Marvel Comics in the 1970s

Introduction: The Twilight Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

PART I: 1968-1970 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

PART II: 1970-1974 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

PART III: 1974-1976 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

PART IV: 1976-1979 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Creator Spotlights:Roy Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Gene Colan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Neal Adams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Gil Kane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Joe Sinnott . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Gerry Conway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Marv Wolfman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Jim Starlin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Jim Shooter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

John Byrne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Frank Miller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

Key Marvel Moments:Marvel Con . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Marvel Comics in the 1970s 3

Contents

n volume one, Marvel Comics in the 1960s, it wasshown how the development of the company’s newline of super-hero books introduced in that decadecould be broken up into four distinct phases: theFormative Years, the Years of Consolidation, theGrandiose Years, and the Twilight Years. Led byeditor Stan Lee, who was allied with some of thebest artists in the business including Jack Kirby,Steve Ditko, Don Heck, John Romita, John Buscema,Jim Steranko, and Gene Colan, Marvel moved quicklyfrom its early years when concepts involving continuityand characterization were intro-duced to new features with littlethought given to their revolu-tionary impact on the industryto the Years of Consolidationwhen concepts of characteriza-tion, continuity, and realismbegan to be actively applied. Inthe Grandiose Years, Marvel’sgrowing popularity among olderreaders and the counter culture,as well as some limited attemptsat merchandising, spurred Leeand top writer Roy Thomas toincorporate contemporary con-cerns about race, the environment,the anti-war movement, andfeminism into sprawling stories ofoutsized characters and conceptsthat frequently took the universeitself as their setting, rather thanrestrictive confines of Earth.Taken together, it was a heady

mix, vaulting Marvel Comics into a pop-culturemovement that threatened to overwhelm establishednotions of art and its role in society. As a result, Leecame to be seen as Marvel’s front man, and through acombination of speech making, magazine interviews,and his often inspiring comic book scripts, he becamea sort of pop guru to many of his youthful readers.However, by 1968, Marvel Comics had reached itszenith in terms of its development and sheer creativepower. Soon after came an expansion of the company’sline of titles and a commensurate dilution of the

Introduction: The Twilight Years 5

By the late 1960s, Stan Lee’s self-transformation from a stuffyoffice manager type to pop-culture guru was complete. A bona fidecelebrity, Marvel’s Madison Avenue digs would become too smallfor his ambitions, leaving him vulnerable to the glamor ofHollywood.

I

Introduction:The Twilight Years

obvious; it came gradually, almostimperceptibly, and unlike thoseearlier phases, the period of overlapbetween the Grandiose Years andthe Twilight Years is a lengthy one.And despite the temptation to useJack Kirby’s departure from thecompany as marking the end ofthe Grandiose Years, the fact is, noera can be demarcated by a singleevent. In fact, it’s the contentionhere that Marvel’s exit from theSilver Age began almost two fullyears before Kirby left.Begun in the triumphant glow of

the Grandiose Years, this final era inSilver Age Marvel’s developmentwound down slowly as the oncevibrant dynamism of Lee, Kirby,Ditko, and Heck became spent;the visual skills of their successorsRomita, Buscema, and Colan fora time held their ground; and newwriters like Roy Thomas, GerryConway, and Doug Moenchsteered their most creative energiesaway from the books that hadbecome the bedrock of the line.As the changeover from the oldguard to the new was completedand the company entered fullyinto its final phase (a phase whoseelements and style of storytellingbecame as different in theirsensibilities from those of the threeearlier phases, as those phases hadbeen different from comics producedbefore Marvel’s revolution), theTwilight Years became a kind ofepilogue to what had gone beforeas the long night of mediocrityslowly settled over the company. For his part, Stan Lee had

always yearned for success outsidethe narrow confines of the comicsindustry, and with the success ofMarvel Comics, he found anopening that allowed him scopefor his ambitions. It began simplywith college lecture tours duringthe Years of Consolidation andGrandiose Years culminating in theCarnegie Hall gig in 1972; then,as Marvel’s super-heroes began to

talent that had made its first years great. By then, it had lost the services ofDitko, and soon Kirby would leave as well; both artists who’d been instru-mental in the creation of some of the company’s most enduring charac-ters. After 1970, Lee himself would begin a slow retreat from activescripting and day-to-day management of his comics. It was the begin-ning of the fourth phase of Marvel’s development: the Twilight Years.Characterized by a combination of a growing lethargy among the

company’s established titles and the rise of imaginative new features and professionals, the Twilight era was the longest and most drawn outof the four phases. Those looking for a clear line of demarcation betweenthe Grandiose Years and the Twilight Years, however, will be disappointed.Like the previous phases, the change from one era to the next wasn’t

6 Marvel Comics in the 1970s

Marvel’s Carnegie Hall extravaganza marked the high water markin the company’s dizzying rise to the top of the pop-culture heap.Afterwards, though its comics continued to sell, the companyseemed to abdicate its leadership role choosing to follow trendsinstead of setting them.

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achieve iconic status, Hollywood beckoned andLee became the company’s spokesman and chiefsalesman with tinseltown’s wheelers and dealers.When Marvel Comics passed out of the control ofMartin Goodman and was acquired by a succession ofcorporations and Wall Street investors, Lee foundhimself promoted to publisher and eventuallyrelinquished almost all of his writing and editorialchores to Roy Thomas, who’d been prepared to takeover the job for some years. Except for the occasionalspecial issue or his scripting on the long-runningSpider-Man newspaper strip, Lee left the Marvel officespermanently in the 1980s and moved to California tobecome the company’s deal maker in Hollywood.Before Lee’s departure however, Marvel had lost

artist Jack Kirby, whose dissatisfaction with Lee’sstardom, and his own loss of control over charactershe had helped to create, prompted him to look forgreener pastures. Kirby’s frustration had begun to beapparent long before he actually announced his deci-sion to depart when his art on the Fantastic Four andThor strips began to flag. There was less energy thereand the inventiveness that had defined the strips inthe Years of Consolidation and Grandiose Years wasnoticeably absent even after he had been given more,if not complete, control over the plotting. Preceding Leeto the West Coast, Kirby had locked himself out of anychance for a permanent position within the company,and he began to consider the radical thought ofleaving Marvel. By the early Seventies, the onlyreal option was rival DC, with whom he signed anexclusive contract in 1970 that allowed him unprece-dented freedom from editorial control. But evenKirby’s personal store of energy wasn’t limitless, andhaving already passed his creative peak while atMarvel, at DC he failed to duplicate the amazingsuccesses of the previous ten years when hisambitious “Fourth World” concept involving a seriesof interconnected books fell short of expectations andwere soon cancelled. Disappointed with his experienceat DC, Kirby returned to Marvel in 1975 where he wasgiven the same kind of editorial freedom. But forthose readers who looked forward to seeing himback, Kirby proved a disappointment. If he wasn’tworking on new titles of his own invention, he wasignoring one of the most important aspects ofMarvel’s success with readers, the continuity amongits titles. In taking over the books of two characterswith whom he had been previously identified,Captain America and the Black Panther, Kirby defeatedreaders’ expectations by ignoring previous storylinesas if they’d never happened. Such an attitude towardthe Marvel Universe and its characters didn’t endearhim either to the readers or his editors, and as the

years passed, Kirby became all but irrelevant. Whenhis association with Marvel finally ended in 1979, hedabbled with smaller independent companiesbefore leaving comics more or less for good in favorof the more lucrative animation industry.In the meantime, Don Heck found work drying up

at Marvel and also migrated to DC. Heckfollowed in the footsteps of Steve Ditko, who’d beenthe first of Marvel’s trio of founding artists to leavethe company in 1966. Ditko lingered at DC for only ashort time before moving on to former employerCharlton Comics, and from there began working witha series of independent publishers to produce some ofthe most eclectic, idiosyncratic material of his career.Artists such as John Romita, John Buscema, and Gene

Introduction: The Twilight Years 7

Jimmy Olsen #144: Declaring his independence in1970, Kirby left Marvel for DC wherehe attempted to show what he could do with-out such partners as Stan Lee or Joe Simon.The result was a mixed bag with his unevenwork on Jimmy Olsen being a good example.Fans initially gave him the benefit of thedoubt, but soon gave up.

Colan, who had followed Kirby, Ditko, and Heck toMarvel during the Years of Consolidation, had sinceprogressed beyond their early tutelage under Kirbyto become hugely popular for their own distinc-tive styles. They became the bedrock upon which anew foundation would be raised made up of fansturned professional who joined the company in the1970s. Younger artists such as Barry Smith and JimSteranko would progress quickly and prove influ-ential beyond the limited number of pages they pro-duced and move on to other fields. Finally, as the1970s passed mid-decade, the era of the old timeprofessional writer and artist passed away and thecomics industry was given over to the fan creatorwho had grown up reading, collecting, and enjoyingcomics and who was fired by a determination toturn what had been a passion into a career. After Lee became publisher, Thomas was at last

promoted to Editor-in-Chief at Marvel and beganhis tenure presiding over a new renaissance of cre-ativity. Begun under Lee’s guidance, greater free-dom was made possible after the Comics CodeAuthority loosened some of its regulations allowingfor, among other things, the reintroduction of thehorror comic. Taking advantage of the opportunity,Marvel launched new features based on the oldUniversal Studios monsters and a plethora of try-out titles that hosted different, original charactersevery month, many of which graduated into theirown titles. With the introduction of the horrorbooks, the company’s line of comics suddenly

became far too much for any single person to super-vise. Swamped in work, Thomas was unable to keepup, and writers soon found themselves with a newfreedom that resulted in a slew of eclectic featuresthat included Man-Thing, Howard the Duck, JungleAction, War of the Worlds and a host of black-and-white magazine titles. But with all the new, excitingfeatures, came a concurrent loss of control over pro-duction. Deadlines were missed with increasingregularity, and reprints had to be substituted for worknot submitted in time; some titles became half origi-nal material and half reprint. Shipping dates weremissed, and some work was even printed directlyfrom the artist’s pencils without benefit of aninker’s polish. In response, writers were allowed tobecome their own editors, further fragmenting edi-torial control. Under the increasing pressure andfrustrated at not having the time to pursue his ownwriting projects, Thomas resigned as Editor-in-Chiefand was replaced by a number of successors includ-ing Gerry Conway, but none of them remained onthe job for long. The slide into editorial chaos wasonly stopped in 1978 with the arrival of Jim Shooter,who had begun his career in comics as a teenagerwriting scripts for DC. Shooter imposed muchneeded discipline at Marvel and restored order tothe company, but his methods alienated a numberof employees, including Thomas himself, whoeventually quit and moved to DC.Through all these changes, the Twilight Years

