In This Corner... Champion!

 

The year 1982 saw the publication of the seventh and final Marvel Two-In-One Annual, which, like its companion monthly series, featured the Thing and a special guest-star in action together--only in this instance, the series ends with a bang (and more than a few punches) when Ben Grimm is joined by a group of Marvel's heaviest hitters in Madison Square Garden to answer the challenge of an alien bruiser to meet him in the boxing ring, where they will fight for the fate of our world!

Together with writer Tom DeFalco and penciller Ron Wilson, the six-man finishing crew of Bob Camp, Mike Esposito, Frank Giacoia, Dan Green, Armando Gil, and Chic Stone joined to produce a 39-page story which features the first appearance of Champion, an Elder of the Universe who seeks out and contends with those who can satisfy his thirst for competition. Soon enough, however, we find that DeFalco has apparently taken a leaf from the planet Kral, a world in the Skrull empire whose population became fascinated with Earth's gangster era and mimicked the people and culture of that period. Here, we find the sport of boxing having an equally compusive effect on Champion and his entourage of alien trainers as well as a slick fight promoter, who bring along with them an Earth-style boxing ring, a training gym, the lingo of boxing and boxers, and even attire that carries the Everlast sporting goods logo--traveling to other worlds and seizing powerful individuals to offer them (what else?) a "title shot" against Champion, a confident and seasoned boxer who has embraced the sport of boxing to the fullest and who can weave and get in under your guard with the best of them.

We first meet our promoter, Proja, who surprises the Thing with one of the most offbeat offers our gravelly hero has ever heard--and who, as Ben learns, slyly won't take no for an answer.

Yet Ben is only the first of several stops Proja makes--extending his "offer" to a number of potential challengers for his master before finally arriving with them in a training area placed outside the fabric of reality, geared for terran clientele.

Finally, their host makes himself and his purpose known to the assembled heroes, while also making it immediately clear that refusal to participate in the upcoming match will exact a lethal cost.

Take A Seat

 

As I was compiling subject matter for this post, the first thing that came to mind was this guy:

Who looks like he's traveling through space seated on some kind of contraption--at least that's what I'd assumed, having never read the story. Except that this character, Orion, isn't seated on anything, but simply hunched over, gripping what he calls his "power rods." Yet there is a seated character among those Orion mingles with in New Genesis--Metron, who appears to be persona non grata among the others and flits about time-space in his "Mobius Chair" advancing his own agenda.

And thus, the New Gods have unknowingly summoned us to hear another

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Marvel Trivia Question

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What Marvel characters look to chairs for their status, and/or their power?

(Or, in Ben Grimm's case, their life??)

The Final Fate of the Scarlet Witch!

 

We've reached the end of a long and winding road involving Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, having tracked her activities following her devastating attack on her fellow Avengers at Avengers Mansion which led to her involvement in reshaping our reality to suit the worldview of the House Of M. The culmination of that saga saw Wanda, furious after witnessing her brother's fate at the hand of their father, Magneto, not only shifting reality once more but in the process removing the mutant powers of nearly every mutant on the planet, in addition to excising even the potential to become a mutant from the human genome.

As for Wanda herself, she would end up in the European nation of Transia, bereft of her memory. To the Avengers as well as the X-Men, Wanda's guilt as far as what she's done and the lives she's destroyed is a certainty; but to the Young Avengers, two of whom may likely be the sons she believed to be lost to her forever, she represents not only a person perhaps too quickly condemned by her former comrades, but also the means by which all can be put to rights again. (And hopefully allaying the concerns of the Avengers that one of the young group's number, Wiccan, isn't going to turn out like his "mother.") Joined by Magneto and setting out to find her, they locate her in Latveria, in a curious twist to this story as the fiancée of none other than Victor Von Doom.

