The All-New, Intergalactic Black Panther

When you turn the first pages of Jack Kirby's Black Panther series from 1977, you realize almost immediately that, just as in Captain America which the writer/artist had also absorbed on his return to Marvel Comics, Kirby had his own ideas on how and in what kind of adventure environment the character should operate. There is no preamble to speak of in the situation which T'Challa finds himself: tagging along with a diminutive collector known as Mister Little (I trust you've made the wry connection between description and name) who's tracking down an artifact from King Solomon's tomb called the Brass Frog, which apparently exacts a deadly price for being found. Little is not alone in his quest--he's soon joined by a more unscrupulous collector, Princess Zanda, who even employs a detachment of armed men to deal with any resistance. Quite a club, these collectors.

Little and T'Challa have located another collector who has been run through with a sword by what appears to be a warrior from the past; though once the assailant is dealt with, Zanda makes her entrance and seemingly terminates Little before claiming the Frog for herself. And I can almost hear the questions you're asking at this point: just what the heck is T'Challa doing here? Aside from a loose reference to T'Challa's grandfather, what does any of this have to do with Wakanda, the African nation over which T'Challa reigns? Why would Little approach him, or vice versa? What's T'Challa's stake in a collectors' spat?

So you get a sense of what we're dealing with here:  the Black Panther, removed from the "comfort zone" of his kingdom as well as the Avengers, and thrown into the wildly incredible--now speaking and reacting as any other central Kirby character might, if mixed into the same circumstances. For all intents and purposes, T'Challa, at least as we know and understand him, is gone; instead, his eyes are our eyes, and his reactions our reactions, with the reader clearly meant to be put in his shoes. As T'Challa slowly peels the onion skin away from this adventure, we're thus able to mimic his surprise or sense of revelation. We're not just along for the ride--we're riding shotgun with the Black Panther.

And if you think that things stabilize in issue 2, well, that's just not the way Jack Kirby rolls, bub. Because when a stray shot from one of Zanda's men hits the Frog, we get a man from six million years in the future added to the mix. And things quickly fall apart from there:

"What Time Is It, Kids?"

Come on--do I even need to tell you what this post is going to be about?

Right! It's a look at some of my favorite

So let's get clobberin'!

The Real Chairman of the Avengers

Wow! Henry Gyrich is sure peeved about the bloated state of the Avengers:

But, aren't appearances deceiving here?

Let's backtrack a little. Most of these people were called in because of the mysterious disappearances of Avengers, due to the Collector and his attempt to preserve the team from the coming attack of "the Enemy." And when the Avengers faced that foe, they did so with nearly every one of their members present, including some allies. Before that, as far as I can tell, the core membership of the team consisted of Iron Man, Captain America, Yellowjacket, the Wasp, the Beast, the Vision, and the Scarlet Witch--as well as Wonder Man, who was seemingly welcomed back into the fold informally.

So, now that the crisis is over, is this really the problem that Gyrich thinks it is?

After all, once we subtract all the heroes who will be heading back to their own affairs, that means that at least thirteen people are gone from this gathering--some of whom weren't even Avengers to begin with. Which will leave us with an Avengers team numbering nine, now that Hawkeye is probably going to stick around:

• Yellowjacket
• Wasp
• Hawkeye
• Scarlet Witch
• Vision
• Iron Man
• Captain America
• Wonder Man
• Beast

But let's hear how Gyrich sizes up the membership from this point on. Wait a minute--Gyrich is calling the shots on Avengers membership now? Of course he is, because we have to hear him say that line we've been waiting for him to say:

(Nice touch with the conceited facial twitch, Mr. Byrne.)

Now that he's made himself clear, Gyrich finalizes his own Avengers roster:

So from the prior listing, Yellowjacket, Hawkeye, and Wonder Man are out (though with Hawkeye only recently returned, his exit isn't exactly going to cause shockwaves). As for the addition of the Falcon, Gyrich is simply acquainting the Avengers with the EEOC:

Iron Man points out that the team has already met such requirements with the inclusion of mutants and androids, but I think we can assume that Gyrich's directive is going to stand as is. And why?

You KNEW you just wanted to hear it one more time.

Avoid Lurching Trick-Or-Treaters

Every now and then, we'll see Marvel dig up (heh heh, "dig up") its old Marvel Zombies concept for either a stand-alone story or a limited run of stories lasting about five issues or so with a new twist on the super-powered flesh eaters. And with zombies all the rage these days, I ask you: what would Halloween be without a few Marvel zombies rearing their decomposed heads?

I suppose any "Marvel zombies" story would have done for the ghoulish holiday, but let's take a look at the one-shot comic that was published in 2012 specifically to get some sales mileage out of commemorate Halloween. With the story of the zombies more or less resolved some time ago, completing the circle of the Sentry's involvement, Marvel was still in a position to publish "untold tales" of the disaster that, in the right creative hands, had the potential to be both compelling and entertaining segments of the bigger picture--and, if they sold well, then why not? Yet this Halloween one-shot would seem to be another missed opportunity in terms of the original concept--because, while the story by Fred Van Lente and Alessandro Vitti makes a decent effort to stand on its own and offer an interesting survivalist take, it doesn't take advantage of the elements of the overall story that this disaster put into play.