moved on beyond the 1970s and into the 1980s as akind of atrophy began to set in on the company’solder, established titles that had once led theMarvel revolution. Although humor became stale,formula trumped originality, and elements such ascharacterization and realism began to fade fromsuch former trendsetters as Spider-Man and FantasticFour, the irony was that they continued to outsell theoddball books and new features that often showedthe creativity that had originally set Marvel apartfrom its competitors. And so, as the Twilight erafaded out, and memory of the glorious triumphs ofthe earlier phases dimmed, an air of somnambulismcrept into Marvel, only to be jarred into wakefulnesswhen, at intervals, rising creative stars occasionallyshook it from its slumber. The years would stretchinto decades and reach beyond the scope of thiswork as flashes of creativity, the last echoes ofMarvel’s fabled Silver Age (such as that of JohnByrne’s stint on the X-Men and Fantastic Four,Frank Miller’s work on Daredevil and the RogerStern, John Buscema, Tom Palmer team up on theAvengers), became more and more infrequent untilflickering out completely.


Roy Thomas, who took over from Lee as Editor-in-Chief at the start of the twilightyears, encouraged new talent and new ideas, butwith an ever growing line of books, the workeventually overwhelmed him.

The Spectacular Spider-Man #2“The Spider-Man Saga”; Stan Lee (script),John Romita (pencils & inks)“The Goblin Lives”; Stan Lee (script), John Romita(layouts), Jim Mooney (pencils), Frank Giacoia (inks)

It was 1968, the year of the Tet Offensive,the Democratic National Convention, and theassassination of Robert Kennedy, and Marvel wasexperiencing the first major expansion of its lineof comic book titles in over a decade. Sales wereclimbing and its characters sank deeper into the pub-lic consciousness. But even as artist Jack Kirby’stenure at the company was drawing to a close; thephilosophically confused Silver Surfer was launchedin his own book; Steranko reached a crescendo onNick Fury, Agent of SHIELD; and new life was born tomembers of the Fantastic Four. Editor Stan Leeremained eager to escape the comic book spinner rack(“Hey, kids! Comics!”) and reach out to the olderreaders he was increasingly identifying with at speakingengagements and visits to college campuses. But howto do it while retaining the comics format that seemedto have intrigued the counter-cultural element whowere as likely to visit a head shop as they were todrop in at the corner tobacco store? Lee’s solution wasto create a comic book that didn’t look like a comicbook but a magazine. Capitalizing on Marvel’sgrowing penetration of the market, he decided thenew magazine should spotlight Spider-Man, thecompany’s most popular character and presumably,the one with the most cache among college students.To further separate it from regular comics, the newmagazine would be printed in black-and-white anddue to its greater dimensions, sold on the magazinerack beside Time and The New Yorker instead of withits four-color peers. But first, Lee would have toconvince publisher Martin Goodman who wasn’tcrazy about doing magazine-sized comics. At thetime, black-and-white comic magazines were theprovince of fly-by-night outfits that exploited blood

Part I: 1968-1970 9

1968

Spectacular Spider-Man #2: Marvel’s firstattempt to break out of its four-colorstraightjacket and capture the notice of awider adult audience was short lived but yielded two great extra-length tales by Lee andRomita at the height of their powers!

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Part I:1968-1970

One of the first comics fans to break into the business and turnprofessional, Roy Thomas had a rough start in 1965 when hewas hired as an assistant to DC comics editor Mort Weisinger.If he had any illusions about the sweet life working in the comicsindustry however, he was quickly disabused by the tyrannicalWeisinger and fled at the first opportunity. That opportunity camein the form of Marvel editor Stan Lee who took him on as anassistant and writer. It was the beginning of long and influentialcareer that culminated in 1972 when

Thomas replaced Lee as Editor-in-Chief.Born in 1940, Thomas fell in love withcomics early attracted especially byDC’s roster of super-heroes. Immersinghimself in fan circles, he took overpublishing Alter Ego, an early amateurmagazine that he would revive decadeslater in a much more professionalincarnation. A graduate from SoutheastMissouri State University, Thomastaught high school English for a fewyears before being accepted at GeorgeWashington University in New YorkCity. But he never attended, havingaccepted the assistant’s job fromWeisinger. At Marvel, he quicklyclimbed the ladder, mastering theindividual styles of the company’sgrowing line of titles while assumingeditorial duties on the side. When hefinally took over as Editor-in-Chief,he was instrumental in expandingMarvel’s line-up outside of traditional

super-heroes led by Conan the Barbarian,a strip he had championed and scripted forover 100 issues. After giving up the role ofEditor-in-Chief, Thomas continued to writefor Marvel in the capacity of writer/editorbut after clashing with Editor-in-Chief JimShooter, returned to DC where he continuedto create new titles including All StarSquadron and Arak, Son of Thunder. Driftingfrom DC, Thomas tried his hand at film and television scriptwriting and in the 1980s freelanced for Marvel. Some independentprojects followed but by then it was clear his time in the comicsindustry had passed. In 1999, however, he revived Alter Egoand has been instrumental in preserving the history of comicswith articles and in-depth interviews with professionals.

