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Thanks for the info, Adam.

Storytime, I haven't reviewed Doctor Strange yet this month. I think the review to which you're referring is probably Comicsdad's. (I don't read anyone else's reviews of a story until after I post mine, but I couldn't help noticing my name in the start of your review as I scrolled down.)

Now I've got to work on my Strange review so I can read Storytime Family!

I'll agree with you guys that Powell makes "Giant-Man and the Wasp" better than it was, but I still think the stories are pretty boring and I'm glad there are only three left, especially since the replacement feature should be very very good.

"Mustn't crack up!" - Hank Pym

That line reminds me of one of my favorites from Cerebus: Church and State (from the "Sacred Wars" section, around the same time as the glorious "Mick and Keef" issues):

"Mustn't.






Black.










Out."



With the Wasp at death's door, the Avengers realize they'd better shake a leg.




I really don't like the art in this issue. Heck/Ayers is substantially better than Heck/Stone (at least in this instance) even when the layouts are Kirby's. I really think Kirby needs large panels and suitable inkers. There are a lot of people credited this issue, more than I can remember in any other Marathon story. Six people plus the letterer! It's ironic to see Stan get plotting credit for a story scripted by "Paul Laiken" (Larry Ivie) and Larry Leiber, when the artists never get credit for their plots. Isn't that more than a little hypocritical? It's like adding insult to injury for Stan to give himself plotting credit here. I feel he should only be doing that if he's willing to give the artists proper plotting credit when applicable.

"Never in comics magazine history has there been a collaboration to equal this one!" I think the hyperbole is inversely related to the story and art quality.

Here's the Sal Buscema reprint cover from 12/72. Not all that special.




"Must take my mind off the Wasp!" - Hank Pym

Although I didn't care for the story or the art, there was one thing that saved the issue - the surprise appearance of the Watcher on the final page. (But Ivie managed to ruin this, as I'll opine at the end of this review.) It was cool to see the Watcher suddenly turn up. He hasn't been seen in a superhero feature since FF 29. We get three good illos of him and some Watcherly wisdom, such as this: "Two alien races...about to battle for survival with Earth as their battleground! It would have meant the end of mankind! But the human race has now been spared...because of one dying girl! None but the Watcher can comprehend the workings of fate!" It's this sort of wonderful momentousnous (what's the word I'm looking for?) that makes up for a plot that could only be acceptable in a kids' comic book (the only capable specialist in the world has been kidnapped by aliens for a totally different reason). It's even more amazing when we realize that "the end of mankind" was averted because a Maggia bullet hit the tiny Wasp!! We really lucked out.

A nurse reasons, "Oh, something terrible must have happened!" (...?? You work in a hospital.)

We see that Thor retains Blake's medical knowledge. One of my hypotheses is that Blake unknowingly was Thor all along, either throughout Blake's childhood or else Blake had no childhood. I believe Odin may have placed Thor on Earth, as Blake, as some sort of humbling learning experience. (Either Thor reverted to infancy at that time or his memories of Blake's life were planted in his mind by Odin.) I can't really tell whether Blake's face and Thor's face are all that much different. Presumably they differ slightly, but wouldn't it be awesome if they in fact both do have the same face, and the hair is the only thing that keeps Jane from realizing the truth? That would be a superb example of one-upsmanship with regard to Clark Kent's glasses.

It's kind of odd to see the Avengers sitting in a hospital waiting room.

Thor observes, "I know the torment which must be filling the giant's breast!" He knows because he almost lost Jane as recently as JiM 110-111, when he all but prayed to Odin for her life as she lay in a coma. ("She's barely breathing!")

I groaned when the doctor said, "Wait a minute!...Yes...there is a chance..." He couldn't have thought of this before.

"Must bring that doctor back to save Jan!" - Hank Pym

And it just so happens that the only capable specialist for Jan's particular injury lives in Norway. So a Norse god must bring back a Norwegian doctor. Adam (if you're reading this), are "Norse" and "Norwegian" descriptions of the same region? My geography and history are lacking in this area.