Yet, while that's disappointing, it's not a deal-breaker. There are a few things this story breaks ground on that I don't recall seeing before--beginning with a woman and her young son taking refuge in an abandoned house, which Vitti makes clear right off the bat exists on a world that has been devastated by the events the Sentry put in motion:

The Devil You Know...

With Halloween a little less than two weeks away, you might want to sit your kids down and see if they'd rather forego the traditional door-to-door candy hunt and instead invite some friends over for a stay-at-home costume party. Because in a Marvel world, the door on which they knock could be opened by a vengeful demon of the night, and they could instead become the hunted:

While the cover of Tomb of Dracula #41 takes playful advantage of its timing with that of All Hallows' Eve, the events in the story are deadly serious. Doctor Sun, the floating brain with designs on world conquest (what else?), has brought to fruition his scheme to weaken Dracula in order to drain and adapt the vampire's hypnotic powers for his own use. Once Sun had no further need of him, he had Dracula staked and subsequently burned to ashes. Afterward, Rachel Van Helsing, Frank Drake, and Quincy Harker briefed the U.S. Army on Sun, and Rachel and Frank joined a platoon in raiding Sun's compound.

But Sun was prepared, and made use of his new hypnotic power to bring the entire platoon of soldiers under his sway, and Rachel and Frank were forced to withdraw. Now realizing that Dracula was their only hope to stop Sun's plans, they staged a daring raid on Sun's headquarters and made off with the urn which stored Dracula's remains.

Now this group of hunters, who have devoted most of their lives to finding and slaying Dracula, must wrestle with a moral dilemma. With Sun's plans advancing, and the villain now using his soldier thralls to recruit even more soldiers, they may now have to revive their greatest foe in order to stop this new enemy. And no matter who wins in the end--Doctor Sun, or Dracula--Quincy Harker and his group, and possibly the world, will lose.

Dead Man Walking

Can YOU

Name This Marvel Villain??

One Of These Gods Looks Familiar

You won't get any argument from me--or from many others, I'd imagine--that Rich Buckler's work as an artist is exemplary. Just off the top of my head, I could put up at least a dozen panels of his art that validate that statement. Or I could simply point you in the direction of his Avengers work or Deathlok, two of my favorites, and then watch your expressions of delight as you turn the pages.

With my recent looks at Thor stories, though, I was reminded of similar thoughts I had around this time last year, which comprise perhaps a caveat emptor for any look at Buckler's work in two Marvel titles which I conspicuously left off that reference list: Fantastic Four and Mighty Thor. In those runs, Buckler suppresses his own style and instead draws panels with heavy influences of Jack Kirby's work. Yet, as you'll see, "influences" is understating the matter, given how often Buckler mimics Kirby's prior panels to the point of producing a close copy.

In Fantastic Four, where Buckler's run on the title was more extensive, there is a separate post that focuses on his work there. Here, we'll look at just the four issues of Thor where he stepped in for John Buscema. I do wish we could have simply seen Buckler's otherwise skilled hand on these issues, depicting such an interesting range of characters like Hercules, Ego, Galactus, Odin, Firelord, et al., not to mention Thor himself. Yet what you're about to see is Buckler taking great pains not to be himself, as well as spending considerable time and effort drawing on prior work from the book and weaving it into new stories. We thus are deprived of how Buckler would artistically interpret the writer's story from beginning to end; instead, we mostly get a sense of the writer trying to compensate for the frequent placement of artwork that has already seen publication, recycled for stories it was never meant to tell.

In these examples, you'll first see Kirby's original art, followed by Buckler's adaptation.

There were other panels which rang familiar, but I couldn't get my memory to cooperate in placing them with their original depictions. Yet this probably gives you a good idea of how Buckler laid out these stories. And believe it or not, if you can manage to "un"-see what you've seen here, I'd still recommend these issues to you because the stories themselves are interesting and entertaining. You'll see the first exposure of Marvel heroes to "fear itself" (that is to say, the actual entity of Fear, which would go on to face Dr. Strange and I think a few others)--and you'll learn the origin of Ego, the Living Planet, in an excellent story by Gerry Conway which John Byrne will unfortunately rip to shreds in a later FF tale.  Just try to ignore the feeling that you may have seen this Thunder God before.

Back, Before The Spells of Thor!

I'm really hoping this was a one-time-only thing for Thor:

Because I'd rather not see Dr. Strange packing a hammer.

Because You Demanded It! (We did?)

Wow! Marvel looks like it may be onto something with this "Wolverine" character:

But, heck, you don't have to hunt for that July 30 launch (with the formal "on the record" issue month being October)--you can read the full review of the issue at another neighborhood blog, Bronze Age Babies. Just plug in this password when prompted:

(Let's just hope you make it out in one piece!)

When Sally Met Thor

Here's a nice little scene that surely would have fit in with an earlier post on how often New Yorkers considered Thor, the God of Thunder, one of their own. It was early 1966, during the time of the escalation of a long and controversial conflict in southeast Asia which polarized much of the United States. Yet look how tactfully Thor's dialog navigates both through and around the subject:

Of course, that doesn't mean the big guy is going to necessarily catch a break from the local cop on the beat: