Fear is all in the mind!

 Week Ending 28th April 1973

"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all," Hamlet Act III scene I William Shakespeare. 

I was going to title this one "Fear does make cowards of us all" but I chickened out!

Before I get into this weeks nostalgic walk down comic lane 1973, last week I couldn't place who drew the colour artwork used in the free gift promotion from SMCW #12. Quickest to answer was Paul Lynch from the Facebook Group UK Marvel in the Seventies, closely followed by regular blog commentator Rod Tough. Both correctly pointing out that the artwork came from Captain America #137 from May 1971 with Cap and the Falcon removed and replaced with speech balloons. The cover was drawn by Sal Buscema. Power of the Beesting No-Prizes to you both. Don't forget to recycle them if they're not wanted.

The Mighty World of Marvel #30

Dick Ayers and Mike Esposito create another busy cover for MWOM this week. I don't particularly think that the Fellowship of Fear make the best cover but the cover does show young readers exactly what to expect inside.

The Incredible Hulk "Bruce Banner is the Hulk!"

Writer: Stan Lee

Artist: Jack Kirby, John Romita SR

Inker: John Romita SR

Originally published in Tales to Astonish #77

Cover date March 1966

(Published in December 1965)

This weeks title hides no secrets. Every Hulk fan knew what's coming and for me what's coming will come as a relief. This week as with last week another experienced artist finishes off Jack Kirby's layouts, this time it's John Romita SR. The general look of the strip doesn't change with Romita doing a very professional job, keeping the style the same. 

 Continued from last week, the surprise villain is the Asgardian known as the Executioner, who from the get go makes a smack down bout. It's what you want, an opponent who is physical equal to the Hulk, after weeks of military might or brainless Humanoids you've got a more levelled fight.

   It's not quite a fair fight as you can imagine the Executioner's men don't play fair when they fire on both their boss and the Hulk with a "Stun Beam". My question is how do they know that the beam won't effect the Executioner? Has he asked them to test it on him as a drunken bet? 

Stan likes a bit of self publicity, he notes the that the "FOOOM" sound effect has a silent "O".

Let's not forget that this story is set in the future, it looks like there's no future for the city of King Arrkam as the Executioner's forces bombard the city walls. Things are looking grim until the Hulk turns the tide in favour of Arrkam and his people.

I love this panel with theTripod army, Very War of the Worlds.

You would think that King Arrkam would be grateful but he treats the Hulk as a threat, suggesting that the Hulk is too powerful to be permitted to roam free. But he won't have time to complete his own threat when the green brute starts to fade into the past.

In that past/present Rick Jones's conscience fights with his loyalty for Bruce Banner, believing that the monster and scientist may well have gone forever and wanting to prove the Banner was a hero and not a traitor, he confesses to Major Talbot that the Hulk and Bruce were one and the same. Will Banner return to a whirlwind of problems, find out next week.  

The Mighty Marvel Mailbag.

First up this week is Dan Clarke from Southampton who finds Daredevil a hard read and wants Matt Murdock to get his sight back. But also offers the idea of Daredevil having a "seeing-eye dog"who could DD fight crime. I'm not sure how much Dan appreciates the Marvel concept of heroes with real problems and how they overcome the impossible. Although a guide dog concept might be fun I can't see that working. Rick McGuire from Newport thinks the FF should have secret identities. I think Rick like Dan haven't grasped just what make Marvel unique. Tom Colburn from Bournemouth simple thinks the Mighty World of Marvel is the greatest because the Hulk is great. John Jones from Bath wonders what weight is Doctor Bruce Banner and how heavy is the Hulk? I presume that John wants an explanation for the two parts of the same ego having a different weights. He doesn't get a straight answer, the editor offers that Banner is 170 pounds, which is around 12 stone to you and me, then they fob off how heavy the Hulk is by saying he won't stand on the scales so an estimate of half a ton is offered. Finally Janice Didly from Chester says that Daredevil is completely believable. She's fine with the effect of radiation magnifying his remaining senses to super human levels and having a  superbly trained body enabling him to perform feats that would be impossible too. To get the right level of enjoyment from super-hero stories you need to except some things that seem far fetched and go with the flow.

A pin-up page featuring the Things girlfriend Alicia Masters from The Fantastic Four Annual #2 from July 1964, cover dated September 1964, drawn by Jack Kirby and inked by Chic Stone. She looks very similar to Sue Storm, in fact if you look at the Invisible Girl pin-up from this series, seen in MWOM#22, the only difference is her hair style. Jack did seem to draw the same woman every time just with a different hair style or colour. Strange how a blind sculptor has got some artwork on the floor behind her, she uses her sense of touch to make her sculptures but she's no Matt Murdock. 

