Black Widow
83. Spider-Man and Nick Fury
84. Spider-Man and Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu
85. Spider-Man, Shang-Chi, the Black Widow and Nick Fury
86. Spider-Man and the Guardians of the Galaxy
87. Spider-Man and the Black Panther
88. Spider-Man and the Invisible Girl
89. Spider-Man and Nightcrawler
90. Spider-Man and the Beast
91. Spider-Man and Ghost Rider
92. Spider-Man and Hawkeye
93. Spider-Man and Werewolf
94. Spider-Man and the Shroud, Master of Darkness
95. Spider-Man and Mockingbird
96. Spider-Man and Howard the Duck
97. Hulk and Spider-Woman
98. Spider-Man and the Black Widow
Annual 2. Spider-Man and Hulk
Annual 3. Hulk and Power Man & Iron Fist

Well we finally get a team-up with the Invisible Girl, the only one of the main Fantastic Four left out before, and there's appearances by the Beast from the X-Men/Avengers (and later on other teams) and the Hulk, but otherwise this is very much a tour of the less well known part of the Marvel universe even if Spider-Woman and Howard the Duck had a high profile in their heyday.

Whilst Spider-Man has invariably been Marvel's premier solo hero for most of the past fifty years, there's never been such a clear candidate for the number two slot in all ages. It's interesting to see which heroes get especial promotion in any particular period and the tail end of this volume sees one hero actually taking Spider-Man's place as the header feature. This was the age of the Incredible Hulk TV series, which even all these years later is still Marvel's only real success with live action television, and so it's not surprising to find the Hulk was being pushed more prominently. At the time it also helped to nibble away at the problem of Spider-Man being overused. However the same charge could be applied to the Hulk - in the same month issue #97 came out (cover date September 1980) he also had his own title at issue #251 plus his own annual #9 plus an appearance in Marvel Two-in-One annual #5 plus he was a cover feature in that month's Defenders #87 plus he had a reprint title Marvel Super-Heroes #91 plus the Fantastic Four reprint title Marvel's Greatest Comics #92 carried a Hulk/Thing clash plus he and Spider-Man shared Marvel Treasury Edition #27 containing reprints. The Marvel Team-Up annual came out two months later and things were a little better - "just" the Hulk's own title #253 plus Defenders #89 plus reprints in Marvel Super-Heroes #93. Now it's true Spider-Man already had a lot of titles, with Spidey Super Stories and reprints in Marvel Tales expanding his number of appearances on the newsstands, but that wasn't necessarily the best path to follow.

Curiously both the issues with the Hulk as first named hero actually feel more like part of the second heroes' series with far more emphasis on their set-ups and supporting casts than the Hulk's. The Spider-Woman issue falls during her bounty hunter era when Michael Fleisher was writing the regular title and sees her chasing criminal smugglers in the American south west with the Hulk intervening in battle with a mad scientist. It doesn't add a great deal to either character and it's a pity that Spider-Woman's sole appearance in Marvel Team-Up should be in an issue without Spider-Man as their encounters in her own title didn't really allow for a good old fashioned working together. Annual #3 is similarly dominated, this time by Power Man & Iron Fist as the Heroes for Hire are engaged to transport and guard a package which the Hulk is tricked into stealing. To add to the numbers we also get an appearance by Machine Man, who in his other identity of Aaron Stack is part of a team from the package manufacturer's insurance company. Fortunately the greater space in the annual allows space for all the elements to breathe. There's even a tiny cameo by Spider-Man who swings by Power Man and Iron Fist as they wrap up a previous assignment, but realises they've handled it on their own. The Hulk also co-stars with Spider-Man in Annual #2 where he's recruited by a Russian agent to prevent the creation of an anti-matter bomb that could wipe out the United States and trigger a destructive world war. All these appearances give the Hulk exposure but also expose just how limited his character can be. Bruce Banner is wandering across the United States, transforming into the "savage Hulk" when stressed, and reverting when calmed down by one means or another, but there's no great meat to the character. When he's portrayed as a rampaging dumb brute he's at his least interesting and the main interest in stories is either how Banner will take pre-emptive action against him or else how those around the Hulk react. If handled well then a succession of regular slots in Marvel Team-Up would work for a time in showing how other heroes work with and against the Hulk's rampaging brute form, but after a time it would have eventually tired and I'm amazed the Hulk's own title lasted as long as it did before other personas were brought to the fore.

As for the more regular star of the book, the Spider-Man stories can be broadly split between the two regular writers. The end of Claremont's run includes two multi-part epics that draw in lots of characters and put some of them through the wringer. Grant's run is primarily made up of single issue stories though he does connect the Werewolf & Shroud issues (#93-94) and then set the Mockingbird issue (#95) almost straight after them. Claremont's work shows some advances from his earlier issues, and in particular there are no further references to Gwen Stacey, which had always felt rather forced in his earlier issues after some five years of Spider-Man not constantly being reminded of her all the time. We also get another rare supporting case member who débuts within the pages of Marvel Team-Up, although she has often been forgotten since.

