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.

What Were YOU Reading in 1983?

 

Forty years ago in August of 1983, we had these items of trivia occupying our minds and media:

• 12-year-old Samantha Druce becomes the youngest female to swim the English Channel (21 miles), at 15 hours, 27 minutes (and locks it in for good--the minimum age for solo attempts to swim the Channel is now 16 years)
• John Sain of South Bend, IN builds a 3.91-meter house of cards (hopefully avoiding drafts)
• San Diego Comic-Con International opens at Hotel San Diego
• La Cage aux Folles opens at the Palace Theater, NYC and runs for 1761 performances, winning 6 Tony Awards
• Revival of the Jerry Herman musical Mame starring Angela Lansbury closes in NYC after 41 performances
• Albums released: Billy Joel, "An Innocent Man"; Elvis Costello, "Punch The Clock"; Jackson Browne, "Lawyers In Love"; Heart, "Passionworks"; Cheap Trick, "Next Position Please"; Bette Midler, "No Frills"; Rick James, "Cold Blooded"
• Rock singer David Crosby is concurrently sentenced to 5 years in Texas state prison for possession of cocaine and 3 years for illegal possession of a loaded handgun (i.e., the 5-year sentence controls) (I believe he ended up serving nine months--there are conflicting accounts as to when he was released)
• Nuclear tests are carried out by the U.S. (Aug. 3 and Aug. 27), France (Aug. 4) and the USSR (Aug. 18)
• Marriages: Paul Simon (41) and Carrie Fisher (26) (divorced the next year); Film director Philippe de Broca (50) weds actress Margot Kidder (34)
• Birthdays: Chris Hemsworth (39); Andrew Garfield (39); Mila Kunis (you guessed it, 39)
• Top Five Songs in the U.S.: (1) "Every Breath You Take" (The Police); (2) "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)" (Eurythmics); (3) "She Works Hard For The Money" (Donna Summer); (4) "Maniac" (Michael Sembello) (no relation to this guy); (5) "Is There Something I Should Know" (Duran Duran)
• Deaths: lyracist Ira Gershwin (86); actress Carolyn Jones (53); actor Simon Oakland (61)
• Cost of Living: Avg rent, $335/mo.; Gallon of gas $.96; Ford Mustang $6,572; Avg. income/year, $21,070; Price of a comic book: $.60

And speaking of your hard-earned 60¢...
The Marvel checklist of books published during August of 1983. What were you reading around this time?

Target: ROSSSS!

 

In just about any comic that featured the incredible Hulk described as going "berserk," that would be no great stretch of the imagination for any Hulk reader, given the character's fits of rage. In addition, since that rage brings about an increase in the Hulk's strength, it doesn't come as a surprise when the level of destruction of a given area (or the punishment of a foe) becomes a scene of carnage and devastation as a result. But when a book such as What If makes such a claim, a series where the worst case scenario often becomes reality (that is, alternate reality), you can almost depend on the likelihood that even for a creature of rage such as the Hulk, things are going to get as bad as bad can get, as the Watcher will attest to in this mid-1984 issue.

Compliments to artist Bill Sienkiewicz (and his letterer) for the story's stunning cover.

Written by Peter Gillis with art by Ron Wilson, this would be the last issue of What If that the Hulk would appear in as its main character, having been featured as such in four prior issues throughout the first volume of the series. Given the Watcher's introduction, it's apparent that whatever change in the Hulk that affects his behavior to such a degree will occur at the point when Bruce Banner first transforms into the man-brute--ergo, it's fair to assume that something about the gamma bomb explosion that irradiates him is different than we remember. And that indeed turns out to be the case, as we join the doctors investigating the level of radiation exposure in not just one patient this time, but two.

In this reality, Banner failed to reach the protective trench with his young charge, Rick Jones, which leads to both of them being exposed to the detonation of the gamma bomb test. And so when Banner experiences his initial transformation that will change his life for the worse, in this reality Rick has an empathic reaction to the changes in Banner's mind as the creature who would become known as the Hulk breaks out of the facility.

All too quickly, just as it happened in our reality, the men under the command of General Ross witness the capabilities of the monster that will be named the Hulk--while our doctors discover a figurative lid being clamped down on the entire developing situation, which will unfortunately prevent their input from reaching those who are most in need of understanding just who and what the Hulk is.