Speaking of that blind lawyer.

Daredevil "Trapped by the Fellowship of fear!"

Writer: Stan Lee

Artist: Wallace Wood

Inker: Wallace Wood 

Originally published in Daredevil #6

Cover date December 1964

(Published in October 1964)

The Fellowship of Fear, sounds very promising but you are kind of deflated when its members can only be counted on three fingers. The Ox, a very minor Spider-man villain, granted he has fought Spider-man twice since Marvel UK started in October 1972, I think Stan Lee had a soft spot for the dum strong man at least in these early Marvel stories. The Eel a villain with the  penchant for a rubber suit that that secretes grease. He does have electric shock powers too but I think Lee and Wood either forgot or they wanted to go easy on Daredevil. Both in all honesty are third rate villains. So to complete the Fellowship, (I don't think you can have a fellowship with only three members can you? The trio of fear would be more accurate, But Stan does love his alliteration names.) we have Mr Fear! 

Now one of my early problems with Daredevil wasn't the way he had to use his power in the most convoluted way to fight crime, although it did bug me a little, no it was the way, in my eyes he was a Batman rip-off. I know that's in many ways it's a very soft point to make. But to be fair he is more than a little. The Owl is the Penguin, the Jester (not seen yet but he's coming,) is the Joker, Killgrave the Purple Man is kind of like Poison Ivy with their use of pheromones and so on, but Mister Fear has got to be a blatant rip-off of the Scarecrow. But saying that I remember an issue of Marvel Team-up featuring Spider-man and Hawkeye (issue 92, cover dated April 1980) that featured the fourth in carnation of Mister Fear, I absolutely love that comic. So I kind of do like Mister Fear, I'm just not sure about the need for the Fellowship of Fear. Does he really need two "F" list villains? For those who think that I give Daredevil a hard time, I only am hard on the ones I really love. His origin story is perfect, Lee/Romita period is great, so is the Lee/Colan era, when Roy Thomas takes over that's great too. The early 70's American run is great and of course the Miller period is probably one of the greatest ever comic book runs. British fans are lucky that all those eras get shown in MWOM!

Zolton Drago was the maker of waxwork figures who by accident discovers fear inducing fumes and turns to crime under the name of Mister Fear as you do! This story is very kitsch, some may love it but in all honesty I couldn't wait for better stories, even though the artwork was crisp and creative for its time. As you would expect Mr Fear uses his fear pellets to induce fear in the man without fear. The Fellowship (the first and last time that group will appear,) under Mister Fear's leadership, sets up a trap in Drago's waxwork museum for Daredevil. But Foggy Nelson also falls for it, getting in the way of the Ox's powerful swipe the over eager lawyer gets knocked unconscious. 

Due to Marvel UK's policy to not show any character who hasn't made a official appearance in the stories already printed a number of characters from the waxwork museum scenes were redrawn, and quite beautifully too if I might add. Although Electro does appear twice, one with his arm down and one with his arm up. I'm not sure who has done the bodger work, but who ever it was did a great job matching Wallace Wood's original artwork. For the record Rama-Tut and Captain America are replaced by the Sub-Mariner and Thor in one panel, in the second Hate-monger, Diablo, the Beetle and Baron Zemo are replaced by Sandman, Electro (his second appearance this time with his arm up), the Ringmaster and Miracle Man, while the Molecule Man is removed. In the third panel Iron Man  and Mister Hyde are replaced with Mister Fantastic and the Mole Man. Strangely enough the El Toro, the Black Knight, Cyclops and the Melter aren't changed. Miracle Man does later replace Doctor Strange too. 

Will Fooggy be alright? Will the art bodger change more characters? Find out next week.

No Marvel Mini-Posters this week, instead a new advertisement for FOOM, as well as the old ad that you can still send off for membership and issue one. The main pager offer issues two, three and four for only fifty pence! Now that's a bargain. We also get an in-house ad for this weeks Spider-man Comics Weekly teasing the return of the Green Goblin and a battle between Thor and the Radioactive Man. Plus an exciting preview of your free Spidey poster photo. More on that to come.

Another Fantastic Four's Hall of Infamy featuring the Red Ghost and hid indescribable Super Apes taken from the Fantastic Four Annual #1 cover dated July 1963. Notice that in the Marvel UK version the "Red" was replaced with "Mad" and in the word "Bodavian" replaced "communist" in the line "brooding communist scientist", well they would't want to unset young British minds with that sort of thing.