With the reappearance of Iron Lad (the Young Avenger who's destined to become Kang the Conqueror), the group (including Wanda at this point) return in time to the point where the Jack of Hearts destroys Avengers Mansion--only this time, the life of Scott Lang is saved, though the event also serves as the catalyst for Wanda regaining her memory and resulting in an onslaught of guilt which sees her attempting to use the forces she's marshaled at the mansion to end her own life. Yet more certain than ever that some outside force has taken control of Wanda, Wiccan chooses the moment to reveal to her his steadfast belief that her children are alive, which acts like a bucket of cold water thrown on her. Standing down, she resolves to answer for what she's done, as well as do what she can to undo her actions toward mutants.

One such victim, Rictor, arrives on the scene with the rest of his group, X-Factor--and he decides to volunteer to test Wanda's plan to help the affected mutants by asking her to restore his ability to cause earth tremors.

But on the way are not only the Avengers, who are pleased to hear the news about Wanda appearing to have regained her sanity, but also the X-Men, who collectively are of a different frame of mind entirely regarding the woman who devastated the world's mutant population. And the lines are all too quickly drawn, in a story that has taken over six years to at long last reach its conclusion.

Witch Hunt!

 

We've reached the final installment of the House Of M limited series from 2005, where the X-Men and the Avengers found themselves swept away into a new reality created by the Scarlet Witch at the behest of her brother, Quicksilver--one which made mutants the dominant species, while our heroes were made to forget their past lives and histories in favor of an existence which saw their fondest hopes and dreams realized. Yet all of that changed when Wolverine, who somehow retained his memories, began to gather the troops--and with the help of a young mutant named Layla Miller, those who could be located traveled to Genosha once more to confront the ones involved in the deception, unfortunately leading to the Scarlet Witch again unleashing her power to alter the state of the world, for better or worse.

In this issue, which essentially has everyone pulling themselves together and picking up the pieces upon finding themselves back in their previous lives, we'll unfortunately be left with lingering questions which still lacked answers even in the course of eight issues. For instance: Where is Charles Xavier, taken from the heroes' midst when they first landed on the island of Genosha to settle the matter of the Scarlet Witch's disposition, the only indication of his fate being a memorial garden set up in his honor? And what finally happens with Wanda, who remains at large? From a publication stance, the only thing that this issue makes clear with reasonable certainty is that the goal of House Of M was to set up plots tying in to any number of upcoming books (e.g., Civil War (mid-2006) and Secret Invasion (mid-2008), two other multi-title events) for the foreseeable future, profitable ventures which appeared to be the only "reality" of concern to Marvel in the early 2000s.

Still, let's see where things stand following Wanda's cryptic declaration of "No more mutants" and a subsequent blinding flash which signaled another seismic shift in reality. For what it's worth, it appears that Magneto isn't going to walk out of this unscathed, if Wolverine has anything to say about it.

No More Mutants

 

Unknown to the heroes caught up in the new reality of the House Of M--which came into existence when the Scarlet Witch, at the direction of another, reshaped the world as we knew it to conform to a utopian existence for mutants at the expense of homo sapiens--things appeared grim indeed for those among them who had regained their memories of their prior lives and have decided to travel to the island of Genosha to confront both Wanda as well as Magneto, the man they presume to be responsible for forcibly twisting their lives, and those of the planet's entire population, to better favor his own worldview. For we have been witness to evidence that the man they seek, Charles Xavier--presumed to have been forced by Wanda's power to help bring those changes to life--is now deceased.

And so, having commandeered the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier and its resources (including its formidable Sentinel guard detachment), the group arrives just as the House of Magnus celebrates a glittering evening of special guests assembling to pay tribute to Lord Magnus and his family on the anniversary of "the rebellion against homo sapien oppressors that held the world captive for decades." It's Cyclops who lays out the stakes for everyone (in words that Captain America, unavailable to the group, might or might not have chafed at--it's a fair topic for debate)--and following the deployment of their initial sortie in the form of one of the Sentinels, all hell breaks loose.