As noted when I previously wrote about issues #80 & #81, this run sees yet another woman in Peter's life in the form of Cissy Ironwood. Additionally there are strong hints during the four parter with the Black Widow that suggest that her temporary alter ego of "Nancy Rushman" could get something going with Spider-Man. Considering that this era of Spider-Man (corresponding to Amazing #187-209, i.e. mainly Marv Wolfman's run, and Spectacular #25-#47, i.e. mainly Bill Mantlo's first) is already awash with women, containing the final break-up with Mary Jane Watson, the brief affair with Betty Leeds, the introductions of Marcy Kane, the Black Cat, Debra Whitman and April Maye (although not all these made it very far), plus a rather close encounter with Dazzler all within the other two titles, then either Peter is more of a ladies' man than at any other point in his history or else we have the consequences of poor communication between writers. I suspect part of the problem may be down to Chris Claremont having structured his stories around Peter having a regular girlfriend - most of Cissy's appearances involve things actually happening on or after dates between her and Peter - and then finding there was none to fill the role. Annual #2 is focused on her father's background in building destructive weapons, but very little more is revealed about Cissy herself. The relationship between her and Peter is quite close, as shown most notably by his reaction when she's attacked by the werewolf Doctor Strange, but also very fast as seen from comments about how they've only recently started dating. Given her father's work in multiple field of physics, is her attraction to Peter due to his vague resemblance? Quite a few women are drawn to men who resemble their fathers. After her father's death in the annual, Cissy disappears and I'm struggling to remember if she was even mentioned again outside of the odd back-up feature in later annuals that name checked the various women in Peter's life. It's very hard to assess the relationship because we don't get to see the build-up to when they started dating - the only hints given are a comment Cissy makes about how her friend was wrong about Peter and another where she says Peter asked her out - or for that matter the detail of any split. Nor is it clear just where precisely these issues fit into the overall chronology of Peter's life, a particular problem given just how crowded this period is, so we have no idea if he was on a direct rebound from Mary Jane or Betty or if instead he had been single for a while or if he was in what we now call open relationships or what. It's also hard to assess just how understanding she is about Peter's constant disappearing or the other baggage in his life. What we're left with are just glimpses of a relationship rather than anything substantial.

As for the adventures themselves, we get two four-part epics although the first is split in two with two other issues placed between it. The story is focused on Doctor Strange's battles first with his old enemy Silver Dagger and Marie LeVeau, with help from both Spider-Man and Ms. Marvel, and then as a consequence Strange winds up transformed into a werewolf. The second half of the story sees Spider-Man working with Strange's romantic interest and disciple Clear and his servant Wong to try to restrain and cure him, when they receive further the crucial help from Satana, the Devil's Daughter. It's a particularly intense story but it really feels like Doctor Strange's story more than anything else, with Satana brought in for the concluding part to give closure (in as far as any Marvel character can obtain closure) by killing her off at the end. Curiously the second part (issue #77) provides the cover that's used for the whole volume but it's not terribly representative of the story as a whole. Still it's a striking image by John Romita Junior, one of his earliest pieces of Spider-Man work, and Ms. Marvel has risen to prominence once more in recent years so it's unsurprising to see it used here.

The other epic involves the Black Widow operating under the delusion she is a school teacher called "Nancy Rushman" and pursued through New York by agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Spider-Man gets involved to help her, as does subsequently Shang-Chi the Master of Kung-Fu and Nick Fury, as they uncover a plot by the Viper and the Silver Samurai to crash the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier headquarters into Congress during a speech by the President (Jimmy Carter, going on about the oil crisis in rather pronounced form to remind us all how serious it is and how the country and world must make tough choices) and wipe out the entire US government. It's a good saga that combines action, espionage and a personal element, with strong hints that "Nancy Rushman" and Spider-Man could be an item. Sadly when the Widow is fully recovered she breaks the news to Spider-Man that whilst "Nancy" and he may have had something going, she is not her and it won't be happening. The two team up again at the end of the volume to tackle the Owl, but there's no hint of mention let alone regret about what almost was.

The only other multi-part tale involves the latter part of Spider-Man's visit to Los Angles as a follow-up to his visit there in the pages of Spider-Woman. Spider-Man first teams up with the Werewolf, who is much changed from their previous encounter, to fight the latter's old foe Tatterdemalion. Spider-Man's presence attracts the attention of the mystical Dansen Macabre who hypnotises him into capturing the Shroud. Unfortunately both parts of the story fall into the tap of treating Spider-Man almost as an interloper on private feuds and don't give us the greatest sense of involvement. Upon Spider-Man's return he runs into Mockingbird, the new identity for the character previously called the Huntress (in the time since her last appearance, DC had used the name for a rather more prominent character of their own) who is fighting corruption in S.H.I.E.L.D. Once again, the tale has Spider-Man almost needlessly intruding upon other people's affairs. It's also unusual to use Marvel Team-Up as the place to launch a new identity for a character.