Roy Thomas


and gore and mild sex to seduce scarce quarters outof unwary teenagers. In addition, Goodman alreadyhad a line of men’s magazines, holdovers from theglory days of the pulps, that filled that niche nicelyenough. But Lee was persuasive and when he finallygot the green light from Goodman, the first 52-pageissue of The Spectacular Spider-Man duly appeared inJuly of 1968 under the “Non-Pareil Publishing Corp.”label. For who knows what reason, the book wasproduced only “under the auspices of the MarvelComics Group.” Goodman, it seemed, was up to hisold accounting tricks again! Keeping to his plan togear the new book toward an older audience, Leeteamed with artist John Romita to tell a street-levelstory about a political campaign and corruption in highplaces…a subject frowned upon by the Comics Codewhich, as a magazine,Spectacular Spider-Manwasable to ignore. Althoughthe merciless demands ofscheduling didn’t permittime to find out how saleshad been on the firstissue of the book beforeproduction began onSpectacular Spider-Man #2(Nov. 1968), some inklingof Goodman’s nervous-ness might have beenindicated with the intro-duction of color to a storywritten by Lee and onceagain penciled by Romita(and inked by Jim Mooneyand Frank Giacoia). Otherevidence of back pedalingincluded the use of atypical comic book super-villain like the GreenGoblin, who was featured front and center. Be that asit may, beneath a painted cover by Romita, Lee pullsout all the stops in a 58-page tale filled with the tightlywound angst that Peter Parker was known for andscenes that shift easily from the university classroomto Peter’s uptown pad to glam shots of Gwen andMJ. The action finally winds up with the Goblinbecoming a victim of one of his own “psychedelicpumpkins,” a clear drug reference made a full twoyears before Lee would challenge the Code directlyon the subject in the regular Amazing Spider-Manbook. Unfortunately, the writing was on the wall forLee’s bold excursion beyond the four-color world ofMarvel Comics. Finding little encouragement in sales,Goodman chose to discontinue The Spectacular Spider-

Man, a set-back that would take a few years toovercome when Marvel once again tested the black-and-white magazine waters with a new concept farremoved from the world of costumed heroes. In themeantime, Lee would return his attention to theregular comics but the idea of doing somethingspecifically for college aged readers was never far fromhis mind. In 1974, he would team up with under-ground publisher Dennis Kitchen to produce ComixBook (“It’s new, it’s strange, it’s subterranean!”), ashort-lived title that went belly up with its third issue.

Capt. Savage and His LeatherneckRaiders #5“Mission: Destroy the Invisible Enemy”; Arnold Drake(script), Dick Ayers (pencils), Syd Shores (inks)

Wow! Was this thesame Dick Ayers whopenciled those less thanstellar Human Torch andGiant-Man stories fromthe Formative Years andYears of Consolidation?Answer: it sure was, butthis time he was part-nered with inker SydShores (yup! the sameguy who was trans-forming Jack Kirby’s pen-cils on Captain Americainto things of beauty).Although Ayers hadalways been good ondetail work (it waswhat made him such agreat inker over Kirbyin the pre-hero andearly years) and when hehad the time to lavish

attention on a particular illustration (take some ofthe covers he did for Sgt. Fury for instance), hisweakness had always been the human figureitself. He seemed to have a penchant for positioningthem across a panel in unnatural ways, oftenseeming as if they were about to fall into a split!But with a sturdy inker, his work could rise tomore than acceptable, even exciting levels, as itdoes here in Capt. Savage and His LeatherneckRaiders #5 (Aug. 1968). The book was launched afew months earlier when Marvel was suddenlyable to expand its line of titles. At a time whenit had not been immediately apparent thatsuper-heroes were to be the wave of the future,the sales of Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos

Part I: 1968-1970 11

1968

Teamed up on Capt. Savage and his LeatherneckRaiders, penciler Dick Ayers (left) and inkerSyd Shores’ power packed art lent this lateinning war strip the chops to give Marvel’ssuper-hero titles a run for their money!

must have been encouraging enough for editor Stan Lee to take achance on another war book patterned on Fury’s successful formula.He probably didn’t have to look far for the book’s subject thoughas fans had been demanding for years to see and learn more abouta character known only as “the Skipper.” The submarine captainhad been appearing infrequently in Sgt. Fury whenever theHowlers needed to be transported secretly to the Continent for one

of their impossible missions.Now, the Skipper had a nameand rank: he was CaptainSavage and not too surprisinglyto readers, he came with hisown Howlers-like squad ofcommandos: the LeatherneckRaiders. As the name implied,they were made up of USMarines (including one LittleBear, their very own Gabe Jonesethnic equivalent), a sailor, andan Australian. Over 19 issues,the Raiders would wage war inthe Pacific against the JapaneseImperial Forces on missionsevery bit as impossible as theHowlers. But where the Howlersmostly stuck close to regularNazis, the Raiders quickly leftthe expected path and veeredinto Marvel style fantasy. Soonafter their debut, they tangledwith Baron Strucker and anearly version of Hydra, SHIELD’sold nemesis from Marvel’s currentcontinuity. Although the Raidersare back on more familiar groundfoiling a counterfeiting plotaimed at Australia this issue, theseries featured an interesting,action-packed script providedthis issue by DC veteran ArnoldDrake, who seemed in muchmore comfortable surroundingshere than he’d been over in theX-Men. Dialogue is smooth andnatural sounding and the single-issue story moves quickly whileleaving nothing dangling. All inall, it was too bad the seriesended as soon as it did; but thewriting was already on the wall,even if no one at the time couldquite make it out. With youngpeople throwing off the valuesof their elders and anti-warsentiments growing (not tomention the increasing popularityof super-heroes in a shrinkingmarketplace), war comics likeCapt. Savage were doomed toextinction.


