Can YOU
Name This Marvel Villain??
While you may have the urge to say, "Hey, it's the son of Eon!", our villain actually pre-dates Eon by six years. No, Nebulos is in a class all his own--and in a universe all his own, residing in the dreaded World of the Million Perils as Lord of the Planet(s) Perilous. Gee, do you get the feeling that someone is about to be in peril? That would be Dr. Strange, who has fallen victim to his nemesis, Baron Mordo, and now finds himself banished to the domain of Nebulos. Yet Strange's absence from Earth comes at a crucial time--because the Living Tribunal has targeted the planet in order to destroy the mystic evil energy that Strange has unwittingly unleashed from a group of awakened mystics and subsequently redirected into Mordo's form.
But the exiled Strange finds he has another foe in Nebulos, who carries a staff in which Nebulos has been stockpiling occult energy over a period of *ahem* eons--and Nebulos now ruthlessly takes control of Strange and forces him back to Earth in order to siphon Mordo's surplus of energy into his polar staff. We're never told for what purpose Nebulos is acquiring all of this evil power--but from his demeanor, we can assume that it will be used nefariously.
As for Mordo, while Strange might pose no threat to him with the wellspring of new power he possesses, the staff that Strange now carries easily tips the scales in Strange's favor, since it can absorb the power that Mordo lashes out with.
Mordo's banishment, while a welcome sight, is only a minor victory for Strange at this point, since Nebulos immediately retrieves him and takes possession of his staff again. But Strange's primary crisis isn't averted, since the actions of Nebulos have unfortunately redirected the approach of the Living Tribunal to the world of Nebulos--though Nebulos finds that his activities have already placed him on the Tribunal's docket, and his own judgment is now at hand.
As formidable as Nebulos' polar staff might be, it proves no match for the Tribunal's resourcefulness--for while the staff might be able to fend off any direct strikes by the Tribunal by absorbing them (and thereby becoming even mightier), the Tribunal simply executes his sentence on Nebulos' planet, the destruction of which will take Nebulos down with it. Fortunately, Strange steps in to act before Nebulos can lash out in an act of vengeance.
That would do it for Nebulos, who's made no further appearances since. From the looks of it, we can probably say the same for his planet.
Hoo boy, I remember this guy.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure of the artist and writer, (Dan Adkins I think, for artist) but this is seven shades of cosmic crazy right here. All during the period when Marvel unleashed Umar, Zom, Yandroth and the Living Tribunal. If they were trying to out-weird the Lee/Ditko run, they came mighty close.
It was a wild period for Doc Strange. I would have welcomed him coming back to Earth for a day or so and just doing something simple, like rescuing a kid's cat out of a tree.
I bet Doc could've used the break!
Boy, that art is something, isn't it? Yow.
M.P.
M.P., yes, Adkins handled both pencils and inks for the Nebulos story. It's no wonder that he was tapped as the artist for the upcoming Doctor Strange book, if only briefly. I must say that I was pleased to see the work handed over to Gene Colan and Tom Palmer, as the change was what the doctor needed; otherwise, we were just going to be reading Strange Tales 2.0.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Colan was always my favorite Doc Strange artist as well, and that's saying a lot, because the title has certainly had it's fair share of great artists. Brunner and Severin come to mind, also.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised the Lord of the Planets Perilous never showed up again. He's original. That shot of him hanging suspended in front of that moon is actually pretty spooky; you can't tell how big he is or how far away he is. It's a great effect.
On another note, there was an issue of WHAT IF in which the Living Tribunal tried to dispatch Korvac by blowing up the sun, which reminded me of his roundabout way of dealing with Nebulos, who he simply clobbered by destroying the planet he was on. Maybe the Tribunal can't act directly against another entity, because there are limits on what he can and can't do.
Great post!
M.P.