The rest of the volume is taken up with a variety of individual team-ups, some of which work rather better than others. The encounter with Howard the Duck is very much in the spirit of Steve Gerber's run on the character, complete with a strange villain parodying a piece of modern American society and the duck commenting on the absurdities of it all. Here the villain is "Status Quo", a campaigner who speaks out against all the latest fads and stirs up crowds to act against them, attracting massive media attention, until Howard points out that Status Quo is "An opportunist -- media hyping your way into the national consciousness for your own selfish ends!" - or in other words an example of one of the latest fads! This forces Status Quo to stand down and rethink his approach. We also get to see Howard naked (no, not *that* sort of naked) - notoriously Howard was forced into trousers and a modified design due to complaints from Disney about intellectual property infringement with Donald Duck. Getting Howard's trousers off in one way or another can sometimes be a sign of a subtle gesture against Disney. Of course now that Disney owns Marvel can the duck finally drop his trousers and revert to his original look? It's often said that Howard generally only works when written by Gerber, his late creator, but this issue is a rare sign of another writer (Alan Kupperberg) getting pretty close.

The other stories are much of a muchness, but continue to show how Spider-Man can so easily work with most heroes, whether he's familiar with them such as the Invisible Girl, or has to be persuaded by their Avengers credentials, such as the Guardians of the Galaxy. Being single parters with only seventeen pages apiece there isn't too much room for grand developments, but they offer some good encounters with no real stinkers. The encounter with the Beast offers some fun dialogue between the two, as well as a strong scientific story that is convincing as drawing them both in. There's the odd weaker tale such as the encounter with Wonder Man, but Marvel Team-Up has always been a series that could easily shrug off the odd weak issue and move on.

As the fourth volume in the title's history we see the series well and truly established and not really experimenting that much beyond giving the Hulk a couple of turns in the title slot. Otherwise the book had settled down into a familiar pattern but still offers plenty of diversity from the wide range of heroes who team up with Spider-Man. There may be a few times when Spidey seems a little incidental to the series or else put in a role that any hero could have performed, but as always it's made up by the chance to see him in situations that are different from the norm in his own series, with an increased emphasis on science fiction and magic. This volume is very much quintessential Marvel Team-Up and will be enjoyed by those who enjoy the basic concept of the series and dismissed by those who don't. The issues come from a period in Spider-Man's history when there were a lot of bold developments in his other two titles, so when read next to those issues it's actually an advantage to be able to switch gear and relax with these tales.

Essential Marvel Team-Up volume 4 - creator labels

There are a huge amount of creators in this volume, so here's a separate post to carry some the labels for them.

Omitted material: What If? Classic volume 3

It's time for a further look at some of the Spider-Man related issues from the original What If? series.

#15: "What If Nova had been Four Other People?", written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by John Buscema, Walt Simonson, Carmine Infantino, Ross Andru and George Pérez, reprinted in What If? Classic volume 3

This was the same basic idea as issue #7, only this time with Marvel's then-newest star rather than it's biggest and also using different artists for each segment. However Peter Parker was the only one of the four people who was familiar to readers.

The origin of Nova is relatively easy to adapt to the What If? set-up - a dying alien transmits his power and costume by energy beam and it accidentally hits a human, giving them the Nova powers. Each story sees it hit someone else. In the first it hits Helen Taylor, an angry widow who has vowed to find the mugger who killed her husband. She launches a violent war on crime to find the mugger, killing many criminals in the process including the Kingpin. Eventually the Fantastic Four intervene and capture her, then are forced to exile her to the Negative Zone. Meanwhile a car is pulled out of the river where it has been for months, and inside is the drowned mugger. The second story is set in a world that has hitherto lacked heroes and so when the beam hits a homeless black man he doesn't immediately realise to use them. One snowy night he is given shelter at an orphanage but then a Skrull invasion force arrives and detects his power. To save the children and Earth he becomes Nova and lets himself get captured so the children can be saved. On board the Skrull flagship he attacks and destroys the ship's equipment, causing it to go nova and saving the Earth. In the final story the beam has hit a criminal who uses the centurion's spaceship as a base from which he assembles Dr Doom, the Red Skull and the Sphinx and the four steadily eliminate all of Earth's humans. However rivalries amongst the villains result in them turning on each other until the Sphinx is the only one left standing. He desires death and sets out to search every human's mind to find one with the knowledge he needs, not realising that the criminal Nova he atomised was the one.

But it's the third story that generates the strongest interest. We get an altered version of the start of Spider-Man's origin as here the spider absorbed far more radiation and so instead of gaining powers Peter succumbs to radiation poisoning. He recovers, though not before Aunt May succumbs to stereotype and has a fatal heart attack at the first sign of bad news. Peter is now unable to walk and descends into bitterness, believing himself to be cursed. He sends Betty away (in this reality she seems to have already been his girlfriend) and throws himself into science, hoping to find a cure. One night he's alone in the school lab when the beam hits him. Discovering he can walk and more, he flies off to tell Uncle Ben, only to arrive as a burglar breaks into the house. In the living room Peter Nova flies in and a bullet bounces off his skin, killing the burglar. Despite both Uncle Ben and a police officer telling him it was accidental self-defence, Peter vows never to use his powers again and walks off embittered.

With most of the alternative Novas entirely new characters it's interesting to see different takes on some traditional comic moments and show how the power could bring out the best and worst in people. Peter Parker's story may have an all too cliched approach to Aunt May's heart but otherwise shows how a complete run of bad luck and no realisation of responsibility could have made him a very different person.