Gillis has brought in Maj. Glenn Talbot--a character who for us didn't join the fold until the Hulk's second act in Tales To Astonish--somewhat earlier than his original appearance, though just as committed to his duty and to Ross.

And so we see the battle lines being drawn by these officers who are now dealing with the threat potential of a powerful, unknown intruder. But with Rick also now having a telepathic connection with the Hulk even from his sickbed, the circumstances here will change dramatically for all concerned--particularly for Ross, who is now on the path to making an enemy obsessed with his destruction, an enemy the likes of which he and the men under his command have never known.

These Boots Were Made For Clodhopperin'

Four years ago, the PPC dared to tell you that we'd wrapped up our look at Assistant Editors' Month--that under-the-radar event where Marvel's staff of editors, who had flown en masse to attend the 1984 San Diego Comic Con, ceded responsibility for January's issues and stories to their subordinates in the editorial ranks of the company. That month, many of Marvel's covers carried an imposing stamp which warned that we might see a few of those editors peeking out from behind the curtain and playing a little mischief with our reading experience while the cat was away:

But some of these stories still turn up on our radar from time to time, and, like Marvel's dreaded inventory shelf, no story goes to waste here.* Though from his expression, the Thing might wish otherwise!

*Well, some do; that is, there are some stories which even the PPC is hesitant to touch with a ten-foot pole.

As with a few other stories which carried the AEM stamp, this one by John Byrne and Ron Wilson begins rather normally, as we find Ben Grimm visiting his girlfriend, sculptress Alicia Masters, in the hospital where she recovers from sustaining injuries at the hands of Annihilus. What isn't normal behavior for Ben is that he has begun thinking about his own mortality--and that, given his choice of vocation, the odds are in favor of meeting his death in some battle before he's ready to choose to retire and start a new life with Alicia. It's a strange perspective for Byrne to have him dwell on, particularly in light of the fact that Ben only has to look to his partner and best friend, Reed Richards, to see that his current occupation and his wish to be with Alicia need not be mutually exclusive.

Regardless, his thoughts on the matter are heavy on his mind once he leaves and, shortly afterward, decides to intervene in a bank holdup--where he finds a foe unlike any other he's dealt with, and more of a threat than he bargained for.

The Rampaging TV Sensation

(With a tip of the hat to Steve Does Comics for this post's inspiration!)


Like a number of Marvel's line of B&W magazines from the '70s, I passed on the original run of The Rampaging Hulk magazine from 1977-78, though I remember taking a quick look at a couple of issues when browsing the magazine rack. The book's time period preceded that of the present-day Hulk, going back to the days just after his first series when he had a little more on the ball in the brain department, a facet of his personality which writer Doug Moench took further so that the Hulk's manner and speech resembled that of the character we saw during his brief stint in The Avengers. That alone wouldn't have been a problem for me; in fact, I liked the Hulk when he was almost always in a bad mood and had a hair-trigger temper, when you could never tell what was going to push him over the edge. But the mag also made an alien race called the Krylorians the Hulk's perpetual foes throughout the run of the initial series, and they just didn't appeal to me--mostly because Moench wrote them as if they'd modeled their speech and cognitive patterns after street-savvy Americans, something I couldn't reconcile with alien invaders. Boiled down, they seemed to be really snarky versions of the Toad Men, though frankly I enjoyed the Toad Men.

Also of note is that Marvel's magazines tended to be churned out depending on the trend of the year, whether it was martial arts or monsters or a popular film. In this case, when The Rampaging Hulk was retooled to a color magazine in 1978 with more contemporary stories, it hitched its wagon to the 1978 television series The Incredible Hulk, appealing to the show's fan base with interviews and behind-the-scenes segments. Naturally, the Incredible Hulk comic followed suit with prominent "Marvel's TV Sensation" captions appearing on its covers, though I can hardly fault them for striking while the iron is hot.  At the time, however, I wasn't a regular view of the show--so the large-format Hulk magazine just didn't reach me on any level.

