Of all the Edgar Rice Burroughs characters, I’ve always preferred John Carter.  Apparently so did Marv Wolfman, who jumped at the chance to do a John Carter comic for Marvel in 1976!

Looking at this comic, in this quality of the story and artwork, I have to believe it was a labor of love for all the creators involved.  Wolfman made an interesting choice to use first person narration for the scenes involving Carter, and third person narration for everything else.

Dave Cockrum’s inks over Gil Kane’s pencils just seem magical to me.  If you loved their cover to Giant-Size X-Men #1, imagine seeing 20 pages of their work together!  Unfortunately, Cockrum only inked this first issue, then Rudy Nebres took over.

Cockrum apparently did a lot of character design work before the first issue was published, as you can see in this editorial.  He designed John Carter, Dejah Thoris, Tars Tarkus, and many other elements of Barsoom.  Of course, this being Marvel, the title of the editorial has to reference something in pop culture: Welcome Back Carter references Gabe Kaplan’s TV show, Welcome Back, Kotter!

John Carter was published by Marvel from 1976 to 1979, including 28 issues and 3 annuals.  Gil Kane lasted for about 10 issues, Marv Wolfman stayed on until issue 15 and was replaced by Chris Claremont.  The series had some great artists later on: Carmine Infantino, Walt Simonson, and a young Frank Miller.

Dave Cockrum did return for issue 11, a special origin story for Dejah Thoris!  Now here’s something about Dejah Thoris’ costume.  Doesn’t it bear some resemblance to Leia’s slave girl costume in Return of the Jedi?  Cockrum designed this in 1976 or earlier; ROTJ premiered in 1983.  Don’t let this slave outfit fool you—Dejah was an accomplished swordswoman who had some incredible fight scenes during the series.

I don’t believe Marvel’s John Carter has ever been reprinted in a trade collection.  What a shame, I’d love to see this artwork re-colored.  Nuff said.

Back in 1971, there was one month where all the Marvel Comics went from an astounding price hike: from 15 cents to 25 cents!  Sheesh, you guys think $2.99 to $3.99 is terrible?  Ten cents was a big deal back then.  Marvel even wrote a special apology to their readers:

Of course, Marvel justified this by telling readers they were getting two comics in one, since all the 25 centers were double sized!  The lead story was increased from 20 to 34 pages and the rest of the mag had a reprint story.  Marvel only did this for one month; with the next issue, all comics went down to 20 cents.  There are two explanations for this.  One was that Stan Lee played a sneaky trick on DC and forced them to put all of their comics at 25 cents a pop, which lasted for a year.  During that time, Marvel gained market share as their comics were 5 cents cheaper.

I tend to think this wasn’t the result of a sneaky Grandmaster chess move.  I think that the artists couldn’t cope with drawing 10 extra pages a month for the lead story!  Which brings us to Thor #193…

The Silver Surfer joined Thor for this special 25 cent square-bound issue.  While the cover is not as iconic as Silver Surfer #3, plenty of Marvelites scooped up this comic, hungry for any appearance of Norrin Radd.

He makes quite an entrance on this splash page!  Note that Sal Buscema inked his brother John on this issue, just as he did on the Silver Surfer series.  In the story, Balder recruits the Surfer to help Thor battle Durok the Demolisher in Washington DC.  The Surfer has just about had it with humanity, but Balder’s selfless devotion to Thor changes his mind.

Whenever I re-read Thor or Conan, I am astounded at the quality of John Buscema’s work.  This man could layout and draw incredible pages on 2-3 series at a monthly rate!  Only people with the work ethic and skill of Kirby, Buscema, Romita, or Kane could produce such pages.  Look at this next splash page…

Sif is prepared in an Asgardian regal wedding gown, ready to marry…Loki!  Who is of course behind all of the dastardly events in this issue.  Just the composition of this page is astounding.  The angle of the shot, the expression on Sif’s face, how great Sif looks in that dress.  Now, this is something that the Thor movie can capitalize on if Kenneth Branagh is smart…Thor has a lot of babes in his world!  Sif, the Enchantress, Hela, Jane Foster, etc.

Keep in mind that Thor #193 was only one of the Buscema books that appeared that month.  There was also Fantastic Four #116, another 34-page tale that I will revisit soon.  Nuff said.

I wasn’t really that excited about watching this DVD.  Who cares about a watered down cartoon Wolverine?

How wrong I was.  Hulk Vs. (Two-Disc Special Edition) (Widescreen) DVD features the most mature Wolverine ever put on film, live action or otherwise.  In fact, it may be the most faithful depiction of Marvel characters in the movies!

I always kind of cringe when I watch X-Men 2 and see Hugh Jackman taking out those army guys.  His claws go into their chests and there’s no blood at all anywhere as a result.  He might as well be sticking his claws into mannequins!

Not so in this animated feature.  Wolverine rips into Hulk in their initial fight and there’s blood everywhere, especially when Wolvy hops onto his back.  Yes, during that fight, there is the above homage to Todd McFarlane’s cover to Incredible Hulk #340 (I had to pause and slow advance this scene to appreciate it in full glory).  In another scene, Wolverine rips into an army squad and slices them apart—they are bloody silhouettes—damn amazing.  This DVD is rated PG-13.  Now I’m wondering why we can’t see something like this in a live action film.  Would people really protest?