#17: "What If Ghost Rider, Spider-Woman, and Captain Marvel Had Remained Villains?", written by Steven Grant and drawn by Carmine Infantino, reprinted in What If? Classic volume 3

Once again we get multiple takes on a single idea, told in separate chapters. The first chapter sees an alternate take on Ghost Rider whereby his adoptive father Crash Simpson survives both cancer and a record breaking motorcycle stunt, resulting in the Devil taking Johnny Blaze's soul without interruption. He accidentally causes Crash's death and then later Roxanne Simpson tracks him down, only to die in the confrontation. Finally Daimon Hellstrom the Son of Satan confronts Ghost Rider and exorcises him. The Spider-Woman chapter is an alternate take on her debut in Marvel Spotlight #32 where on this occasion she doesn't discover Hydra's treachery and instead kills Nick Fury. The rest of the story which is largely the story of her fleeing to Hydra's base then getting captured in a S.H.I.E.L.D. raid then escaping at her trial. He primary motivation is to find out the truth of her past and the epilogue sees her as a wanderer, searching the world with S.H.I.E.L.D. in pursuit. Frankly there's not much meat to this and it doesn't give us much insight into Spider-Woman or any other characters. The Captain Marvel story is pretty much all set-up as it presents an alternate take on Marvel's earliest adventures with his rival Yon-Rogg exposed and eventually dying, with Captain Marvel remaining as a loyal Kree commander. This one doesn't show us very much at all. This is a general problem with telling multiple stories in a single issue, especially when the unifying concept is so abstract forcing each tale to spend more time telling the story (whereas the earlier ones with someone else getting Spider-Man or Nova's powers each share an introduction). The Ghost Rider chapter is the strongest by default with the other two tales not really offering that much of an alternate take on the characters. A pity that once again Spider-Woman is lumbered with such poor material.

#19: "What If Spider-Man had Never Become a Crime Fighter?", written by Peter Gillis and drawn by Pat Broderick, reprinted in What If? Classic volume 3

Or "What If Spider-Man has stopped the Burglar who killed his uncle?" This is probably the most obvious Spider-Man What If?, with its closest contender coming in issue #24 (reprinted in the next volume). Here Spider-Man heeds the call for help and catches the burglar - but not out of altruistic responsibility. No he's spotted the potential for some good publicity. As a result his public standing soars and Peter becomes ever more swollen headed. He reveals his identity to Aunt May and Uncle Ben, but this leads to an argument about his pursuit of entertainment over science and he deserts them. He guest hosts the Johnny Carson show (now what would be the equivalent of that role in the UK?), stars in a blockbuster movie and then becomes a film producer, signing up many other heroes with the offer of favourable publicity. Meanwhile J. Jonah Jameson's world starts crashing around him. His son dies when his space capsule crashes, and Jonah becomes ever more embittered about the attention celebrity "heroes" get compared to what he sees as "real heroes" - policemen, firemen, astronauts and the like. This leads to him taking on Spider-Man by getting Ned Leeds to work out his identity. In retaliation Spider-Man shows up in Jonah's office with several gun toting men, but turns the tables by pretending to be a stunt to give Jonah an award for journalism. When the Daily Bugle attacks Spider-Man for signing the vigilante Daredevil, Spidey retaliates by discovering and exposing the Bugle's crime reporter Frederic Foswell as the crimelord the Big Man. Here the resultant negative publicity results in Jonah being asked by his board to take a step back from running the paper and he instead resigns. Having lost everything he succumbs to temptation when the jailed Foswell asks him to be his outside man to run the mobs in exchange for using the organisation for revenge on Spider-Man. An initial attempt to have Kraven the Hunter scratch Peter with poison claws fails due to the intervention of Daredevil. Then Peter and Daredevil meet with their writers - only to discover it's a trap and the writers are really several super-villains in disguise. Daredevil dies in battle and Peter realises he must use his powers for real, overpowering the remain foes. He pulls off the ringleader's hood to discover an insane Jonah, ranting about how his life has been destroyed and how Spider-Man is a villain. A remorseful Peter realises how his failure to use his powers for good has caused all this.

Pretty much everyone is in character and this is a particularly good character study of Jonah that really digs into just why he harbours such hatred of Spider-Man and other superheroes. It's a far cry from the caricature he sometimes descends to. As for Spider-Man himself, we have a good continuation of the swell-headed teenager from Amazing Fantasy #15 but also an insight into his imagination. It's quite possible he may have performed some good, particularly by signing the X-Men to give mutants good publicity, just as many real world actors and producers have helped good causes. But his arrogance and selfishness brings destruction in its wake - and he's not always the worst to suffer for it.

The other tales in the third volume are:

• #14: "What If Sgt. Fury Had Fought World War Two In Outer Space?"
• #18: "What If Dr. Strange Were a Disciple of Dormammu?"
• #20: "What If the Avengers Fought the Kree-Skrull War Without Rick Jones?"

Issue #14 was one of the more outrageous concepts yet seen, but as the cover acknowledged it was riding a wave at the time launched by Star Wars.

You will have noticed that two issues are missing. These are:

• #13: "What If Conan the Barbarian Walked the Earth Today?"
• #16: "What If Shang-Chi Master of Kung Fu Fought on the Side of Fu Manchu?"

