Avengers (1963) 94

By Roy Thomas
Dec 1971

Chapter 1: More Than Inhuman!
Art by Neal Adams and Tom Palmer
- Vision follows the Super Skrull (who had captured Mar-Vell, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver) to the Inhumans home the Great Refuge
- SS attempts to destroy the Inhumans home, unsuccessfully; no Inhuman sightings
- the Inhumans are Kree Spawn? Since when?
- Vision confronts SS but leaves his spaceship when he realizes he can't defeat him

Chapter 2: 1971 Aaaaaaaa Space Odyssey
Art by John Buscema

- SS arrives on the Skrull Homeworld with his prisoners; he was exiled and hopes that the prisoners he brings will help to make up for his transgressions but the Skrull emperor isn't forgiving
- when CM refuses to reveal the secrets of the Omni-Wave generator which allows instantaneous transmissions across the galaxy the Skrull emperor throws SW and QS into a prison with a number of monsters including a giant lizard like critter and some little furry ones that multiply like tribbles
- eventually CM agrees to reveal the secrets and the Skrull emperor releases them

- tribbles?
-

Chapter 3: Behold the Mandroids!
Art by Neal Adams

- Vision returns to avengers mansion to tell the others (Cap, IM, Thor, Goliath) about SW and QS
- Nick Fury calls the Avengers to warn them in a cryptic sort of way
- Craddock is back in the picture with enforcers to take the Avengers into custody
- Craddock's muscle is the Mandroids, which were created by Stark Industries, although Iron Man doesn't share that information with his teammates just yet
- as the battle begins between the 5 Avengers and the Mandroids, Triton (Inhuman) emerges from a manhole

- the word balloon placement throughout the issue is confusing
- how much of Neal Adams art work was redrawn in the version I am reading?
- definite lack of consistency in the way some things are portrayed from Ch 1 (Adams) to Ch 2 (Buscema)

6/30

Iron Man (1968) 6

Vengeance... Cries the Crusher!
By Archie Goidwin, George Tuska, and Johnny Craig
Oct 1968

P. 9

- Whitney Frost (aka Big M) leader of the Maggia faces some dissension in the ranks of her organization
- she deals with it by zapping the subordinate party with a super-powered compact mirror that Jasper Sitwell gave her and then heads to Stark Industries to see him

P. 12

- WF arrives at SI only to discover the place is being evacuated due to a fight between Iron Man and the Crusher (who looks a lot like the Absorbing Man)
- She doesn't know exactly what's going on but she decides to take advantage of the chaos to infiltrate the restricted area of the building

Pp. 16-17

- WF gets caught in the middle of the fight as she is trying to find something of value (like a powerful weapon) to steal
- JS tries to save her but IM knocks him out before he can make the situation worse and then deals with the Crusher himself

P. 20

- After the Crusher is gone WF ponders her feelings for JS and how to balance them against her role as head of the Maggia

The Punisher (2000) 1

Welcome Back, Frank
By Garth Ennis, Steve Dillon, Jimmy Palmiotti
Apr 2000

- Frank is back, some reference to his time as an agel of death
- not plot or character development heavy
- Frank is a killing machine, there is very little that's human or compassionate in him in this comic, the closest is when he greets some of his neighbors in the building where he lives
- most horrific moment has to be when he throws the bound gangster off the top of the Empire State Building
- the title is the very last line in this issue, it is "spoken" by the city which seems to be happy to have him back
- for the most part it all kill, kill, kill as Frank first kills some gangsters on the street, then follows up by going to the morgue to kill some other gangsters who are visiting the bodies of the ones he killed earlier, followed by him going to the Empire State Building to kill another gangster (a much bigger shot)

- Steve Dillon's Art is cartoonish and deeply disturbing, I get a real sense of menace from the way he draws people especially their facial expressions

6/27

The Fade Out 3

The Replacement Blonde
By Ed Brubaker, Sean Philips, Elizabeth Breitweiser, and David Brothers
Nov 2014