The Weapon X origin of Wolverine is also explored.  You have Deadpool, Sabretooth, Omega Red, and Lady Deathstrike in the Weapon X labs trying to kill Wolverine before the Professor can wipe his memories away.  Deadpool is hilarious here.  Now I want to see Deadpool in his own movie!  Ryan Reynolds has a lot to live up to when he portrays this character in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

The second movie on the DVD features the Hulk vs Thor.  This one was good, but I don’t think the story and dialogue blew me away as much as the Wolverine one. I don’t recall the Hulk ever fighting Thor on his home turf (Asgard) before, but unfortunately, the Hulk is not quite himself during the battle—he’s possessed by Loki.  What’s nice about it is that Asgard is represented in awesome detail.  You will see the Warriors Three, Sif, Loki, Hela, and the Enchantress.  Even more delightful are some of the background characters—for example, you will see Valkyrie in a few scenes, and I really like the costume design they made for her.  There’s a wonderful scene where Thor is near death and sees Hela reaching out for him.

Lots of great behind the scenes stuff in this package as well.  I hope we’ll get more animated DVDs of the same high caliber in the future.  Nuff said.

Wow, I was totally blown away by Agents of Atlas #1.  Take a look at this double page spread by Carlo Pagulayan.

His depiction of all the characters is really great, but I am especially blown away by Namora.  The drawing and the coloring really make this character pop.  BTW, I’m always getting confused between Namora and Namorita.  This Wikipedia article states that Namorita was Namora’s clone.  Namorita died in Civil War #1.  Namora was revived in the first Agents of Atlas series.  She’s as strong as her cousin, Namor the Sub-Mariner.

Jeff Parker really gets the first issue off to a great start.  The AoA get into a big power play with Norman Osborne, Venus uses her powers on the Sentry, and Man Mountain Marko leads an ATF team against our heroes.  Man Mountain Marko!  Never thought I’d see that guy again!

Marvel’s really got a good streak going with new titles lately: Captain Britain, Deadpool, and now Agents of Atlas.  Can’t wait for issue #2.  Nuff said.

This Marvel house ad announced the coming of an actual book—as in to be sold in real bookstores—called Origins of Marvel Comics.  This hit Marvel fans like me right in the gut.  You see, at that time, actual book collections of comics weren’t available in bookstores or anywhere.  Outside of Jules Ffeifer’s Great Comic Book Heroes, or perhaps Steranko’s History of Comics, or reprints of Dick Tracy, Peanuts, and Little Orphan Annie, superheroes were really scarce.  And I know.  I looked for them every week!

Stan Lee would reveal the secrets behind creating the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Hulk, etc., and reprint their first appearances with the best printing we had ever seen to that point.  I waited months until this finally appeared in the bookstore.  I think when it did finally come out, Stan appeared on the Today Show, which my Mother took note of.  Yeah, comics were finally legit!  Well, not really, until years later with the Spider-Man and X-Men movies.

The bottom half of this ad features a collectible I wish I still had: the Mighty Marvel Calendar for 1975.  That one had great illustrations by Romita, Starlin, Ploog, and others.  Anyone have scans of this calendar?  Nuff said

Giant-Size Superstars was re-titled Giant-Size Fantastic Four with issue #2, as this Marvel ad heralded to all fandom, it was now available in a Giant-Size 50 cent edition!

I always thought this cover premise was a bit of a letdown.  Yes, we like seeing the Thing and the FF fighting cosmic or world-ending menaces like Galactus.  Gangsters in the roarin’ twenties?  Not so much.  Maybe the editor who came up with this idea had loved the Star Trek episode, “A Piece of the Action”, where Kirk and Spock encounter a world full of Mafia types.  Nuff said.

Morbius first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #101, in the middle of a storyline that had Peter Parker somehow growing 4 additional limbs to become even more arachnid like.  The worst idea Stan Lee ever had!  Fortunately, Peter went to 2 arms after issue #102.

Morbius was different than the typical villain.  He killed people for blood, but felt really guilty about it afterward.  His tragic origin pushed Morbius to the edge where he could be villain or anti-hero. 

Gil Kane’s art was really inspired during this issue.  I am wondering who came up with the design for Morbius.  Was it John Romita or Kane?  Maybe an informed Marvel historian can please tell me.

Morbius quickly became a popular character.  He next appeared in Marvel Team-Up #1, then he helped launched Giant-Size Superheroes #1 for Spider-Man.  He teamed up with Man-Wolf (a scientifically created werewolf) to take down Peter Parker.  After this, Morbius graduated into 2 separate series: Adventure Into Fear (a color comic) and Vampire Tales (a black and white magazine).  Nuff said,

Why did I like the Defenders so much?  Because you never knew what to expect with each story arc.  The writers—Thomas, Englehart, Wein, and Gerber—all broke with conventional formulas in their own ways. Giant Size Defenders #2 did so when the team had to enlist a horror character—the Son of Satan—to rescue the Hulk from Hell!

This story featured Klaus Janson’s beautiful inks over Gil Kane’s pencils.  I am going to go out on a limb here and say this was the first Kane-Janson pairing.  Glynis Wein did a superb job on the colors as well.  The Hulk goes on a city wide rampage before getting tricked into Hell by a little girl.

This appearance by Daimon Hellstrom setup a long association with the Defenders.  He joined the team again for the Sons of the Serpent storyline in issue #22-24 and later joined as a full time member.  It’s nice to have Satan’s spawn in your back pocket.  Nuff said.