Marvel no longer holds the rights to either Conan or Fu Manchu and so can't reprint their appearances. Shang-Chi is a Marvel originated character but with a setting a supporting cast drawn from the Fu Manchu stories it's only possible to reprint some of his appearances.

Essential Silver Surfer volume 1

Essential Silver Surfer volume 1 contains the Silver Surfer stories from all eighteen issues of the Surfer's original series and, as a bonus, a solo Surfer story from Fantastic Four Annual #5 which was a forerunner to the series. However the volume doesn't contain the Watcher back-up stories from the first seven issues. Everything is written by Stan Lee. The first seventeen issues are drawn by John Buscema, with both the final one and the Annual story being drawn by Jack Kirby.

(I'll say it upfront that the absence of the Watcher stories doesn't seem to detract. As far as I can tell they were all science-fiction stories, including possibly some reprints, from inventory with the Watcher just added as a narrator.)

1968 was a big year for Marvel. For the previous decade the company had been restrained due to the collapse of its distributor, forcing them into a deal with Independent News, owned by DC Comics, that limited the number of titles the company could publish each month to eight (and further limited the number they could do in each genre - for example they could only do one Western book a month). Some imaginative work was done to work around this such as bimonthly books and a look at the total Marvel input in the 1960s suggests they either managed to increase their allowance or else they were breaking the terms and getting away with it. But it also acted as a restraint on titles and one result was that many heroes had to share anthology titles - for instance Iron Man with Captain America in Tales of Suspense, the Human Torch and later Nick Fury Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. with Doctor Strange in Strange Tales, or Ant-Man/Giant Man and later Namor the Sub-Mariner with the Incredible Hulk in Tales to Astonish. Then in 1968 Marvel managed to renegotiate its distribution agreement with Independent News to remove the title limits, and the following year it switched to a different distributor altogether. This change meant that Marvel could now increase the number of titles on the stands and give many more heroes their own series. As well as splitting each of the anthology books into separate titles headlined by the heroes, a few other series were launched from scratch. One of them was the Silver Surfer.

When I first started collecting comics, the second Silver Surfer series (volume 3 - don't ask) was one of the first series I collected solidly. Back then the Surfer's earlier series seemed a truly far off distant thing and I doubted I would ever get to read it all. But after some years I was given this Essential volume as a birthday present by my sister (Thanks dearest sibling) and it opened up a very different take on the character and his universal outlook. Whereas his later series was a cosmic action piece, this one was literally more rooted to Earth and highly philosophical.

Part of the problem is that the early issues were literally very different from their fellows. Whereas most of the other Marvel titles were at this stage 36 pages long (including covers, adverts and in-house pieces), the initial seven issues were 72 pages. The stories had twice as many pages but not twice as much story - instead more space was given over to showing off the artwork (and Buscema's artwork throughout the run is quite good) and to developing the characters and building up the situation. This is seen most obvious in issue #8 which (as confirmed by a caption at the end) was written and drawn to be the first half of a double-sized issue but wound up being cut in half when the book switched to a regular sized monthly. The Silver Surfer is barely in the 20 page issue, apart from a couple of pages where Mephisto makes a minor attack on him and a three page sequence with no relationship to the rest of the issue and which feels like it was added in precisely because of this. Otherwise, the issue is taken up with setting the scene and introducing or reintroducing the villains for the main battle in the following issue. It was decompression in a single issue, long before the word had been coined. Ironically issues #2 & #3 show signs of the reverse process as both have a second chapter beginning midway through - handy for cutting up the story for later reprints but a sign, perhaps, that originally the series was intended to be regular length with two-issue stories? This would also mean issue #1 would have been double length as a special event, one of the earliest such examples of that practice. But instead the first seven issues followed this format, coming out bimonthly at a double sized price but clearly the market couldn't sustain the format, hence the retreat to a regular sized monthly from issue #8 onwards.

But it's not just the high price or the slower stories or the excess attention to the artwork that was a problem. Fundamentally, the Silver Surfer's character just didn't work in this scenario. He spends an awful lot of the series moaning about one thing or another, but mainly about being trapped on Earth with the humans (in his fist appearance in Fantastic Four he betrayed his master Galactus to save the Earth and was confined to it as a punishment). Yes a lot of people in real life spend rather more time than they realise moaning about one thing or another, and rarely notice how much it gets on other people's nerves, but it's not an attractive character trait. It's also unclear why the Surfer doesn't try to do much to resolve his situation, when surely the most logical solution would be to approach the Fantastic Four and as for their help either in penetrating the barrier or at least in getting a better relationship with the human authorities and media so that he doesn't spend so much time retreating from hostile humans at whatever level.

The first issue carries the Surfer's origin, something that had been ignored in his previous appearances in Fantastic Four. The story is now so well known but it must have been a real surprise at the time as readers learnt of how the Surfer was Norrin Radd, a man dissatisfied with the ease of life in the utopia of Zenn-La and who craved adventure. Then when Galactus came to consume the world, Radd made a deal to become Galactus's herald in exchange for Zenn-La being spared, finding new worlds for Galactus in time to prevent lives being lost. Radd gave up his world and his woman Shalla-Bal, for all this. It's the stuff of legends but several questions arise. There's no real indication of just how long ago all this was and the impression given in the first issue is that the Surfer has served Galactus for many years if not centuries. However, from the second issue onwards we see that Shalla-Bal is still alive, hasn't aged at all and is still pining for him. It's also unclear if the Surfer had led Galactus to any other inhabited worlds in their time together before reaching Earth. Although not covered in this retelling, the original story saw the Surfer's compassion awakened by his encounter with the humans so might there be other worlds whose inhabitants were not so fortunate? As punishment for his betraying his master, the Surfer has been imprisoned on the second world he saved, but why didn't Galactus nullify the rest of the agreement and take action against the first? Every time we see Zenn-La in this series, all the signs are that it has rebuilt after Galactus's original visit and life is the same as ever. (Later on, writers would address many of the points raised but not at this stage.)

The hierarchy of power in the Marvel Universe hadn't been worked out at this stage and so it was less surprising then than now to see various beings with the power to either open Galactus's barrier or bypass it. Loki is able to get the Surfer to Asgard in one issue whilst in another Mephisto is able to open it completely. The Surfer also tries other methods to escape. In issue #5, he teams up with physicist Al Harper to develop a device to disguise his molecular field. However, the escape attempt is abandoned when the Stranger comes to wipe out life on Earth and Harper gives his life to destroy the Stranger's bomb. But it's not explicitly stated at this point (and indeed wouldn't be until issue #1 of volume 3 in 1987) that the device hadn't been refined by Harper, and so readers are left wondering why the Surfer wasn't able to escape from Earth then. Issue #6 is worse as the Surfer experiments with time travel (by flying faster than the speed of light) and discovers that in the future the barrier is no longer present. But after defeating the menace in the future (by the all too easy get-out in time travel stories - travel back in time and nip the disaster in the bud; in this case stopping the accident that led to the Overlord's mutated birth) there is absolutely no explanation whatsoever as to why the Surfer simply doesn't return to the present away from Earth.

The series puts the Surfer through a variety of situations, with a variety of existing Marvel characters popping up, most notably from issue #14 onwards when there's a guest star every month - first Spider-Man, then the Human Torch, then for two months Nick Fury & S.H.I.E.L.D., and then finally the Inhumans. Issue #4 also features a clash with Thor (which was Sal Buscema's first published comics work when he inked his brother's pencils) that also contains the Warriors Three, Sif and other Asgardians. Several familiar Marvel villains pop up such as Loki, the Stranger, the Abomination and Maximus, whilst the Fantastic Four annual story sees the Surfer battle Quasimodo, a being created by the Mad Thinker. But there are also a number of new villains introduced. There are the Badoon, yet another alien race invading Earth, the Ghost of the Flying Dutchman and the Doomsday Man, an indestructible robot created by the US Army that has got out of control. And one other but I'll discuss him in a moment. Amongst those who haven't returned are the Overlord, the mutant warlord ruler of the future universe, Baron Ludwig von Frankenstein, a descendent of the scientist from literature, Yarro Gort, a rival for the hand of Shalla-Bal, the General, the unnamed military dictator of a Latin American country (oh how original!) invading its neighbour and Warlock Prime, a British aristocrat who heads a coven. Notably some stories don't have any villain at all but rather basic misunderstandings, particularly the encounters with Spider-Man and the Human Torch.

But by far the most regular and famous of the Surfer's foes introduced here is Mephisto. I am amazed that Marvel would be so bold as to introduce a foe that is all but named as the Devil. Yes I know that later on Marvel backtracked on that with several other characters who could also have fitted that role and eventually established them as being not the actual Devil, but at this stage there is no such evasion and he's acknowledging other names such as Beelzebub and Lucifer. Mephisto appears in five of the eighteen issues which may seem excessive at first, but considering two of those issues were originally going to be a single double-sized one then it doesn't seem so bad. On all three occasions he is trying to secure the Surfer's soul through various methods, including twice bringing Shalla-Bal to Earth whilst his other attempt involves taking another lost soul and turning it into a powerful agent to force the Surfer's hand. The problem is there isn't a great deal of diversity in the foe's methods and nor is he at this stage seen undertaking other schemes that could broaden him out. So we get a foe to spark and terrify the imagination on the first encounter but beyond that he's doesn't seem to be terribly durable as a regular menace.

There's another potential menace in the offing when the series ends on a cliffhanger (although due to the placing in the volume, in at least the original edition, it's followed here by the Fantastic Four annual story) with the Surfer tired of all the hatred he has faced and the failure of his attempts at reason, and so he angrily declares that he won't hold back any more but instead:

"Let mankind beware! From this time forth -- the Surfer will be the deadliest one of all!"

It's a powerful moment but an unfortunate point on which to end the series. And for nearly thirty years it was never resolved - when the Surfer next appeared in the try-out issues for what became the Defenders, he was back to normal. The later volume 3 ran for eleven and a half years but never felt the need to address this either - indeed I seem to recall a letters page brushing it off as the Surfer having a brief angry moment. It was only in the late 1990s, not long after this Essential volume was first published, that a resolution was given in Web-Spinners: Tales of Spider-Man #4-6.

