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Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books - Geek
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Captain Marvel #37 (March, 1975) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
Back in June, we took a look at Captain Marvel #34 -- the last issue produced by auteur Jim Starlin, who would soon be moving on to "Warlock" in Strange Tales. As you may recall, Starlin's swan song ended on a cliffhanger, with Mar-Vell lying unconscious after having been exposed to a deadly nerve toxin.…
Defenders #21 (March, 1975) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
Fifty years ago this month, the Gil Kane-Klaus Janson cover of Defenders #21 heralded the beginning of a new storyline. But as soon as we readers of the time turned to the comic's opening splash page -- not to mention the double-page spread that followed immediately thereafter -- it was clear that although the "A"-plot…
Savage Sword of Conan #4 (February, 1975) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
The fifty-year-old comics magazine we'll be looking at today leads off with a cover by fantasy painter Boris Vallejo that actually illustrates the issue's lead story -- something which wasn't exactly unheard of with Marvel's black-and-white comics of the 1970s, but wasn't quite what you'd call commonplace, either. About the only significant discrepancy between cover…
Captain America #183 (March, 1975) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
Fifty years and one month ago, on the final page of Captain America #182, writer Steve Englehart promised his readers that the next issue would feature "The Return of Captain America! Eight months in the making, and worth every second of the wait!" That bottom-of-the-page blurb struck an unmistakably triumphal tone -- but it was…
Strange Tales #178 (February, 1975) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
Back in June, we took a look at Captain Marvel #34, which was the last issue drawn and plotted by Jim Starlin. As we discussed in that post, Starlin abruptly quit the series after delivering only one chapter of his first post-"Thanos War" storyline, unhappy with Marvel Comics' seeming unwillingness, or inability, to give him…
Giant-Size Avengers #3 (February, 1975) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
Last month we took a look at Avengers #131, which ended with Earth's Mightiest Heroes being transported against their wills to the realm of Limbo, where they were set to face off against a Legion of the Unliving assembled by their long-time foe, Kang the Conqueror. This month, we'll be discussing the "two-part triple-length triumph"…
Defenders #20 (February, 1975) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
Fifty years ago, in November, 1974, Steve Gerber began his tenure as the regular writer of Marvel Comics' Defenders series with the very issue we're discussing here today. But, as we've covered in a couple of recent posts, Gerber had already been warming up for his new assignment for several months. In October, he'd scripted…
Wulf the Barbarian #1 (February, 1975) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
A week ago, writing about the advent of the short-lived comics publisher Atlas/Seaboard, I touched briefly on one of the company's first color comic-book releases -- the barbarian-themed Ironjaw #1 -- which, as you may recall, I didn't rate very highly. At the time, I promised you we'd be taking a look at the other…
Doctor Strange #6 (February, 1975) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
As we discussed in this space two months ago, the fifth issue of the second volume of Doctor Strange marked the end of the very successful collaboration of Steve Englehart (co-plotter and scripter) and Frank Brunner (co-plotter and artist) on the feature... more or less. That "more or less" refers to the fact that Brunner…
Grim Ghost #1 (January, 1975) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
In November, 1974, your humble blogger was pretty much a "just Marvel and DC, please" kind of guy where color comic books were concerned. But, naturally, that didn't mean I was unaware of the wares of other companies. How could I have been? All of the spinner racks I can recall from the first decade…
Captain America #182 (February, 1975) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
The cover of Captain America #182 -- drawn by Ron Wilson and Frank Giacoia (with probable touch-ups by John Romita) -- offered few, if any, hints of major surprises to be found within its pages. Here's Steve Rogers in his new heroic identity of Nomad, continuing his ongoing battle against the Serpent Squad, with a…
Giant-Size Man-Thing #3 (February, 1975) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
OK, let's get this out of the way first: Back in the nid-1970s, Marvel Comics actually published five issues of a series called Giant-Size Man-Thing. Hahahahahahahahah! Everyone good now? As I mentioned in my post about Man-Thing #8 a few months back, there's really no reason why "Giant-Size Man-Thing" should be exponentially funnier than "Man-Thing"…
Avengers #131 (January, 1975) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
Back in August, we covered Avengers #129 and Giant-Size Avengers #2, two memorable issues which together kicked off writer Steve Englehart's "Celestial Madonna" saga -- and the latter of which also saw the death of an Avenger, as the reformed villain called the Swordsman met his untimely end as an unquestioned hero. The next regular…
Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction #1 (January, 1975) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
In February of last year, we ran a post on the first issue of Worlds Unknown -- a four-color anthology title from Marvel Comics devoted to the science fiction genre, with a special focus on adapting short stories and novels by well-known SF authors. As we discussed at the time, this passion project of Marvel's…
Marvel Two-in-One #7 (January, 1975) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
As of October, 1974, Steve Gerber had been the writer on Marvel Two-in-One for a year -- ever since the series teaming the Fantastic Four's Thing with a rotating cast of co-stars had jumped from its previous home in Marvel Feature to its own brand-new title, in fact. Intriguingly (though perhaps also understandably), with the…
Captain America #181 (January, 1981) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
Last month, in our post about Captain America #180, we covered the debut of the former Captain America, Steve Rogers, in his brand-new superheroic identity of the Nomad. As regular readers will hopefully recall, the Nomad's initial outing was somewhat less than completely auspicious, as he tripped over his own cape and failed to prevent…
Giant-Size Defenders #3 (January, 1975) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
As we've discussed in this space previously, Marvel Comics seems to have been in an almighty rush to get as many "Giant-Size" comics to market as possible in the first half of 1974. Along with a multitude of title, frequency, price, and format changes, most seemingly made on the fly, one likely result of this…
Astonishing Tales #27 (December, 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
Back in May, we covered Astonishing Tales #25, featuring the premiere outing (and origin story) of Deathlok the Demolisher. Our main topic of discussion today is the third Deathlok story -- but since this particular feature went in for serialized storytelling in a big way (not to mention doing more than a fair amount of…
Tales of the Zombie #8 (November, 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
Back in April, 2023, towards the end of my post on Tales of the Zombie #1, I wrote that while I fully expected to cover another issue of the series -- more specifically, an issue within writer Steve Gerber and artist Pablo Marcos' run on the titular lead feature -- it was "likely to be…
Doctor Strange #5 (December, 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
As regular readers will hopefully recall from our Doctor Strange #4 post of two months ago, the final pages of that issue saw the Sorcerer Supreme defeat Death only after surrendering to it (yeah, it was kind of complicated), thus setting the stage for Doc to return from the Lewis Carroll-inspired realm of unreality to…
Captain America #180 (December, 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
Last month we took a look at Captain America #179, in which Steve Rogers' former Avengers teammate Hawkeye -- after spending most of the issue disguised as the presumably villainous Golden Archer -- managed to convince him that just because he no longer wanted to wear the colors and bear the name of his country,…
Giant-Size Avengers #2 (November, 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
For the most part, the comics that came out as part of Marvel's "Giant-Size" line in 1974 and 1975 featured stories that, while generally understood to be in continuity with those in the regular-size titles, didn't directly lead into and/or out of those books. Such had been the case with Giant-Size Avengers #1 (Aug., 1974),…
Savage Sword of Conan #2 (October, 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
In 1974, star comics artist Neal Adams had largely turned away from pencilling comic book stories. But he did keep his hand in in the field in various ways, such as by turning out painted covers for Marvel Comics' black-and-white magazine line on a fairly regular basis. The second issue of Marvel's new Savage Sword…
Avengers #129 (November, 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
When we last saw the Avengers, it was at the end of Fantastic Four #150 — the second half of a crossover with Avengers #127 in which both of Marvel’s premiere super-teams came together in the Great Refuge of the Inhumans to celebrate the wedding of the one-time FFer Crystal to the inactive Avenger Quicksilver.…
Swamp Thing #13 (Nov.-Dec., 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
As we covered in a post back in February, the 10th issue of DC Comics' Swamp Thing marked the end of the award-winning collaboration on the title of writer Len Wein, artist Bernie Wrightson, and editor Joe Orlando, as Wrightson chose to leave the book after that installment. But of course, that didn't mean the…
Captain America #179 (November, 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
At the conclusion of the last issue of Captain America we looked at on this blog, the classic #176, our star-spangled hero, reeling from the revelations about the United States government that had emerged in the wake of the Watergate scandal downfall of the Secret Empire, decided to renounce his costumed identity -- "forever!" As…
Thor #228 (October, 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