The Fantastic Four "The Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android!"

Writer: Stan Lee

Artist: Jack Kirby
Inker: Dick Ayers

Originally published in The Fantastic Four #15

Cover date June 1963

(Published in March 1963)

This weeks Fantastic Four tales starts with a typical Lee/Kirby fun set up, Johnny, Sue and Ben all see the 4 signal in the sky and each in their unique comical way rush off to find out why Reed has alerted the to impending danger. It then falls flat when the impending danger is a tip-off from the police about a gathering of New Yorks biggest crime gang leaders. At that point I felt that this story would be a bland filler story but the mobsters are meeting the Thinker. You'll probably know him better as the Mad Thinker but his analytical reasoning are anything other than mad. 

Stan and Jack showcase the Thinkers incredible ability to analyse any event to the point that he can predict the most probable future outcome through a number of scenes. His overall plan is to rule over New York, but calculating that the FF would stop these plans he comes up with solutions that will disband the FF, getting them to separately leave the city. The different ideas that are used seem to come from the mind of Stan Lee rather than the Thinker. Johnny joins his cousins circus, Reed is asked to work for General Electrics Limited in New England, Ben is eyed up to take on Fatal Finnegan the idol of the Yancy Street Gang in a pro wrestling match and Sue is once again charmed by a Hollywood producer to become the next big movie starlet. The groups in-fighting is the catalyst that finishes this week comic with them going their separate ways. Come back next week to see if the Thinker's plan fully succeeds. 

The back page for this week issue and for Spider-man Comics Weekly are exactly the same, in fact apart from the colour change and the coupon number two replacing last weeks coupon number one they are the same as last weeks issues. It's a case of maximising audience attention. If you bought last weeks issue you'd need to buy this weeks to complete the competition form. If you want to see the questions clearer re-read last weeks blog, if you want to find the answer keep reading the blog and I'll get round to that once they feature in the weekly comics and that's a promise. 

Spider-man Comics Weekly #11

This weeks cover is again by Dick Ayers and Mike Esposito, showing great use of the page with a falling Spider-man under attack from the Green Goblin while the Human Torch comes to his rescue. A panel showing Thor in the heat of battle against the Radioactive Man is squeezed into the bottom right hand corner. You might notice that my copy has a very large rip down the left of the cover, it's more than a rip the front cover has come detached. It's disappointing but part of the course for these vintage comics. I look after my copies as well as I can, but as some are second hand they come with a lived in look. Kind of like a badge of honour for a well love, well read comic. 

Spider-man "The Return of the Green Goblin!"

Writer: Stan Lee

Artist: Steve Ditko    

Inker: Steve Ditko 

Originally published in The Amazing Spider-man #17

Cover date October 1964

(Published in July 1964)

I remember one of my earliest times reading this story, it wasn't in this comic but some eight years later in the Marvel Revolution flag ship pocket book Spider-man Pocket Book #13 from May 1981 (although you could argue that both the Fantastic Four Pocket Book and Spider-man's were joint flagship pocket books from the revolutionary leader, Dez Skin's mind). It was a lovely little gem, but the memory that runs to the front is when I got caught reading it in a chemistry lesson, inside the pages of a larger book. To be fair the lesson had stopped due to an experiment that needed setting up and the teacher said we could read quietly while we waited. Still didn't stop him from confiscating it. 

I was gutted and thought that I wouldn't get it back. He joked a little and pretended to read it. At the end of the lesson I plucked up the courage to ask for it back, he give it back with a knowing smile. Maybe he had read the story before in SMCW#11 when he might have been in his collage years who knows. I never really talked in my teenage years about comics to other people, it was like I imagine for many a secret passion. Coincidentally Peter Parker is in a chemistry lesson at the start of this story as I was.

Anyway here's the cover of that pocket book, it's also a little teaser for next weeks adventure.

 Peter Parker daydreams about his previous encounter with the Green Goblin from issue 6 for no obvious reason other than to refresh the readers memory of the villain. Peter isn't the only one who's recalling that meeting. The bitter Goblin is testing his new Goblin-glider and "goblin-glove blaster" against a Spider-man dummy. 

Flash Thomson and Liz Allan are arranging the first meeting of their latest idea, a Spider-man Fan Club, to be held at Liz's father's club. Liz want's Peter to attend but Flash is very frosty to that idea. They have an advert in the paper printed for the event with footer line suggesting that Spider-man will appear.

Peter later tries to change into Spider-man to stop a gun man when the Human Torch beats him to it. There follows a beautifully funny written scene were Johnny Storm offers Peter his autograph thinking that Peter is just a shy fan. Peter offers to swap it as a Spider-man autograph to a small kid for his Torch autograph but the kid calls him a nut! 

We also get a scene with an unseen Mary Jane who rings Peter to apologies for not being able to make it for a date due to the fact she has a cold. Slowly bit by bit we learn more about this mysterious girl. I think many young boys can relate to Peter's awkwardness around girls. Much more so than Johnny Storms confident demeanour. 

The first Spider-man Fan Club meeting and everyone is there, Liz, Flash and all Peters classmates. J. Jonah Jameson with Betty Brant who is quite rightly jealous of Liz Allan. Johnny Storm and his current girlfriend Doris Evans. Finally making a spectacular entrance the guest of honour Spider-man himself. An exploding frog causes Spidey to make an impromptu landing. The Club has a green gatecrasher, this doesn't go un-noticed by Johnny Storm. If you think about the plot you wonder why the Green Goblin wants to defeat Spider-man so much? Does he really feel that Spider-man humiliated him when they last fought, even though not many witness that fight. But truthfully I don't care what his reasoning are for hating Spider-man in these early tales. They just really good fun stories so I happy let it pass. Spider-man makes light go the Goblin's intrusion so as to not frighten the club members. When a group of gun men show up to rip-off the nightclub cashiers safe causing the Human Torch to leap into action and frighten them off. The Torch and Goblin battle a bit while Peter makes an appearance to dull any suspicion about why he wasn't there. 

Rejoining the fight Spider-man over hears a message for Peter about his Aunt May who has just suffered another heart attack. He races off to the hospital forgetting about his fight with the Goblin.

Leaving everyone thinking that Spider-man had turn into a coward. Much to the disappointment of  many Spider-man Fan Club members and the delight of Jonah Jameson. Not wishing to continue fighting the Torch, the Goblin leaves behind the cover of a well placed Pumpkin bomb.

Without leaving this story on to much of a down I can tell you Aunt May does recover but Peter decides it's time to give up being a super-hero as he feels that Spider-man is the root of all his problems from Betty thinking he wanted to be with Liz at the club, the general public believing he was a coward and the Green Goblin still on the loose ready to strike at any time, he feels he needs to look after the one person kinder to him than anyone else he needs to look after his ill Aunt. 

It's strange but true that the Green Goblin isn't one of my favourite villains, in his first story I felt he was cheesy and his reasoning for wanting to beat Spider-man was lame, but in this story it doesn't seem to bother me as much. Maybe because he's now got some cooler weapons and there's more of a character driven plot in this story than in Goblins first appearance. This story is wonderful, a little action, a little laughter, some great guest appearances and lots of emotional heart. Marvel and Spider-man stories in particular were so much more than your two dimensional super-hero comics.

Speaking of two dimensional, this colour spread shows exactly what the free (if you collected all the coupons,) colour photo poster looked like. If I'm honest I would have been gutted to have cut out all those coupons to receive that. It was 18 inches by 24 inches so it might have been more impressive on a young kid's wall. They even made a coupon section to paste the eight coupons on to and give you a bonus coupon if you lost one. I'd much rather have eight complete comics.

The Web and the Hammer.

David Gunther from Flintshire writes that wanting some stories about the Gods of ancient Greece like Zeus, Hercules and Odysseus. The editor tells him to check out MWOM #32 for the appearance for the Prince of Power Hercules himself. Oliver Molliham from London gets both SMCW and MWOM every week but he says that Marvel super-heroes are terrible and he only reads them for the letter pages as they are (in his opinion,) the only good thing in those comics! I think Oliver was trying a bit of reverse psychology in the hope he'd get his name printed in the letter column. It worked! Mark Evans from Lanfair who writes "On the contemporary literary scene Spider-man Comics Weekly stands out in quality of imagination and all that stuff." on all that stuff he's right. I'm sure I've heard or read that name somewhere before. It might have been in a letter page as a regular letter writer or possibly from a Facebook group. If any of the letter writers see their letters commented on in these blogs please let me know what you think about it now and how you felt back then, either though the comments on the blog, on any Facebook page you see it posted, though Twitter via @The_BeeSting, and by email via the-beesting@hotmail.co.uk address. I can't promise to answer or write back, a lot of my spare time is taken up with this blog and reading comics but you never know. Finally Venessa Kelmer from Betws-Y-Coed, a village in Wales I think, not one of my spelling mistakes or auto-correction slip-ups, ends the letter page by saying that Spider-man Comics Weekly is excellent, but would like the editor to answer any serious questions asked by letter writers to be answered seriously and not in the the jokey manner. They reply that a silly answer is generally given because they don't know the answer. I guess the idiot gets further when playing the fool. That's how I got my job as a court jester. 