Ultimately the main problem with the series is that the Surfer's character as presented here just isn't that likeable. There's too much moping about rather than either trying more methods to escape his prison or else finding ways to adapt to life on the planet. With no recurring supporting cast beyond Shalla-Bal, the Surfer carries the series on his own and so we get a very one-sided approach to life. But ultimately it's the Surfer's reflections on life on Earth that defined the series. Far too often he ends up in confrontations and fights due to the fear and/or hatred of humans, and when read in one volume it all gets very repetitive. The artwork is great, and somewhat justifies the larger panels and makes up for the slower paced stories, but the plots and dialogue needed to be more positive and give the Surfer some breaks. And they really needed to explain better just why his two major attempts to escape the barrier failed. There's a lot to like about the character and he can work well either as a guest star or a team member, but when presented on his own he needs to be much more positive. And yes, the "Sentinel of the Spaceways!" (as he's called on the cover of the first two issues) or "Sky-Rider of the Spaceways!" (as he is on all the rest bar the final issue) should be allowed out into the spaceways to truly soar and explore. There are some good ideas and good pictures here, but the series as a whole just meanders along without much development to overcome the early weaknesses. All in all it was a lost opportunity.

Essential Doctor Strange volume 1

We come now to the other great creation of Steve Ditko and Stan Lee, Doctor Strange. (Unfortunately there's never been a great deal of consistency over whether it's "Doctor" or "Dr." so I'm taking my cue from the volume's cover.)

Essential Doctor Strange volume 1 contains the Doctor Strange strips from Strange Tales #110, #111 & #114-168 - i.e. the full run before he received his own title for the first time. As previously discussed, Strange Tales was one of Marvel's anthology series and the good doctor shared the title first with the Human Torch’s solo tales and then with Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. The artwork on this volume is by Ditko all the way until issue #146 then Bill Everett, Marie Severin, Dan Adkins and George Tuska. The writing is initially by Lee with Ditko co-plotting, officially credited as such from issue #135 onwards, then the remaining strips are scripted or fully written by the likes of Roy Thomas, Denny O’Neil, Raymond Marais and Jim Lawrence. It's worth noting that Ditko's last four issues are not scripted by Lee.

In so far as there is a paper trail, the written evidence suggests that the idea for Doctor Strange was first thought up by Steve Ditko and only then fleshed out in collaboration with Stan Lee. There hasn't been as much debate over the character's creation as there has been with other characters, and I suspect Marvel hasn't given the issue as much time as Spider-Man's. (For example in the introduction to one collection they reproduced a contemporary letter from Lee to a fan in which Lee stated the magician was Ditko's idea. This reproduction probably did not go through endless corporate discussion.) It's interesting to note that Lee's (or Marvel corporate's?) stated definition of who the "creator" is excludes him on this occasion. Perhaps this is a sign of how it's the visuals rather than the script which gives the strip its greatest lure. A far cry from the hard edged urban grittiness of Spider-Man, Ditko's work on Doctor Strange is truly a voyage into the fantastic.

Unfortunately black and white can have its disadvantages and they are prominent here. Doctor Strange was one of the most psychedelic of strips put out by Marvel in the 1960s but some of that effect came from the colours and when viewed in black and white it seems more subdued. Never the less the exotic is still there, seen most graphically with the design of Eternity, whose body almost entirely consists of a starscape, perhaps the ultimate in psychedelia. On its original run the strip acquired a cult following amongst university students who wondered just what Steve Ditko was on. I doubt they ever guessed it was the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Nor do I think they spotted Ditko's attitude to hippies and student protesters, as expressed in his final issue of Amazing Spider-Man.

In all the speculation and discussion about Ditko's departure from Marvel, his work on Doctor Strange often gets overlooked. Perhaps it's because the magician has never achieved the levels of popularity that the wallcrawler has (although he's quite popular amongst creators). Perhaps it's because the departure came immediately after grand developments instead of just before them, and thus there's no creative decision to speculate on. Perhaps it's because Stan Lee was already off the strip, and it's harder to focus on his replacements. (Roy Thomas and Denny O'Neill may have both gone on to do great things, but in 1966 they were each starting out and not yet in great positions of authority. And when Ditko went, Lee immediately returned for the initial issues.) But whatever the reason, the result is that a key part of the puzzle is ignored. The strip climaxes with issue #146, entitled "The End -- At Last!", concluding the seventeen issue "Eternity saga" (although the "Dormammu saga" would be a more accurate description) and wrapping up many threads. It's a suitable ending for a long journey.

But every journey has a beginning, even if it's full of slips and omissions. Unfortunately the earliest Doctor Strange tales leave two matters out, both of which can affect subsequent stories. No origin is given for the good doctor until his fourth appearance in issue #115, in spite of several earlier stories involving the Ancient One and/or Baron Mordo. This omission is all the more surprising given that nearly every other Silver Age Marvel hero began with their origin being retold - was Doctor Strange originally intended to be a one-off feature? However whilst the origin omission is soon rectified, the other is left dangling and we never get a very clear sense of the full extent of Doctor Strange's powers, with the result that at times his escape from or triumph over his foes can seem all too easy. Without knowing his full limits, we are limited to statements that foes such as Dormammu and Umar are far more powerful than him, but it's not always clear why he can easily triumph over some foes yet others take far more skill.