Reality Check

 

We've recently begun taking a detailed look at the 2005 Marvel event known as House Of M, which followed up on the chain of events that led to the Avengers falling victim to one of their own--the Scarlet Witch, who suffered the breakdown of all breakdowns and unleashed her reality-altering abilities on her former friends, shattering their ranks and leading to a confrontation that saw her taken into the custody of her father, Magneto, who returned with her to the (now devastated) island of Genosha.

Together with Charles Xavier, the two sought to treat Wanda's mental state, though it became clear that they could do nothing for her. That led to a briefing with the New Avengers and the X-Men, and a decision to travel to Genosha to hopefully meet with Wanda and settle matters between them. But soon after arrival, both teams became engulfed in a wave of power that changed their thoughts, their histories, and their lives to align with a new reality where mutants were the dominant culture, and the world's population fell under the reign of the so-called House of M[agnus] which consisted of Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, Lorna Dane, Wanda's two children, and the man himself, Magneto.

It's not the ideal world for homo sapiens, the dwindling race of humans who still enjoy decent lives but are nevertheless looked down upon as "sapiens"--though you'd never know there was any serious discord if you passed by the magazine stand and picked up the news on the latest goings-on.

But will this be the "new normal" for sapiens--for everyone? That depends on the actions of the one man who somehow retains his knowledge of the prior reality--the premiere operative of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s elite Red Guard unit, who struggles to piece things together from what he knows to be the final moments of a world now ripped away.

The House Of Magnus

 

"You know how sometimes you hear the phrase: AND NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME AGAIN? Well, this time believe it, buster!! NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME AGAIN!"
-- Promotional copy taken from Marvel.com

In December of 2004, the first volume of The Avengers came to an end after the team was rent asunder by a fierce conflict set in motion by the unbalanced mind of one of their most long-standing members--a woman finally dealt with by Dr. Strange, and subsequently retrieved by her father, the master of magnetism.

Eight months later, Marvel segued from that tragic development to embark on an ambitious crossover event which would be spearheaded by the eight-issue House Of M series, an attempt to capitalize on resolve the fate of the Scarlet Witch whose ability to alter reality remains a clear and present danger but would also involve--and revolve around--the world's mutant population to a degree we'd never seen before.

That level of involvement takes its cue from a prior issue of X-Men, where the sister of Charles Xavier, Cassandra Nova, had sent a squad of Sentinels to destroy the island of Genosha, resulting in the deaths of its mutant population to the tune of over 16,000,000 people (including, presumably, its ruler, Magneto). It's to those ruins where Magneto returns with Wanda, where we learn in a synopsis that he's called on Xavier to do what he can to heal Wanda's shattered mind.

Knowing what's to come, one can't help but think of a certain proverb at this point. But thanks to the logo of this series, which is ever-present on every title that this event extends to, it would seem that there is one figure who appears to benefit from the seismic repercussions which are to follow.

In Defeat, We Stand!

 

Holy Hannah! The Avengers sure look peeved at somebody! What's going ON here?

If you had caught the PPC's review of the 2000 Avengers/Thunderbolts crossover story, you'd have a good idea which poor slob is on the receiving end of all those fists/bolts/arrows and whatever else is being hurled in his direction. And more to the point, you'd know why the reaction this individual is experiencing right now is probably nothing more than... boredom.

But to answer the who and the what, we can give you the rundown that readers received of events leading up to this melee, before all hell breaks loose:

Of course, "all hell" goes by another name, a gent who most of you no doubt recall:

That's right, Count Nefaria, who stars with the Avengers and the Thunderbolts in a blockbuster battle issue clocking in at thirty-eight pages and featuring the closing work of artist George Pérez, sticking with this new volume of The Avengers from the start for nearly three years. So it's a sad day all around--particularly for our heroes, who are in for the fight of their lives!

When Nefaria Commands...!