So the hammer gains yet another new power - it homes on Norwegian doctors. (??) (???) "If the one I seek still lives in Norway, the enchanted uru power of my hammer shall lead me to the very spot!...That must be the one I seek! But, why does my hammer still tingle?" We know that the hammer can't simply be used to home on anyone Thor selects, otherwise they could have hunted down Zemo in South America (unless the Enchantress was counteracting this hammer function). Only Norwegian doctors.

Thor sounds a little redundant at times. "You do not understand, impatient one!...There is no time for discourse, obstinate one!"

I like Cap's summation: "You bring back a surgeon who turns out to be an alien...then suddenly dies for no apparent reason!" Why didn't they just start over in Norway and follow the tingle?? Well at least they were able to ascertain that "the aliens must be in an area uninhabited by ants!"

I like Hank's "master helmet" on page 6.

The Avengers fall prey to a paralysis ray in the same month that the FF do as well. (There are times when you just worry for Stan to get a good night's sleep.) I wondered why Thor could be so easily paralyzed, and I was rewarded when he revealed that he wasn't paralyzed.

The Kallusians reveal that it took them only months to reach the Milky Way. They made good time.

I think this might be the first time in the Silver Age that Heck draws alien cities and armadas. He does a pretty good job in the first two panels of page 19.

"Must keep my head!" - Hank Pym

Okay, now for my big gripe. The Watcher says, "As for the girl men call the Wasp...many have prayed for her...and the power of prayer is still the greatest ever known in this endless, eternal universe!"

I believe this is the worst sentence in a Marvel comic up to this point in the Silver Age (not that there have been many others) and I doubt this one will be surpassed. It's unforgiveable. Is Marvel suddenly preaching religion to little kids?? WTF??? It would have been bad enough if a human had said it, but the Watcher??? Ivie, and Lee as Editor, really painted themselves into a corner with this one. How does the Watcher expect that prayer could aid an unconscious woman? The only way to save this is to reason that even someone as widely traveled, someone as knowledgeable as the Watcher can still fall prey to creeping theism and the irrationality of "faith".

Actually, this could be a hidden diamond in the rough. I mean, talk about interesting characterization! The Watcher, revealed as a fallible theist! How human. Although I despise the inclusion of this sentence and its probable effect on impressionable kids, the literary critic in me loves what it does for the Watcher as a character. This most towering being of the early Marvel Silver Age shares human foibles and foolishness. In that regard, this revelation is gold. This is the biggest surprise I've seen in one of these magazines in many many months. It also establishes that prayer and theism are features of some non-Terran civilizations in the Marvel Universe, which comes as no surprise (nor would it in the real universe) but is as least worth mentioning since this is the first evidence of such.

This assumes that the Watcher hasn't in fact witnessed concrete evidence of the efficacy of generic prayer throughout the universe. If, however, he has compiled empirical data that support positive outcomes from prayer, then perhaps the Marvel Universe is overseen by a God! The Watcher's statement seems to imply that specific religious doctrines, or indeed specific gods, are not necessary for prayer to be effective, which in turn implies that none of the three famous monotheistic Earth-specific "Gods" exist in the Marvel Universe, but instead some other God who responds to the more generic elements of prayer - a stunning revelation in and of itself.

It should be noted that the Watcher says nothing to indicate that Odin is not the one responding to prayers from throughout the galaxies. We've already seen in ToA that Odin was responsible for creating humanity.

There are so many logical problems with the phenomenon of prayer I can hardly go into it here. Suffice to say, why would God require us to continually implore him to do good and necessary things for us which he wouldn't otherwise do? Just a really ill-advised statement from Ivie and Lee, when their main audience are malleable kids who don't have the philosophical chops to think this stuff through yet.

If the Kallusians and their unnamed enemies had agreed to sacrifice Earth by using it as their final battleground, would that have been...collusion?

"Must!"