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Posts: 16415
Apr 18 09 11:37 PM
Golden Age
Posts: 4755
Apr 19 09 4:23 AM
Bronze Age
Apr 19 09 9:16 AM
I think it is interesting that in these Ditko/Lee Hulk stories we find some very similar themes as in their Spidey stories. A chance encounter between one of the heroes (Rick Jones) and a villain (Chameleon), both unaware of each other's true identity. The identity of the Leader is still a mystery, just like that of Green Goblin. And we learn that the spy in the previous issues was actually in the Leader's payroll, which illustrates the resources he has at his disposal. (I don't know whether this was planned by Steve and Stan already in #60, but it works very well either way.) I think Steve Ditko had at least a hand in plotting these yarns. The actual plot is quite forgettable, but action flows effortlessly, and the mystery of the Leader is, well, mysterious! But how stupid are the people around Banner/Hulk?!? I mean, they are there in middle of the desert, not too many people around. And every time Hulk appears, Bruce Banner is nowhere to be seen. "Is there a connection between Bruce and the Hulk?" Gee, Betty, you think so? Ditko and Roussos are not a good fit. People look quite wooden and stiff, and faces are often just ugly. Ditko inking himself over at the ASM looks so much better... Art is not very dynamic either, even in a scene where the Hulk smashes through a wall, for example.
Apr 21 09 3:46 PM
Pretty effective, especially given the fact that the villains (who are apparently not even that bad) didn't appear until the second half of the story. It's a testament to the skills of Don Heck and Dick Ayers that they manage to make the desperation of Iron Man so visible and obvious, even though we don't see his face that much. The way he hangs his head in the final panel of page 2, his body language on page 5... This is deep psychological drama, folks! A man trapped inside his own, very strong body! Only he's unable to tell the truth to anyone, even to the woman he loves, or his best friend. Wow. And at the same time the reader sympathises with Pepper and Happy, who are worried about the disappearance of Tony Stark. Such loyal friends all of them, but the secret of Iron Man separates them. We can already see that Hawkeye and Black Widow are not wholly bad, and even manipulative Natasha seems to love his Hawkeye. Another wow! Stan is pretty effective in drafting also villains who are human. The art is really great here, the scenes with Pepper and Happy, even the fight between Hawkeye and Iron Man. Some nice machinery on display as well. A few posts back, we made some jokes about Unus. Well, what do we have here... "There he is... Firing a powerblast arrow at the link chains holding our new Uranus II rocket!" [Emphasis added.] Ur_Anus Too? Stan!
Apr 21 09 6:52 PM
"There must always be those with the fire of rebellion in their blood! There must always be those who will dare to fight an unbeatable enemy! Only thus can the race of man remain strong and fearless!...It is good that the legends will say a day there was when Odin himself retreated!" - Odin Well, we're done with Thor Masterworks V2. It was better than V1, but it still wasn't very memorable. I think I'll be more and more entertained by all these mags the further we get into the runs.