 

It's the fall of 2000, and Marvel has pulled itself out of its nose dive from the late '90s and making great stories again. And it doesn't get better than artist George Pérez closing out a nearly three-year run on The Avengers in a story scripted by Kurt Busiek. The story's centerpiece turns out to be Whitney Frost, the former Maggia leader who came to be known as Madame Masque when her face was disfigured in a plane crash (where she was rescued by the wealth-obsessed man we know as Midas). Whitney would go on to be involved romantically with Tony Stark, only to break with him following an incident involving her father--and now, the Avengers find that she has resurfaced following reports of her death. Numerous reports, as it turns out, considering that on four separate occasions, four bodies were each identified as the deceased Madame Masque. We readers, however, learn that the bona fide Whitney has been holing up in a hollowed-out butte in the Nevada desert all this time, and gripped in a state of uncharacteristic paranoia.

But then, what accounts for the four "duplicate" Madame Masques? A good word to use, as they were "bio-duplicates" created by the real Whitney so that she could sequester herself in safety and still conduct her operations--the latest of which, "Masque," is even now making an attempt to pierce Whitney's distrust and fear with perceptions and feelings which Whitney herself has repressed.

Ordinarily, we might view Whitney's anxiety and fear here as yet another manifestation of her paranoia. But in this case she happens to be right, as the Grim Reaper, also one of those after Madame Masque, arrives with a strike force to personify her worst fear--an enemy discovering her whereabouts and intending to presumably kill her on sight. Fortunately for Masque, there are others who have been able to track her whereabouts, though their presence wouldn't necessarily put her mind at ease.

As we'd expect, the Avengers do well enough against the Reaper and his goons. But their headway is blunted by the unexpected arrival of another who has unfinished business with Whitney, someone far more dangerous and undeniably powerful--Whitney's not-so-dead father, who has apparently conscripted two powerful heroes who share his goals as well as his own ionic-infused body chemistry.

All of which sets up a crossover with the Thunderbolts title, as both teams are confronted by one of the Avengers' most deadly, near-invincible foes who nearly destroyed them once before and who now schemes to inflict death on a massive scale on the entire planet!

Finders, Keepers

 

Slipping by the wave of issues which were branded with the Assistant Editors' Month stamp in January of 1984 was the 1983 X-Men Annual #7 (which also happened to slip by the PPC's roundup of 1983 annuals in the fall of '22). Written by Chris Claremont with art by Michael Golden (with an assist by Bret Blevins) along with inkers galore, the story makes a fine addition to the who's-running-the-asylum theme of the other AEM books whose editors were attending the San Diego Comic Con, leaving their underlings free to publish their own stories in their own way. Unfortunately for them, they become collateral damage as they're swept up with others in the X-Men's pursuit of a powerful "foe" who is engaged in a series of thefts for reasons unknown.

As we can see, however, the jig is up almost immediately, since it appears that no one thought to advise cover artist John Romita Jr. not to spill the beans on the identity of the perpetrator first thing. (Also, Mr. Romita, Cyclops doesn't appear in this story at all, but Professor X certainly does. Those asst. editors pranked you but good, didn't they?) But mum's the word, since everyone else in the issue will remain in the dark for the duration of this crazy roller coaster ride we're about to embark on.

Taking a leaf from Asst. Editor Eliot Brown, whose clever title/credits page appears at the very end of the story (which coincides with his detonation of same), we're placing it instead alongside the issue's cover, just to give you a taste of the ride you're in for in this forty-page tale. Because while the X-Men treat this "threat" with all due seriousness, you can bet that with the Impossible Man at the center of it all, the situation has the potential of spiraling beyond the control of anyone and everyone involved.

The Coming Of... The Avengers!

 

I was just shy of six years old and still a few years off from buying and reading comics on a regular basis when the first issue of The Avengers hit the stands alongside that of The X-Men in the fall of 1963. Eventually I would backtrack and read both stories in reprinted form--but for The Avengers in particular, I've often been curious as to how those comics readers who were becoming more familiar by the month with Marvel's characters reacted to the premiere of this new series. After all, in terms of its burgeoning super-hero line, the company was still in its infancy, with Fantastic Four and Amazing Spider-Man as its only full-fledged title series; Thor, Iron Man, and Ant-Man and the Wasp, on the other hand, were still being handled in the company's "feature" books (respectively, Journey Into Mystery, Tales Of Suspense, and Tales To Astonish), with Thor and Iron Man still being nascent characters fresh out of the gate. With the Sub-Mariner relegated to being an FF foe, that left the Hulk (whose own series bit the dust a few months earlier) as the only remaining recognizable Marvel character of note (thanks to his high-profile appearance in Fantastic Four) available for inclusion in a new team book, which in hindsight seems an absurd choice in light of the character's questionable past and unresolved state of affairs.

A situation glossed over in a deftly worded caption appearing on the issue's splash page:

Which practically begs us to scribble out some of Earth's Greatest Super-Heroes! and replace with new wording: "...The Only Super-Heroes We Have Left To Offer At This Time!" (Which helps to explain why I've never been approached by Marvel to write copy.)

Regardless, the characters who have been selected are the characters we've got--and the result remains nevertheless an intriguing first issue crafted by writer Stan Lee with artists Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers, a story which expertly did its job of making us curious to see more of...

Time Keeps On Slippin', Slippin', Slippin'...

 

Good grief, I thought in our senior years we became less busy.  Where does the time go? Wherever it's fled to, I'm running low on it this week, so I thought I'd once more raid my cache of graphics that I've stored from here and there and cobble together a little John Buscema goodness for you--mostly prior work that never saw the comics rack, with one or two homage prints thrown in.

Leading us off is someone else who appears to have run out of time--the Silver Surfer, who in an unpublished Buscema cover from his first series falls victim to none other than the heir of Frankenstein!

The Sorcerer, the Spider, and the Sacrifice!

 

Despite his limited exposure to date, one evil character who seemed to be headed for a bright, or, in his case, dark future as a comics villain was the deformed Necrodamus, who schemed to be free of his detested form by becoming a willing servant of the Undying Ones and acting in their name to open a way for them to our world, reaping the benefits of a powerful new form for himself when the stars were in proper alignment. Since his introduction in 1972 within the pages of the newly-launched Defenders series, however, his potential victims have managed to prevail, resulting in his return to the diminutive, misshapen form that he abhors; in fact, when he faced both Agatha Harkness and the Scarlet Witch, it seemed we'd surely seen the last of him when he was swept up in the maelstrom of escaping souls he'd held captive.

Nearly nine years later, however, the tenacious Necrodamus returned to take his vengeance against Wanda, breaking from the Undying Ones and striking to seize a new body for himself directly, rather than depend on a ritual that benefits his former masters. And guess which synthezoid he's set his sights on?

If successful, Necrodamus would take on a powerful form that would last indefinitely and allow him to unleash his hatred and destruction at will--a rampage that the Scarlet Witch and Spider-Man may find themselves helpless to prevent!

Honeymoon Of Vengeance!

 

Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

-- Dylan Thomas

Having seen two attempts by the powerful sorcerer known as Xandu the Unspeakable to use the even more powerful Wand of Watoomb against Dr. Strange, the Master of the Mystic Arts--only to see those attempts fail due to the intervention of the amazing Spider-Man--you would think Xandu would cease this waste of his life in futile power plays, particularly in light of the tragic revelation involving his former love, Melinda, whom he believed to be in a state similar to death due to unintentional exposure to the arcane energies released by one of his experiments. It was for her sake that he strove to obtain the wand in order to (apart from being drunk with power) use it to revive her--yet upon examining her mystically, Strange had the sad task of informing Xandu that she had been dead all along.

The resulting guilt hit Xandu hard at the time, with Strange and Spider-Man leaving him in a state of profound grief--but while grief can be a crucial factor in the healing process, it seems that Xandu has instead chosen to pursue a course of madness when we catch up to him nearly nine years later.