Capt. Savage and His Leatherneck Raiders #5: The feature’s strongcombination of art by Ayers and Shores and occasional tie-inswith the contemporary Marvel universe made for an eclectic takeon the traditional war comic.

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he Twilight Years began with Lee and Kirbyat the apex of their professional careers and theuniverse they created still basking in the afterglowof grandiosity. However, new influences and aweakened Comics Code Authority brought into beingcircumstances that encouraged the explorationof genres other than super-heroes and formatsother than comics.

Fantastic Four #102“The Strength of the Sub-Mariner”; Stan Lee (script),Jack Kirby (pencils), Joe Sinnott (inks)

Just as the winds of change were beginning to shift,and the most innovative writing and interesting artwas moving from the super-hero features to out ofcontinuity science fiction, horror, and sword andsorcery, it was announced that Jack Kirby was leav-ing Marvel! Shocking as the news was to readers in1970, in retrospect, it probably happened at just theright time. In contrast to Lee, who could still turn atale of super-heroics into something more interest-ing and immediate by turning a plot around topicalevents or juggling personality quirks to create three-dimensional characters, Kirby’s creative energiesseemed to be winding down to a halt. The oncemighty engine, primed in partnership with theunerring instincts of Lee that had driven Silver AgeMarvel from the obscurity of its pre-hero days of thelate 1950s, through three successive phases of devel-opment (each more creative, more innovative, moreexciting than the last) to its position as the mostimportant comic book company in the industry, nowseemed to have run out of steam. Perhaps made upof equal parts frustration and anger, Kirby’s enthusi-asm for his work waned, ironically, beginning aboutthe time he perhaps achieved almost complete con-trol over the titles he worked on. Kirby’s resent-ments may have arisen from a belief that he wasn’tappreciated by the company, hadn’t received

enough credit for his contributions in helping to cre-ate the Marvel Universe, and/or from simple envyover the attention Lee was getting outside comics.That said, the artist didn’t help himself any by nottaking advantage of his importance to the companyearly on, of not being a tougher negotiator, and ofnot starting up the corporate ladder. Adding to hisdifficulties was a decision to move from New Yorkto California, 3,000 miles away from the Marveloffices. In the meantime, it had been almost twoyears since any really new concepts were introducedin Thor or the FF (instead, old characters returnedand situations were recycled with obvious adapta-tions of movie and television plots filling inbetween), which may have been intentional (Kirbyhad been designing new characters for years but

Little did anyone suspect at the time that whenKirby decided to move from the east coast toCalifornia, it also signaled his impending departure from the House of Ideas he helped to raise.


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Part II:1970-1974

Part II: 1970-1974 47

1970keeping them to himself; they’d appear only after heleft Marvel for rival DC where he created a handfulof interconnected titles under the umbrella concept ofthe “Fourth World”) or it may have simply reflectedthe exhaustion of a man who’d been in the businesssince the 1930s. Certainly his efforts at DC over thenext five years were less than stellar; his intercon-nected New Gods titles were intended to have aninstant, Marvel-style continuity, while their charac-ters had their counterparts in his previous work forthe company. Other features such as Kamandi andthe Demon were wholly or in part based on ideaspurloined from film and television. The process ofdecline in the FF book was most painful to watch

with stories still somewhat interesting around #76-79 and #84-87, then growing weaker through #89.The last twelve issues, in effect Kirby’s final year atthe company ending with Fantastic Four #102 (Sept.1970), were, by the standards Kirby himself hadhelped to set, simply poor. Almost a complete rever-sal of everything that he and Lee had spent a decadebuilding, they lacked real efforts at character devel-opment; continuity; the air of sophistication anexpert combination of humor, seriousness, and self-deprecation created; but worst of all, they lacked thekind of spirit and verve that made Marvel comicsmust-reading for any fan. In comparison, Lee’s workon Captain America and Spider-Man was still asimmediate as it ever was. In fact, Kirby’s last workfor Marvel read more like the competition’s product,nicely designed but empty suits servicing mostlysilly plots intended for 7-to-11-year-olds (Magnetospends nearly all of #102 underwater with nary abreathing aid in sight; did Kirby forget that Atlantiswas beneath the sea or did he figure the kiddieswouldn’t notice?) Although Marvel’s success cer-tainly involved the dynamism, the sheer power-packed beauty of Kirby’s art, in retrospect, its mostimportant ingredient was the one thing the artistfailed to learn and take with him to DC: Lee’shumanism and obvious empathy for other peopleand his ability to infuse his own values in the formof characterization into his heroes. It was the reasonwhy Marvel’s success would continue long afterKirby’s departure even though, at the time, there wasspeculation that the company wouldn’t be able tosurvive without him. Instead, it was Kirby’s projectsat DC that failed. Without the topicality, the humanemotions, the supporting cast of ordinary charac-ters, even such a simple element as romantic inter-ests, they were doomed to failure. The sophisticationof the typical comic book reader had grown beyondthe simple pleasure of reading the exploits of super-heroes, no matter how colorful their costumes. Itwas a lesson DC itself had to learn fast and adaptitself to or lose the sales race to its rapidly surgingcompetition (a problem it solved by importingen mass, Marvel’s most talented graduates).Kirby’s sojourn at DC didn’t last long, in a fewyears he’d be back at Marvel. By then, however,his creative fires were hardly more than glowingembers. But as the first and most important of thethree artistic musketeers of Marvel (and the lastto leave), nothing and no one could ever burnas hotly in the white heat of creation as he didwhen, together with Lee, he engineered a “bigbang” that left in its wake a universe of wonder,imagination, and delight.

Forever People #6: Although Kirby’s lastefforts at Marvel were definitely sub-par forthe king, his initial work after moving to DCshowed a marked enthusiasm (New Gods,Mister Miracle) despite a sub-strata of corniness on display in such titles as JimmyOlsen and Forever People.

only a few months on any one of them; and eventually, droppingout of comics completely to pursue opportunities in other mediasuch as creating art for calendars, book covers, albums, or posters.(Sure, Steranko and Adams had left comics before for much thesame reasons, but they were “compromised” by becoming publishersthemselves.) It was the beginning of the age of the comic bookartist as prima donna, and it all began with Conan the Barbarian #1(Oct. 1970). Not that anyone could tell, as Smith’s job on this issueappeared to be a regression from the promising work he’d beendoing in the anthology titles. Made up of more conventional layoutsand backgrounds devoid of detail, even the experienced inks of

Conan the Barbarian #1“The Coming of Conan”;Roy Thomas (script),Barry Windsor-Smith[as Barry Smith] (pencils),Dan Adkins (inks)

In retrospect, it almost seems asthough Barry Smith’s windingcourse through Marvel’s stable oftitles—entering the comics indus-try imitating his favorite artistsand gradually improving fromassignment to assignment—hadbeen planned. A period of learningand adjustment was first neces-sary before he could graduate toa permanent monthly feature ofhis own. But at last, he wasready. Having developed a styleall his own, in only a few shortmonths he’d proceed to literallyrecreate himself into a bohemianartiste and proud flagbearerfor an artistic renaissance incomics that would help raise theconsciousness of his peersregarding the essential worth oftheir own work. No longerwould the drawings an artistcreated for comics be considereddisposable junk, but as legitimateas that of any other medium.Now, young artists would gatherin studios to spend hours slavingover single pages making surethey came out just right. Butinevitably, the time they spenton their work wasn’t cost effective.The comic book industry hadn’tcaught up to them yet and wasstill unsympathetic to slowpokes.Deadlines still loomed and aready product counted for farmore than artistic integrity. Itwas an attitude that would giverise to a new phenomenon incomics: Artists who’d work on asingle title (instead of two orthree), usually missing deadlinesor keeping a popular book onbi-monthly status, when it couldsell better on a more frequentschedule; jumping from onefeature to another and spending


Conan the Barbarian #1: This penciled version of the first issue’scover is in marked contrast to the finished cover inked by JohnVerpoorten that appeared on newsstands in 1970. Barry Smith’sevolving style is clearly evident here in its attention to detail andthe overall verve in its rendering.

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Dan Adkins failed to bring out the essentials ofSmith’s new style. It was hard to believe that fromthis first fumbling issue, Smith would become,almost overnight, the new darling of fandomwith art that developed rapidly into a richlyornate and intricately detailed style that broughtto vivid life Conan’s Hyborian Age. But all thepretty pictures in the world wouldn’t have madethis title the success it became without goodstories to compliment them—which is where RoyThomas comes in. By no means the junior partneron the Conan book, Thomas’ (unofficial) editorialjudgment and his influence with editor StanLee, coupled with the skill he’d display in firstcapturing the spirit of Conan creator Robert E.Howard and later in adapting the author ’soriginal stories, made his contributions to thefeature indispensable. As time went on, Thomasbecame so skillful at mimicking Howard’s stylethat his stories, if adapted to prose, would’vemade fine additions to the Conan canon in theirown right. In its way as important as the firstissue of the FF, Conan the Barbarian #1 makes for aconvenient marker dividing one era from another.Where the former signaled a shift in attitude inthe way comics were perceived, the latter markedthe point at which control of the comics industrypassed from the hands of older professionals (towhom working in the industry was mostly just ajob) to a younger generation of fans who lovedthe medium for what it was.

Amazing Adventures #3“Pawns of the Mandarin”; Jack Kirby (script & pencils),Chic Stone (inks)

“The Widow and the Militants”; Gary Friedrich (script),Gene Colan (pencils), Bill Everett (inks)

Following the successful launch of the weirdmenace and romance anthologies, editor Stan Leereturned to super-heroes for his next pair of newtitles. Harking back to the Years of Consolidation,Lee divided the page count of Amazing Adventuresand Astonishing Tales between two features, eachboasting the efforts of some of the bullpen’s bestwriters and pencilers. Although not successful inthe long run (it seems readers had long sincebecome accustomed to “feature length” stories),the two books did boast impressive efforts byartists like Neal Adams, Wally Wood, and JohnBuscema and writers like Roy Thomas and GerryConway. Amazing Adventures #3 (Nov. 1970) is agood example of a typical issue as Jack Kirbytakes on his last assignments for the company(writing and drawing both the Inhumans here

along with Ka-Zar over in Astonishing) and GeneColan swings into high gear on the Black Widowstrip. Obviously completed before Kirby left thecompany, his work here on the Inhumansseemed almost a throwback to the company’searly years. Contributing to the illusion were theinks of Chic Stone (who’d given the Years ofConsolidation their definitive look). Returning tothe fold after an absence of years, it was almostlike Stone never left! His thick ink lines seemed toperfectly compliment Kirby’s pencils (that hadgrown markedly looser by this time), holding anddrawing out of them a measure of the vibrancythey once held. The plot by Kirby is characteris-tically devoid of any subtleties with only theheroes’ powers to differentiate them. That might’vebeen acceptable for a story that was only tenpages long, but then if Gary Friedrich and GeneColan could do it with the Black Widow, whycouldn’t Kirby? In fact, the Widow feature hadeverything a Marvel strip should have by thistime to spell success: well rounded, three-dimensional characters; an interesting support-ing cast (which featured Ivan, the Widow’s chauf-feur; the Young Warriors, a group of Hispanicyouth fighting for their dignity against evil slumlords; even J. Jonah Jameson!); and a plot basedon topical issues. Even more, the strip had anintelligent script by Friedrich (who’d begun hiscareer a few years before at rival Charlton on the