- this installment is mostly about its titular character, the replacement blonde, Maya Silver; but to a lesser degree it is also about Victor Thursby, the head of Victory Pictures
- once again there is a lot of exposition without a lot of context
- Maya life is seen through her first day as Valeria Sommers' replacement and in flashbacks to her prior career
-- getting groped by her agent (Greavey)
-- meeting VS at the audition
-- meeting Earl Rath her first day on the set
-- getting home late at night after work only to find her ex-husband waiting for her
- for his part VT shows up in two scenes
-- the first is a flashback to 20 years ago when he left Hollywood and joined a commune, eventually he returned to Hollywood and started his own studio
-- the second is a scene in which he uses a hidden door to gain access to MS changing room, he gets a bit of a shock when Maya exposes herself to him, he is disgusted by her lack of pubic hair, something that her agent told her about
- Phil Brodsky also shows up in a few scenes
-- he is the one who drags Thursby back to Hollywood from the commune
-- he also has a meeting with Greavey who warns him that Maya's ex has been making threatening noises, even though he was paid off

6/21

Avengers (1963) 93

This Beachhead Earth
By Roy Thomas, Neal Adams, Tom Palmer
Nov 1971

- the Vision stumbles into Avengers Mansion and collapses; Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor try to diagnose what's wrong with him
- Ant Man (Hank Pym) shows up and in the process of theorizing about what might be wrong with the android superhero he provided some of the Vision's background info, a recap of sorts

Part 2: A Journey to the Center of the Android
- 16 pages
- pp. 5-17: Ant Man shrinks down and enters the body of the Vision to try and find the problem and fix it
- he encounters resistance from the various parts of the Vision's body; eventually Ant Man finds the problem, fixes it, and escapes unharmed
- Vision wakes up and tells them of the encounter Goliath, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and the Vision had with 3 cows that shape shifted into The Thing, Mr. Fantastic, and the Human Torch; the others were captured but he escaped and barely made it back to Avengers Mansion

Part 3: War of the Weirds!
- Captain Marvel is being held by the Skrulls
- Cap, IM, Thor, Vision race to help their teammates
- while the Avengers are battling the FF/Skrulls, CM escapes and frees Carol Danvers, after building an omni-wave projector he sends an instantaneous message to the Kree galaxy
- CD turns out to be the Super Skrull in disguise, SS knocks out CM, reveals that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were the real prizes he was after but not why
- as the SS departs leaving the other Skrulls behind Goliath tries to pull his space ship down but his powers stop functioning and he shrinks back to human size

- the real treat here is the art by Neal Adams, no idea how much if any of it has been redrawn
- the opening splash page with the Vision stumbling into the room
- the double page spread with Cap watching as Snt Msn prepares to climb into the Vision's mouth
- Ant Man getting attacked by clear green tentacles
- Ant Man and hit jet pack
- Vision's innards which look like a science lab
- Captain Marvel busting loose
- the split screen effect as the Avengers battle the FF/Skrulls, while CM deals with the SS

6/19

Marvel Fanfare 19

Mar 1985

A three part story, all written by Bill Mantlo but each part of the story is drawn by a different team; and for the first time in this collection no Spider-Man

Such Sweet Sorrow...
By Bill Mantlo and Tony Salmons

- C&D save a drug addict who is about to die from an overdose and punish the drug pusher who gave him the lethal hit
- ends with Dagger saying she wants to strike out on her own, try to be normal again
- She promises to return to Cloak, he wistfully watches her leave

- so-so, this feels like similar ground from prior stories


Dancin' the Night Away!
By Bill Mantlo, Rick Leonardi, Terry Austin

- Dagger goes to a discotheque, tries dancing the night away, meets and dances with a man (Jack) who unbeknownst to her works for the mob (drug dealer) and knocks her out when she's least expecting it
- Cloak angry and anxious looks for his partner, busts up a party where people are doing coke

- this is the artwork I came for, my favorite in this collection with the possible exception of the next chapter
- the two page sequence of Dagger dancing
- last panel on p 15 of faces of people mesmerized by her dancing
- the way Cloak's cape billows
- p 18 especially the 4th panel