But having recently taken a look at a good number of the magazine issues from each of its runs, I found that there were many things to appreciate about them, creatively speaking. I can't say I didn't have a few problems with Moench's at times meandering style (for instance, an interminable amount of time is spent having Rick Jones, in hot pursuit of the Hulk, trying to determine from the air which direction Queens would be)--but some of the stories were engaging (many of the action sequences more so), and, in all fairness to Moench, each was packed with a whopping 60+ pages of material. In addition, there is some truly spectacular artwork to be found in the series, which will be the primary focus of today's post.

It's only fair to start at the beginning--that is, the Hulk's beginning, following Bruce Banner's exposure to the radiation emitted from the explosion of his gamma bomb. Without the aid of a colorist, the scene is all the more chilling, thanks to artists Walt Simonson and Alfredo Alcala.

Up The Long Ladder

When Jack Kirby turned in those first sets of pages for his new series, The Eternals, I wonder if he knew at the time that he was setting in stone the definitive evolution of mankind in the Marvel universe? I.e., that man would owe its genetic makeup to the Celestials?

It beats me why a race as obviously advanced and evolved as the Celestials would spend their time hopping from planet to planet to planet, experimenting with the indigenous humanoid life they encountered and altering its genetic makeup, and then periodically returning to monitor its progress--only to eventually pass judgment on it as fruitless and subsequently wipe it out. Does that sound very enlightened to you? Planetary lab workers? And as it turns out, lousy lab workers, at that--because, with the exception of Earth (and just barely), and allowing for the special circumstances of another world, Pangoria (exterminating its dominant race), they've given a big thumbs-down to every race they've experimented with. That's a 99% rate of failure, just to be clear. All of those Celestials, with all of those analyzing instruments, and having been at this for millions of years, and still no race's evolution has satisfied them? Someone give these guys the High Evolutionary's number, because they're obviously doing it wrong. (Not that his own work couldn't use some fine tuning.)

Still, Kirby's grand concept has stood the test of time, and writer Mark Gruenwald (with artist Ron Wilson) would later craft a limited series which expanded on the Celestials as well as the Eternals--even folding in Jim Starlin's tale of Kronos. In the first segment, Kirby's short introduction of the Celestials' experiments receives more thorough treatment:

The Mountain That Walks Like A Man!

When the cover to Marvel Two-In-One #13 appeared on the rack, you'd almost think you were looking at a reprint of one of Marvel's old monster comics from the early 1960s:

Those monster names just rolled off the tongue then. "Vandoom!" "Rommbu!" "Droom!" "Monstrollo!" "Goom!" And here we have a colossus that has a name like a comic book sound effect: Braggadoom! But as terrifying as he comes across, there's a little more to Braggadoom than meets the eye. We sure hope there is. Because if he's just rampaging for the sake of rampaging, we're all in trouble.

Braggadoom's story begins with a far more meek individual--Arnold Krank, a researcher whose oversight combined with his clumsiness (just what you'd want in a lab scientist) led to a fateful accident:

Yet it wasn't until a hastily called press conference that the real horror would begin:

And reach someone Krank did--Ben Grimm, the only member of the Fantastic Four in residence when Krank went to ask for their help. And the fierce conflict between the Thing and Krank's accidental creation would lead to the inadvertent naming of the creature:

Seeing that the Thing would need help, Krank then went to Luke Cage and convinced him to join in the attempt to subdue Braggadoom. Unfortunately, Braggadoom would soon enough have both of them in hand:

During the battle with Braggadoom, it becomes clear that it's an uneasy alliance between Cage and Grimm--mostly due to the Thing's underlying impression that Cage charging for his services makes him something less than a professional, as well as less of a bona fide hero:

At least for the short term, though, they agree to focus on the crisis at hand. A crisis which has literally become bigger:

The Thing manages to topple Braggadoom and gain some breathing room--but as he prepares for a final attack, Krank tells Cage that he believes it would prove fatal. And when Cage attempts to intervene, Grimm again loses his patience with him, while at last giving voice to the reason for his annoyance with Cage:

Fortunately, Krank confirms to Grimm his fears regarding a physical attack on Braggadoom. Yet, at that moment, a startling development occurs:

And so the crisis has passed, though the Thing notes that two men are still dead. As for Krank, he seeks to atone for the tragedy of Braggadoom's creation and rampage by taking on a new role with the creature, in an ending that would fit like a glove in one of those old monster comics:

I don't recall Braggadoom making any more appearances in comics, so perhaps his story ended here. As for Grimm and Cage, they went on to butt heads again when Cage temporarily took Grimm's place in the FF, another situation where Cage showed considerably more maturity in their disagreement than the hot-tempered Grimm.