Writer Gary Freidrich (left) managed the difficult act of setting the Black Widow’sadventures within a contemporary milieu whileat the same time retaining a sense of the character’s Cold War origins. Bill Everett(right) meanwhile, lent Gene Colan’s art a lushsensuality that in places was almost tactile.

1970

Amazing Spider-Man #88“The Arms of Doctor Octopus!”; Stan Lee (script), John Romita (pencils),Jim Mooney (inks)

Peter Parker’s longest journey (to paraphrase the character of Scoutfrom the film To Kill a Mockingbird [1962]) began deceptivelyenough in Amazing Spider-Man #88 (Sept. 1970) with the return of his

recommendation of RoyThomas) filled with smooth,informative dialogue thatkeeps everything moving for-ward. And most of all,Friedrich knew when to stop.That was because Colan, beauti-fully inked by Bill Everett(the match-up was practicallyserendipitous) was, believe itor not, just entering the mostcreative point in his career.Beginning with this strip andgoing on to his future work onDaredevil, Dr. Strange, and theTomb of Dracula, it seemed thatall was but prologue for Colan,who’d turn out to be Marvel’sstar artist of the Twilight Years.And some of his very best workis on display here as he opensthe story of the Widow’sattempt to help the YoungWarriors in their struggleagainst unscrupu-lous landlords witha wonderfullyrendered series ofpanels showingNatasha arrivingat her penthouseapartment (asequence wiselyleft wordless byFriedrich). There,she’s captured bya masked villain called “theDon” who intends on setting herup as the inspiration for illegalaction taken by the YoungWarriors. Meanwhile, the mayorrefuses to meet the young people’sdemands and the scene is set fora street riot next issue! It surewas a lot of plot for only tenpages, but Friedrich and Colanpull it off effortlessly leavingthe reader eager for the nextchapter. And that almostvoluptuous inking by Everett! Itwas like a match made in heavenwhen the two artists met in theirrendering of the curvaceousBlack Widow!


Amazing Spider-Man #88: After a disappointing hiatus under thepen of John Buscema, the Spider-Man strip returns to greatnessthis issue beginning a string of groundbreaking stories that wouldend with #99, Stan Lee’s first break from the strip since hehelped launch it in 1963.

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n the interregnum between Kirby’s departurefrom Marvel and his return at mid-decade, thelandscape of Marvel’s four-color universe had beenaltered almost beyond recognition. Aside from obviouschanges such as new characters, new titles, and newformats, was the infusion of a new relativism thatrelied on an increased sophistication among readers.

Adventure Into Fear #20“Morbius the Living Vampire!”; Mike Friedrich(script), Paul Gulacy (pencils), Jack Abel (inks)

“Midnight in the Wax Museum!”; Jack Oleck(script), Richard Doxsee (pencils & inks)

Things were beginning to get out of hand. By the early-to mid-1970s, the expansion that had begun way backin the late Sixties with the first anthology titles and splitfeature books had exploded into seemingly dozensof new titles. And although many were single feature,standalone books (like Tomb of Dracula, Marvel Team-Up,and Luke Cage, Hero forHire), many more werewhat could be classedas “try-out” books. MarvelPremiere, Marvel Feature,Supernatural Thrillers,Amazing Adventures, andAstonishing Tales wereonly a few and eachrequired material everymonth to fill their 18 to20 pages of space. To doit, and to meet ever loom-ing deadlines, a legionof artists and writers

were hired to make it happen. First, barely competentwould-be artists like Jim Starlin, Frank Brunner, CraigRussell, Mike Ploog, Rich Buckler, and Val Mayerik(all of whom would nevertheless improve rapidly)were brought in from the fan community, followed bya wholesale hiring of artists from shops in thePhilippines of all places. In addition, not only werewriters and artists needed to produce material for allthe available books, but features were needed for themto work on, and plenty of them. To do it, editor RoyThomas combed through the Marvel Universe look-ing for characters that could potentially be featured intheir own series. He succeeded in coming up with plen-ty, and apparently, with such characters as Man-Wolf,Tigra, and even It, the Living Colossus (a monster fromthe company’s pre-hero days), none were too minor notto consider! Anyway, all of these factors came home toroost (to mix a metaphor!) in Adventure into Fear #20(Feb. 1974), which featured “The Man Called Morbius,the Living Vampire!” Not as contradictory a title as itsounded, Morbius was a vampire, but not one who wasa reanimated corpse of east European legend. He wasMichael Morbius, a scientist who tried to cure himselfof a rare disease, but instead became a creature withvampire-like attributes. Created by Thomas when hewas filling in for Stan Lee on Spider-Man, Morbiusended up roaming the country in stories appearing inthe black-and-white magazine Vampire Tales feelingsorry for himself and wracked with guilt whenever histhirst for human blood drove him to kill. He graduatedto Fear when the need for new material became acuteand Mike Friedrich was assigned to write the strip.Perfunctory and by-the-book, Friedrich’s script wasmerely serviceable in a tale about a devil-worshippingscientist named Daemond who gains mental control ofMorbius with the intention of using him to (what else?)conquer the world. Pretty routine stuff that wouldshow definite signs of improvement a few issues laterwhen a new writer named Steve Gerber took overthe scripting chores, sending the plot in a weird, less

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Paul Gulacy arrived at Marvel under the influence of Steranko, but soon evolved hisown style that could seem both stiff and fluidat the same time.