Dagger's Light
By Bill Mantlo, Kerry Gammill, and George Freeman

-Jack delivers Dagger (still unconscious) to his Uncle Sandino who rewards him; but then Dagger wakes up and creates havoc
- Cloak sees Dagger's light from a distance as she fights the gangsters and comes to her
- they need one another, they feed off of one another's energy
- up until now Cloak has felt this need to feed his hunger which Dagger satisfies best; here it is explicitly shown that Dagger has a similar need which he satisfies best
- Art-wise it runs a very close second to the previous chapter, or maybe it is more of a toss-up between the two
- Dagger dancing as she fights the gangsters
- p 24 panel 3 - Uncle Sandino's jacket fading into a memory of C&D

6/15

Superman Adventures 21

Last Daughter of Argo
By Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer, Bret Blevins and Terry Austin
Jul 1998

- double sized issue
- collector's item
- 99 cents on Comixology
-

- Everything seems normal on Argo until Krypton explodes and Argo is blown out of the orbit of the sun and begins to get progressively colder
- Kara is 13 years old; Zor-el, her father, was killed on the day Krypton exploded
- After the disaster, Kala, Kara's mother, tries to hold what remains of the family (herself, her brother, Kara, her nephew) together but things continue to get worse as Argo drifts further away from the Sun
- After 4 years of deteriorating conditions Kala announces she has a plan; she has modified some sleeping pods to allow them to go into cryogenic sleep until hopefully someone finds and rescues them; Kara reluctantly agrees
- she wakes up on Earth at STAR Labs; Superman explains that when was out in space exploring he found her and her family but the others had been crushed by ice; he takes her to Smallville to stay with Ma and Pa Kent
- Kara writes in her diary about life in Smallville and how dull it is except for the one day she snuck out and went to Metropolis and had an adventure where she met Jimmy Olsen and fought Granny Goodness and the Furies (see S:TAS Little Girl Lost)
- finally she gets her break when Superman agrees to let her keep an eye on Metropolis for him while he is away in space with the Justice League; Ma Kent accompanies Kara but soon she is off on her own fighting crime
- Kara experiences anxiety over the changing of the seasons as the weather gets colder; it reminds her of life on Argo after Krypton exploded; she almost has a meltdown when Ma Kent shows her a snow globe
- she gets attacked by Kanto of Apokolips who is wielding a dagger with a Kryptonite blade but Kryptonite doesn't affect her and she defeats him easily
- Kanto returns to Apokolips and reports in to GG; after Darkseid forbids her from going to Earth or sending any of her people to Earth she takes Kanto to the Phantom Zone; there they find a Kryptonian (Zod?) who is more than happy to do her dirty work
- Zod reluctantly follows GG's orders and frees Jax-ur and Mala from their cell at STAR Labs; they are about to kill Professor Hamilton when Supergirl shows up; she almost gets killed when they turn a disintegration ray on her; they leave thinking she was killed by the ray
- the PZCs start tearing Metropolis apart, they don't stop until Supergirl shows up again with some Green K; the GK work on Jax-Ur and Mala but not on General Zod who like Supergirl comes from Argo; it is at this point that Zod reveals his true identity
- Supergirl isn't prepared for this setback and flies off; Zod uses this opportunity to make things worse for Jax-Ur and Mala; he crushes the GK into powder which he then blows all over them, payback for the way they treated him in the Phantom Zone
- Supergirl heads for the fortress of Solitude hoping to find something to help her defeat Zod; she uses the Brainiac memory globe to learn about Zod which gives her an idea; as she retrieve the Phantom Zone Projector Zod shows up and attacks her
- they fight, he is winning when she sees something and gets an idea, she knocks him into a cage which houses a Teerpa, an Argoan creature and is bathed in red sun radiation which robs Zod of his superpowers; just before the Teerpa tears him limb from limb Supergirl uses the PZP to send him back to the PZ

- neat 2 pages made up of multiple horizontal panels that stretch the width of the page, almost completely wordless, and show life deteriorating on Argo as it drifts further away from the sun
- the scenes of a Krypton exploding are fairly intense as life goes from calm to tragic very quickly
- Supergirl suffers from what can probably be best described as PTSD throughout the story; it takes a valiant effort for her to brave the snowy environment in which the FoS is located
- her overcoming her fears is a big part of the story