JiM 110 didn't do a whole lot for me, but I thought this Tale of Asgard was the best yet, due to Odin's sentiment quoted above. Great little story from Stan and Jack. As for "Every Hand Against Him!", it featured the same formula as many previous Thor stories, and maybe that's why it seems stale. Loki manipulates the easily-duped Odin into screwing with Thor and Jane. (There isn't much humor to be found in the monthly Thor strip either.) At sixteen pages, it's halfway between a full-length story and a ten-page anthology backup. At the end of JiM 108, Odin prematurely ended the battle between Loki and Thor by having Loki apprehended and brought to Asgard. But here he is again on the loose in Asgard only two issues later, and with the ear of Odin to boot. There was absolutely no explanation as to why Odin didn't punish or imprison Loki or why he still takes his advice. In light of this, that plot device should no longer be employed. Stan should stop using Odin as a resolution at the end of Loki stories unless he's going to follow through and show Loki punished or imprisoned and show Odin as retaining his knowledge of Loki's manipulative nature. As it stands now, all I can assume is that Odin has a blind spot when it comes to his son and is in denial about him - he repeatedly forces himself to literally forget that Loki is evil and not to be trusted. I'll stop ragging on Odin and instead present the illustrations which justify his inclusion in the story. Does Stan make use of teenaged boys' arguments with their own fathers as a way to get them to relate to the main character of this magazine? Maybe such real-life conflict lent some immediacy to these stories. This illo features an arresting visual perspective. Odin has the power to transport Thor galaxies away in "a fraction of a micro-second", and "all the forces of Nature itself are subject to Odin's will". Odin thus ranks alongside the most powerful characters at this point in the SA Marvel Universe, such as Dormammu, the Watcher, and Reed Richards. I think we have to assume that the only reason Loki doesn't expose Don Blake to the world (or indeed kill Jane Foster outright) is because Odin has commanded him not to. But why should Loki care what Odin says? Odin hasn't inflicted any consequences on Loki since the early days of the feature. And come to that, why would Odin care about Jane or Blake? Is he protecting Jane from Loki? If that were the case, he would understand Thor's explanation on page 7 that he had to let Cobra and Hyde escape because they had Jane hostage. But Odin doesn't condone that decision. So if he's not protecting Jane from Loki, maybe he's humoring his son's desire to lead two lives? Or maybe Blake somehow really is Thor, and Odin views Don as his son. I've come to the realization that the exact nature of the Thor/Blake relationship is the central mystery of Journey into Mystery. Of course it could be that Loki has his own reasons for allowing Thor to continue to live a mortal life as Blake. Perhaps he sees this as Thor's only weakness and so tacitly encourages the cultivation of a Don/Jane romance. It would be cool if we were to learn that Loki or Odin also have mortal surrogates with the same strange relationship which Blake enjoys with Thor. Speaking of Loki, here are some good illos of him. If Thor senses Loki's presence on pages 1-2, can Loki also sense Thor? I really like the instantaneous change in between these two panels. The illusory facade vanishes in the wink of an eye. Hyde kind of looks like the Mad Thinker in that illo. (And with his gas mask on, he looks like the Porcupine at bottom of page 14.) Not every illustration in the issue is so well done. I think Kirby sabotaged himself on page ten, where the page is split into two equal panels which would have been put to better use if we weren't looking at Thor's back in both illos. Turning our attention to the human side of things, Don and Jane are getting pretty cozy these days. Here's Don getting "touchy-feely" in last month's story. You could've covered this pimple with some makeup. And this month, Jane reciprocates with some facial stroking of her own. I'll let you fill in your own dialogue for this one. As if we didn't know what was really on their minds, we have the benefit of some visual symbolism: Does Jane wonder how Thor learned about her predicament so quickly? He's on the scene within seconds. This is not the most flattering illustration I've ever seen of Jane Foster. I did like the story's ending, with Thor creating a time warp to keep Jane alive while he battles his foes in limbo. (We also saw the hammer create a time warp at the end of Avengers 7.) But if "there is no time", why is it that the villians' words follow sequentially one after another? This is one of the more dramatic Thor faces we've seen in many many months. And these next two panels make up for the hideous Jane illo I showed above.
Thor cries out in supplication Asgard and Odin. So we have the spectacle of a god virtually praying to a higher god. Odin offers no answer or assistance - this may as well be the Book of Job. Thor is forced to rely on himself, and makes time for one last cuddle to help gird himself for the coming struggle. It's interesting that Thor Masterworks Vol. 2 ends with a continued story. I have high expectations for Vols. 3-8.
Posts: 1808
Apr 22 09 12:30 AM
Registered Member
Apr 22 09 12:33 AM
Apr 22 09 12:36 AM
Apr 22 09 6:36 AM
Apr 22 09 6:38 AM
Apr 22 09 1:23 PM
It's interesting that Dr Strange is, in fact, ready to let the Mindless Ones invade Dormammu's realm, because his duty is to protect our plane of existence, or at least Earth.