We've learned two important developments here right away: First, that Xandu has apparently recovered the wand once more (mostly due to Strange's carelessness in disposing of it, but I've already made my thoughts clear on that), and secondly, it's the Scarlet Witch he's set his sights on this time, rather than Strange. But rather than just holding guest-star status, we'll see that Wanda's role in Xandu's plan is crucial in terms of both seeking his revenge, and recovering from his loss.

...Only A God May Prevail!

 

It takes roughly nine years since they were incarcerated following a battle with Iron Man and Daredevil, but we now come full circle with the alien duo known as the Blood Brothers--introduced in 1973 as enforcers of Thanos when the Titan first appeared on Earth and established a base for himself in the Arizona desert, and having subsequently battled Iron Man when the Avenger fought beside Drax the Destroyer as well as the Thing. Yet it was during their clash with Iron Man and DD that we learned the secret of the Blood Brothers' overwhelming strength, a benefit of battling as a team in close proximity to one another. Consequently, they were imprisoned in separate facilities in order to keep their might in check.

Fortunately, the Blood Brothers are still in custody when the Avengers learn that the Army Corps of Engineers have unearthed that secret Arizona base and practically pounced on its cache of advanced equipment--news which alarms the Avengers and prompts the Vision to take measures to safeguard that equipment from tampering.

Colonel Farnam's assurances aside, we wouldn't be here unless writer Roger Stern and artists Bob Hall and Joe Sinnott didn't have something planned that would justify the Avengers' presence beyond that of a simple matter of precaution--a fact that the issue's cover would appear to bear out!

For the Avengers as well as the base's army contingent, this issue would present a deadly footnote to the saga of the Blood Brothers, who continue to serve the will of Thanos even after their master's demise.

"The Day The Earth New York Turned Green!"

 

The 1982 Incredible Hulk Annual is essentially an exercise in pure adventure, one that sees the mighty Avengers struggle to uncover a scheme which threatens to destroy or enslave the population of the entire world. And as we can assume from the book's masthead, there's one Avenger in particular who appears to be the key to the crisis--though it's his alter ego, Bruce Banner, whom we find is taking the first, desperate steps toward stopping a plan which has already been put in motion.

Producing this story is writer Bill Mantlo (who also scripted the monthly Hulk series) and artists Rich Buckler and Joe Sinnott, with letterer Jim Novak and colorist Bob Sharen (whom we gather is going to have one particular color on hand, to be sure)--an ideal grouping of talent for a 32-page Hulk story which ends up featuring not only Earth's mightiest heroes but also guest appearances by other mainstream Marvel characters.

As we've learned from Page One, Mantlo is just about to initiate the period in the regular book where Bruce Banner finally succeeds in suppressing the Hulk's brutish mind and placing himself in control of not only his transformations but also the Hulk himself--a development which, among other things, will see him once more fighting alongside the Avengers (which Mantlo milks for all it's worth).  But it's the savage, uncontrollable Hulk who appears here and in one way or another ties together the various scenes playing out before us. As for the nature of the danger, the news media have the 411 for us, though it looks like they're in the same boat as the rest of New York City.

Which brings us to this tale's villain--none other than the Leader, who plans to make sure that this "green flu" epidemic that Mr. "Ratner" reports on will soon enough spread throughout the world. But even now, Bruce Banner, the Leader's prisoner, seeks to fight his foe with the only weapon he has available to him--none other than the Hulk, whom Banner hopes to subliminally influence with thoughts and images which his green-skinned raging persona can interpret and act on.

Yet Banner's presence is actually a crucial step in the Leader's plan--which brings us to Dr. Rikky Keegan, an unwitting accomplice who had only wished to cure Banner of his affliction but falls victim to the duplicity of her host and gives the Leader precisely what he needs in order to infect others to either do his bidding, or die in the process.

Yet when Banner's dreaded transformation takes place, the Hulk must first battle for his freedom against the forces under the control of one of his oldest enemies--even as Banner's plan for the Hulk begins to kick in, if only it isn't too late.