The Mighty Thor "The mysterious Radioactive Man!"

Writer: Stan Lee and Robert Bernstein 

Artist: Jack Kirby

Inker: Dick Ayers

Originally published in Journey into Mystery #93

Cover date June 1963

(Published in April 1963)

I've written a lot about Marvel UK editing out any mention of communism, Russia, China, reds, etc in these stories so as to not offend British readers or as Tony Isabella but it "With our UK partners bemoaning any use of Communist villains," maybe it was felt by the UK production team that it wouldn't sit well with Britons. Even Odhams in their Power Comics during the later 60's removed these stereotypes. Here we get another example of it and possibly for good reasons.  This story especially from a 2023 perspective feels a little over the top with racist undertones. I'm not saying that it must be burned from history, no in fact the opposite, it shows just how America felt about the East and how China were no angels especially in the Sino-Indian War, which took place between China and India from October to November 1962, just five months before this story was originally written. I'm slightly more at ease with the Marvel UK version than the original, but really being at un-ease is a good state of mind when it comes to war and conflict, after all war is hell!

Doctor Don Blake is working as a relief doctor in a part of  India menaced by Khitanese attackers. Khitan being the name of the country that the editors use instead of Red China in the original text. Blake swiftly changes into Thor when the Khitanese attack with a heavy missile bombardment through the Chogi pass, not a real place but a location made up by Stan. The British version looses one page that contains the majority of the battle, showing Indian soldiers wearing traditional turbans and the ugly Khitanese troops planing their retreat as seen on the right. Jack Kirby would always make the foreign enemies look deformed and ugly, a practice that was quite common in American comics in the 60's, it goes right back to the 30's/40's as a shorthand for who the bad guys are.

Thor seals the Chogi Pass with a rock fall and drives the Khitanese army lead on the ground by a General Fu away with a torrential thunderstorm.

The Khitanese leaders demand a solution to defeat Thor, ordering a scientist Doctor Chen Lu to come up with an answer to eradicate the Thunder God or else Chen Lu would be eradicated himself. Working in isolation in his lab only assisted and guarded by robots the Chinese, no sorry I mean Khitanese scientist uses special equipment that allows him to absorb radioactivity without injury to himself.  Mutating himself into a superhuman with the ability to control and emit deadly forms of radiation. A completely impossible and fantastical feat but these are comics so why not suspend our disbelief and go with it.  His lab is pure Kirby, Jack is having a ball with this character. 

He is sent to New York via a submarine and then died to shore inside a torpedo to seek and destroy Thor. Now calling himself the Radioactive Man he uses his powers to melt metals, blind people with his radioactive glow,  withstand the force of Thor's hammer and lightning bolts. Even at one point he puts Thor into a hypnotic trance with his radioactive phosphorescence, ordering him to toss away his hammer. Which he does, all the way to the Hudson River. The Radioactive Man goes looking for it leaving the hypnotised Thunder God free to revert to his human alter-ego and over come the hypnotic spell. 

 Doctor Blake uses equipment from his medical practise to locate Thor's hammer, leaving the lame Doctor to perform an incredible feat of diving down to retrieve it. Thor returns and quickly wraps up the story, I guess Stan and Jack have run out of pages. In the conclusion Thor nukes China by dropping the Radioactive Man on Khitan and the artwork doesn't pull any punches with what is blatantly a mushroom cloud. For all its faults, its racist stereotypes, its far fetched science fiction I do kind of like this story as a piece of classic 60's super-hero fare. 

The last piece of this week Spider-man comic is a page of in house adverts for this weeks Mighty World of Marvel and a new advert for FOOM membership. were MWOM advertised issues two, three and four this is pushing the original membership packs of a giant sized poster, membership card, stickers and the first issue of FOOM magazine itself all sent in a very special envelope, still only 50 pence! I'm still gutted that I never owned one or never seen one up close. I'll have to make my peace with that and enjoy the might mass of Marvel UK magic that I do own from the 70's. On that note come back next week and we'll enjoy the goodness that is Mighty World of Marvel and Spider-man Comics Weekly from the week ending the 5th May 1973.

See you in seven.

Make Mine Marvel.