- in the Pre-CoIE Earth-1 Universe Argo was a little different

6/10

Spectacular Spider-Man 96

The Final Answer!
By Al Milgrom, Jim Mooney
Nov 84

Part 3

- lots of recap and references to other comics
- Final confrontation involving Spidey, the Black Cat, Cloak, Dagger, Kingpin, Silvermane, and the Answer
- trapped inside Cloak's cape Silvermane lashes out and fights his way back out causing considerable pain to Cloak
- after changing into his old costume Spidey meets Up with Black Cat and they head to Kingpin's HQ
- the Answer doubts that Dagger can help Vanessa now because Dagger is so weak; the Kingpin doesn't want to hear it and sets a plan in motion to have Dagger's life energy transferred to Vanessa
- interlude 1: MJ thinking about her relationship with PP
- interlude 2: Flash Thompson and Betty Leeds trying to avoid armored men running around the city wrecking havoc
- Spidey questions BC as they head to KP's HQ; he thinks she is hiding something; she won't tell him but later on he hears it from KP that she owes KP a favor
- Spidey and BC arrive at KPHQ and find Silvermane fighting a bunch of KP's thugs
- Cloak arrives and tries attacking KP but the Answer takes him out of the fight fairly quickly; Cloak is still weak
- Spidey and Kingpin fight; then Silvermane busts through a walk and joins the brawl, he is after Dagger; Kingpin fights Silvermane to prevent him from getting to Dagger and gets beaten pretty badly by the cyborg
- the fight ends when the Answer takes the comatose Dagger's hand and then vanishes; Dagger awakens and gives back to Silvermane the life energy she took from him; Silvermane is restored and leaves without saying a word
- Dagger is cracking with energy; Kingpin begs her to restore his wife, she refuses; she restores Vloak who has collapsed on the floor and then they teleport away
- Black Cat and Spidey take off after Kingpin turns on them, leaving Wilson Fisk alone with his wife, Vanessa
- final page get a glimpse of Spidey's black suit trapped at the Baxter Bldg trying to escape

- what happened to the Answer in the end ? Converted to energy helping to heal Dagger; according Comic Book DB his power is to develop a power for whatever he needs but just one or two powers at a time; 1st appeared in SSM 91-97; but his appearance in SSM 97 might just have been a recap appearance and then nothing until 1993 (9 years later); just 5 appearances in 1993 and then nothing until 2005

- first mention of the Dark Dimension

- see Thor 349 for the reason why it is snowing in the Summer; must have something to with the cask of ancient winters
- see ASM 258 for the full details on why Spidey is back to his old costume and how it is that MJ now knows that Peter Parker is Spidey

- my favorite story of this collection, very intricate; the art not so hot but it gets the job done; the only story of this collection not written by Mantlo

6/7

The Fade Out 2

The Death of Me
By Ed Brubaker, Sean Philips, Elizabeth Breitweiser, and David Brothers
Oct 2014

- opens at the burial of VS and from there it drifts here and there, Charlie and the impact of Valeria's death seem to be the constants
- there is more of just about everyone who appeared in the first issue
- Flapjack makes a fuss about the fact that the headstone has her screen name on it
- the director (Schmidt) has a lot of pressure put on him by the Victor Street Pictures' boss (Thursby) to finish the picture quickly despite the fact that numerous scenes will have to be reshot
- Melba, Gil's wife, is introduced; there seems to be the potential for infidelity between her and Charlie, or maybe it already has happened and has yet to be revealed
- Gil continues to drink too much, and shows up at the burial, although he hides behind a mausoleum and is only spotted by Charlie
- the story of Charlie's relationship (personal and professional) with Gil is described in more detail; Gil is the one who told Charlie to tell the FBI that he was a commie
- Charlie has a minor obsession with Morty, a stand in for Earl Rath, who wears bandages on his face because Rath refuses to do so; Charlie dreams of wearing the bandages, being able to move invisibly around the set as Morty does
- Charlie feels like he betrayed Valeria, although it isn't clear why he feels that way unless it is because he thinks he killed her
- Charlie also feels that he has betrayed and in betraying Gil but it isn't clear why; Gil does seem very torn about Valeria's death, and Charlie seemed to know that would be the case before he told him about her death: but why I affects Gil so profoundly isn't clear

6/3