As is often the case, this volume introduces quite a number of foes who would plague Doctor Strange again over the years. Given the importance of the artist, I'm going to split the list of débuts in two. In the Ditko issues we get the first appearances of, variously, Nightmare, Baron Mordo, Aggamon, the House of Shadows, Zota, Dormammu, Demonicus, Tiboro, Kaecilius and Shazana. There are also the Possessors, the strip's version of the alien race invading Earth that just about all Silver Age Marvel heroes faced. There is at least an attempt to make them relevant to Doctor Strange's series by having them come from another dimension and giving them the power to possess people. Visitors form other series are rare, but Loki from Thor's strip in Journey Into Mystery does show up. Just as standard are the various allies and other supporting cast members who début, and Ditko's issues introduce us to the Ancient One, Wong, Victoria Bentley, Clea (although she's not named for twenty issues), Hamir (the Ancient One's servant), Orini and the Aged Genghis. And standing above everything is the mysterious Eternity. The post-Ditko issues introduce yet more villains who would appear again, including Kaluu, Umar and Yandroth. There's also the one-off foe Nebulos, who I'm surprised nobody has yet brought back. Not that he's a particularly memorable foe but so many others have returned. Otherwise the only other significant débuts are two more powerful beings that defy easy description, Zom and the Living Tribunal.

These are reasonably impressive lists but they disguise the over-use of Baron Mordo in these issues, with Nightmare also popping up quite a bit before Dormammu becomes established as the other great foe. After Dormammu is seemingly destroyed, it's not long before a replacement is found in the form of his sister Umar. What lists also hide is the relatively weak use of the supporting cast. The Ancient One turns up a number of times to provide guidance and extra power, but otherwise most of the characters appear only occasionally and are weakly developed. Clea is initially presented as a potential romantic interest, but she and Doctor Strange are repeatedly kept apart, until the point where the Ancient One effectively banishes her for her own protection. Towards the end of the volume Victoria Bentley is dusted off to play the role of damsel in distress, but despite having some magic powers she's given little to do beyond being captured and rescued. There are also few attempts to give Doctor Strange many day to day problems, even though on more than one occasion we hear of problems with both money and the stability of his house, but in a later issue the money problems are literally magicked away when Doctor Strange produces the money necessary. Nor do we ever meet anyone from Strange's former life as an arrogant surgeon, or even get much exploration of how his character has changed beyond the origin story. This strip is a far cry from the soap operas being developed elsewhere at Marvel at the time, and is much more a fantasy piece with the art front and centre.

That's not to say the writing is inherently bad, and indeed the dialogue is often good, particularly the many spells Doctor Strange comes up with. But it really is the art that stands out. On the basis of these stories alone there is only one definitive Doctor Strange artist - Steve Ditko. None of his replacements succeeds in offering a boldly different style to get successive generations of fans debating, the way that Spider-Man fans do over Ditko and John Romita. And also in contrast to Spider-Man, there is a real sense of conclusion with Ditko's final issue. Many of the plotlines are resolved in the space of ten pages, the villain meets his comeuppance, the girl is freed and the hero walks away to rest. This is a very clear conclusion to the story and strongly suggests Ditko had reached the end of all he wished to do with the character. Whether this was indeed the case or not, I'm not sure, as there are reports that he had prepared two further issues when he left Marvel. But nevertheless it does provide a strong sense of closure.

(Yet from a modern perspective it's surprising to see the way Eternity is treated, with many believing him destroyed in battle with Dormammu, and for that matter the same surprise comes later with the Living Tribunal when each is here treated merely as a very powerful, mysterious being and not as one of the most powerful entities of all in the multiverse. It would take many years before Marvel took steps to arrange its many powerful cosmic beings into a coherent hierarchy, with the Living Tribunal invariably the single most powerful being shown, and Eternity the embodiment of the universe. Here they're just very powerful entities but without a hint as to their place in the greater scheme of things.)

After Ditko's departure the strip meanders somewhat, trying to maintain the sense of grandeur and excitement but a succession of writers and repetitive ideas mean that it doesn't quite succeed. What we get is a succession of mini-epics that are generally good in their own right (bar the last one with Yandroth that tries to combine science and the realm of dreams, not to very great success) but just don't compare at all well to the earlier majesty. Still they keep some pace going and do add a bit to Doctor Strange's world.

As can be seen, this is very much a volume of two halves and it seems clear from comparisons with the issues they didn't collaborate on that Steve Ditko rather than Stan Lee was the key driving force in the first few years. As a result the strip is driven more by the visuals over the writing than is usually the case. The writing may have its occasional repetition and omission, but combined with the art there's a great deal of imagination that produces a truly spectacular experience. Black and white may remove some of the psychedelic nature of the strip but the various spells and realms remain extraordinary, and a far cry from the rest of the comics world of its generation. Ditko's successors may not be as good, but they all try to follow the same path. The only possible additional strip I would have included is Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2 (otherwise available in Essential Spider-Man volume 2), which teamed up the wallcrawler with Doctor Strange with the latter really dominating proceedings in another tale drawn by Ditko. But when this volume was first released it was already the single longest Essential at the time (and only about a dozen since have been any longer), and back then it wasn't standard to include guest appearances as well. Otherwise this volume is a near perfect collection with the complete Ditko run the true jewel and the remaining issues a bonus.