Posts: 5871
Apr 22 09 1:26 PM
Apr 23 09 4:32 AM
Apr 23 09 11:06 AM
There's an ad in the back of a comic book, and he believes it!! What's more, given the typical production cycle of comics, at least two, probably three months pass between the first meeting of Immortus and Zemo, and Rick Jones coming to look for his superhero powers. Unless Immortus had a special printing prepared just so one of Rick's friends would find it and show it to Rick. But there's no indication of that. And if he did that, what was inside? Did he pay decent dollar to the creators? Did he give them royalties, even?!?
Apr 23 09 6:54 PM
Son of Storytime the Elder says about TOS #60 (Iron Man): I thought this was a really good issue. It was actually kind of a lonely issue, because we only get to see his face once in the whole entire issue. [Interviewer: You mean Tony's face? Hey, you're right--he's wearing his helmet in all but the first three pages.] And at the start he looked evil. [Interviewer: On that splash page, you mean? Why do you think Don Heck drew him that way?] Because, like he's trapped in his own creation. He created this suit to keep him alive, but now he's trapped in his own keeping alive process. Like a food web. [Interviewer: Yeah, you've been studying those in biology, huh? Let me ask you a question: If you were Happy or Pepper, what would you think was going on?] I wouldn't know what to think. "Mr. Stark was gone, and the only one left to put in charge was Iron-Man? Wouldn't that be usually us?" Like, he always puts either Happy or Pepper in charge. Wouldn't he, like, start a search party for him, around the world? And like fly around the world? [Interviewer: But would they find Tony?] No, because he's Iron Man! And then they could probably guess that he's probably one of the superheroes. Because otherwises he would probably be dead, so they would look in every burial site. Probably, around the world. [Interviewer: Sounds like a lot of work. So let me ask you: What did you think of the Black Widow this time?] I was kind of surprised when I saw that those Russian guys finally caught up with her. Because she never gets caught--but she was still thinking of Hawkeye. Yeah. Now I think it's the last of the Black Widow, maybe…. Oh! No, it' not! [Interviewer: Why not?] Well, for one thing, Hawkeye would do anything to get her, right? So he'd go to Russia after he finds out, and kill everyone in her way just to get her. And then swing across. And then, eventually, go and get back. [Son the Younger interrupts:] No, I think, I think the guy would surrender, cause he's beating up the guy. The guy that took she there. [Interviewer: They'll surrender because Hawkeye will attack them?] [Son the Younger:] No, the Black Widow. Yes. She would like KICK! And maybe punch his head with a strong punch!
Apr 23 09 6:57 PM
Apr 23 09 7:08 PM
Apr 23 09 9:42 PM
"Mr. Stark was gone, and the only one left to put in charge was Iron-Man? Wouldn't that be usually us?"
so they would look in every burial site. Probably, around the world. [Interviewer: Sounds like a lot of work.
Or maybe he would test out if he could take off his armor, and then nothing happens.
That man drew the most exciting office conversations ever.
that classic Marvel Age "feel" of being part of an ongoing, never-ending storyline
this plotline is keeping my kids hooked and crying for more (in the case of my younger son, literally!)
Apr 24 09 12:06 AM
Blame the errant hyphen in "Iron-Man" on my transcription, VF. It's hard to keep the hyphenates (Spider-Man, Giant-Man, Ant-Man) straight from the open compounds (Iron Man, Wonder Man) straight from the closed compounds (uh, help me out here . . . Grossman? Zimmermann?) Oh, and a "food web" is what I learned in school as a "food chain"--cows eats grass, people eat cows, worms eat people, grass eats worm poop, repeat as needed. Sorry to be morbid. Just finished watching the Celtics blow out the Bulls, who were playing like . . . worm poop.
Apr 24 09 12:19 AM
It's hard to keep the hyphenates (Spider-Man, Giant-Man, Ant-Man) straight from the open compounds (Iron Man, Wonder Man) straight from the closed compounds (uh, help me out here...
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