The primary subject of today's blog post is the advent of artist Rich Buckler as the regular artist on Marvel Comics' Thor (and despite the post's title, we'll be spending at least as much time on issue #227 -- Buckler's actual debut on the series -- as we will on #228). But as it's been…
Doctor Strange #4 (October, 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
As we previously noted in our post about Doctor Strange #2 back in May, in June, 1974, Marvel Comics provided fans of the Master of the Mystic Arts' normally bimonthly series with the release of an extra issue. But Doctor Strange #3 didn't feature the third chapter of the continuing story begun by scripter/co-plotter Steve…
Phantom Stranger #33 (Oct.-Nov., 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
It's been quite a while since we covered an issue of Phantom Stranger on the blog -- more specifically, since May, 2023, when we took a look at PS #26. As I wrote at the time, that issue's crossover between the comic's lead and backup features (the latter then being "The Spawn of Frankenstein") represented…
Tomb of Dracula #25 (October, 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
The story told within the pages of this issue of Tomb of Dracula is, for the most part, a self-contained narrative; what's often referred to as a "done in one". That said, it's still one episode in an ongoing serial continuity, which means that it inevitably makes reference to past events -- and thus, to…
Giant-Size Master of Kung Fu #1 (September, 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
While this blog has briefly touched on the matter of Marvel's 1974-75 line of "Giant-Size" comics in a few previous discussions, this is the first time we've devoted a post to a book in that fairly short-lived format. So, I hope you all won't mind if we take a little time here at the top…
Planet of the Apes #1 (August, 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
In June, 1974, my sixteen-year-old self was well-primed for the debut of a comic book series based on the Planet of the Apes media franchise. True, at the time I'd seen only two out of the five extant movies -- Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) and Conquest of the Planet of the…
Fantastic Four #150 (September, 1970) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
A week ago, we took a look at Avengers #127 (Sep., 1974), the first half of a two-part crossover story set to conclude in the comic book that's the main subject of the present post. But while Fantastic Four #150 does in fact pick up immediately from the cliffhanger ending that closed out its predecessor,…
Adventure Comics #435 (Sep.-Oct., 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
About a year ago, in a post about Plop #1, we spent some time musing about the flourishing of the word "Weird" in the titles of various DC Comics series of the early-to-mid-1970s. As Joe Orlando -- who was the editor of the majority of these titles -- would later put it in a 1998…
Avengers #127 (September, 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
Following their close-shave victory over the mad Titan Thanos in Avengers #125 and Captain Marvel #33, Earth's Mightiest Heroes barely got a breather before they were beset by the newly teamed super-villains Klaw and Solarr in Avengers #126. This was a one-off story, and frankly not one of the Assemblers' most memorable adventures -- although…
Marvel Spotlight #17 (September, 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
If you were to take a deep dive into the credits page for writer Steve Gerber at the Mike's Amazing World of Comics web site, you'd be forgiven if you ultimately concluded that, in the summer of 1974, he must have been scripting half of Marvel Comics' entire line. He wasn't -- not quite --…
Captain Marvel #34 (September, 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
So, how do you follow up a grand, multi-issue crossover superhero epic in which your protagonist and his allies have just barely managed to eke out a win against an insane god in time to save the universe? If you're Captain Marvel plotter, penciller, and colorist (maybe we should just go with auteur?) Jim Starlin,…
Savage Sword of Conan #1 (August, 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
In June, 1974, the Hyborian Age was clearly in full flower at Marvel Comics. Along with the latest installment of the publisher's successful ongoing Conan the Barbarian series (issue #42, for the record), the month also brought the fans of Robert E. Howard's famous sword-and-sorcery hero the first issue of a brand-new quarterly companion title,…
Justice League of America #113 (Sep.-Oct., 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
Beginning in 1963 and continuing through 1973, the June issue of Justice League of America had featured the first chapter of the latest team-up event between the JLA and their Earth-Two counterparts in the Justice Society of America. It was an annual summer tradition that no DC Comics fan would have expected to see change…
Master of Kung Fu #19 (August, 1974) | Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books
Back in January, we took a look at Master of Kung Fu #17, a comic which presented the third installment of Marvel Comics' first ongoing martial arts feature (albeit only the first one under that title, as the two previous episodes had seen print as Special Marvel Edition #15 and #16). That third installment was…