Marvel Two-In-One #13 Script: Roger Slifer and Len Wein Pencils: Ron Wilson Inks: Vince Colletta Letterer: Joe Rosen

Meeting Of The Minds!

Artistically speaking, it's hard to get wrong the concept of the Uni-Mind, the ritual of the Eternals that we've occasionally seen enacted over the years. You basically have all of the Eternals (along with maybe a few guests) taking to the sky and doing some flying in a circular pattern before joining forces at one central point formed by their leader, Zuras, to reform into a huge floating brain. There's a considerable amount of spectacle involved, since the ritual itself seems to mean a great deal to the Eternals.

But even with such basics, artists have differed in their perspectives of the whole thing--some giving the grandeur its due, while others have regarded the end result (i.e., the Uni-Mind itself) as the focus of their efforts. Let's take a look and see how some of their different interpretations compare with each other.

First, in a series of back-up stories featuring the Eternals, one installment spends two entire pages on the ritual, courtesy of artists Ron Wilson and Alan Kupperberg, where Zuras forms the Uni-Mind in tandem with his brother, Alars:

In Thor, while the Thunder God is investigating the threat of the Celestials, he pays a visit to Olympia and is witness to the ceremony, drawn by Keith Pollard and Chic Stone:

Over in The Avengers, the Eternals have invited Starfox to participate in the Uni-Mind ceremony, this time with Thena issuing the call.  Though artists Al Milgrom and Joe Sinnott seem to think a lot more of the Uni-Mind than the pomp which leads up to its formation:

Finally, the concept's creator, Jack Kirby, gives the Uni-Mind ritual a gorgeous two-page spread, and much more:

Despite the attention given to it, I confess that the Uni-Mind ritual has never really caught on with me in a singularly impressive way. But I'm still intrigued by whatever new twist an artist might give its latest appearance.

Crackle! Pop!

"Stranded in Sub-Atomica!", the title of the story that's the subject of the following two covers for Fantastic Four #76, was a misnomer, since no one was really stranded there at all. The FF shrunk down to that world in order to retrieve the Silver Surfer--and Psycho-Man, who considered that environment to be his own, had launched an android to also capture the Surfer, but which instead ended up battling the FF. Once the FF find the Surfer, they're able to convince him to return to the world above in order to deal with the threat of Galactus--but they decide to remain in the Microverse in order to pursue Psycho-Man, which is probably what the story's title is referring to, if inaccurately.

There were several ways for artist Jack Kirby to design the original issue's cover, since Psycho-Man's android is only one combatant which the FF deal with--and, indeed, other things of note were happening in the issue, as well (Galactus, for instance, not exactly being chopped liver). The collage design of the next issue's cover would give a more effective representation of all the things that issue was juggling; but here, Kirby chose to focus on the android, which Psycho-Man had made indestructible.* As to how to portray the FF "stranded," it either didn't occur to Kirby or else he disregarded it as much as the rest of us did (assuming he even knew the story's title at that point).

*It must be nice to make something indestructible whenever it suits you. Why aren't cell phone manufacturers beating down Psycho-Man's door?

In the redone cover for the issue of Marvel's Greatest Comics which reprints that issue, artist Ron Wilson follows Kirby's design almost precisely, but goes him one better: instead of its back turned to us, which doesn't make much of an impression on us and gives little indication how this android can be such a threat to the FF, Wilson has the android fully engaged with the FF in a more aggressive and determined posture:

Wilson's effort results in a more visually exciting image where the action pops out at you, even highlighting the FF more by using "Kirby crackle" to make the background less stark--while Kirby's depiction only lets us know that the FF is in battle with something but does nothing to really make us curious as to who or what this powerful opponent is. Even if you removed the newer cover's over-the-top "murder machine" caption, we'd still be left with an image which gives us more of a reason to pick up this issue and see what's going on.