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predictable direction. But the main interest here is the art, produced byan insufficiently experienced Paul Gulacy. Although coming to comicsas an assistant for Dan Adkins, Gulacy’s influence was clearly more withSteranko than his immediate mentor. Filled with awkward figurework, inappropriate perspectives, and a lack of crucial detail, Gulacy’sdynamism and layouts here were strong enough to overcome theseweaknesses and hint at the introduction of still another exciting newartist to arrive on the Twilight scene. Unfortunately, readers wouldn’tget a chance to watch his style develop on the “Morbius” strip (whichwas soon handed over to Gerber and Craig Russell) as he was trans-ferred after this issue over to another new feature that was in evenmore desperate need of a penciler.

Savage Tales #3“The Lurker From the Catacombs”;Roy Thomas (script), Barry Windsor-Smith [as Barry Smith] (pencils & inks)“The Crimson Bell”; Ray Capella(script), Al Williamson (pencils &inks), Frank Brunner (pencils & inks)“The Fury of the Femizons”; Stan Lee(script), John Romita (pencils & inks)“He Comes From the Dark”; RoyThomas (script), Barry Windsor-Smith[as Barry Smith] (pencils & inks)

As incredible as Barry Smith’swork was on the second partof the “Red Nails” adaptationfeatured in Savage Tales #3 (Feb.1974), it would neverthelessbecome the zenith of his artisticdevelopment. Although hissubsequent work over the nextseveral years equaled the superbartistry on display here (in printssold through his own GorblimeyPress and an unfinished BranMak Morn story that had beenslated for a later issue of SavageTales), he had in effect reached aplateau. In fact, if the apex ofSmith’s art could be narroweddown to a single illustration,then readers didn’t have to lookany farther than this issue’s edito-

rial by Roy Thomasfeaturing a stunning full-pagedrawing of a victorious, bloodspattered Conan;there was no waySmith could tophimself after thatand he never did.(In fact, the artistseemed to do hisbest work on

standalone illustrations; witnessthe other two in this issue: thecover of Conan the BarbarianSpecial #1, a frontispiece on thecontents page here, and anotherat the back dedicated to REH.)As time went on, his powerswould begin to fade andthough still exciting when


Adventure into Fear #20, page 1: As opposed to his later work,Gulacy’s earliest efforts, as can be seen here, were more fluidthan stiff or mannered. Figures, for instance, practically flingthemselves off the page!

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compared to younger artists entering the field,Smith’s later work would only be a pale, watered-down version of his former achievements. But thatfate was not yet known to the readers who eagerlysnapped up this issue to find out how thingsturned out for Conan and Valeria in the city ofXuchotl. There, Thomas continued his closeadaptation of the original Howard story, whileSmith’s art delivered on the promise it had shownin the previous issue. Over the course of 37 pages,the two followed the strange battle betweenfactions still living within the deserted city. AsConan joins one faction against the other, he comesacross violence, sadism, and the walking dead untilin the end, only he and Valeria are left standing…living spectres literally drenched in the blood oftheir enemies. Although Thomas would later teamwith John Buscema to produce other adaptationsand stories just as long in many subsequent issues,none would ever achieve the esoteric otherworldinessevoked by Smith in “Red Nails.” Taking up nearlythe whole issue, the story left hardly any room fora reprint of “The Fury of the Femizons” and sometext pieces illustrated by the likes of Frank Brunnerand Al Williamson.

Amazing Spider-Man #129“The Punisher Strikes Twice”; Gerry Conway(script), Ross Andru (pencils), Frank Giacoia &Dave Hunt (inks)

As the Twilight Years progressed, a strange phe-nomenon began to take place. Marvel’s flagshiptitles that had once been the most vital in thecomics industry, the breeding ground for everynew trend, the gold standard of what was cool andhip, had begun to lose steam. The irony was thatalthough books such as the Fantastic Four, Avengers,Daredevil and Thor were still the assignments everyyoung writer or artist hoped to graduate to afterlearning the basics of storytelling, the truth wasthat while waiting for one of those coveted booksto become available, the company’s new recruits,while laboring on lesser titles, were actually doingthe most creative and innovative work at Marvel.Take the transitional Amazing Spider-Man #129(Feb. 1974) for example. By 1973, the title was overten years old and with its web-swinging star, hadbecome the sales leader of the Marvel line. That,unfortunately, didn’t prevent the book from fallingon hard times that began around issue #100 with aseries of stories that undermined the realism thathad always been a hallmark of the strip. First, PeterParker had grown two extra pairs of arms (to makehim more spider-like), then fought a vampire, and

finally traveled to a hidden jungle to battledinosaurs and giant aliens reminiscent of those thatroamed Marvel’s pre-hero mystery titles. Sanitywas restored when first Stan Lee, then GerryConway, returned to the writing chores for a string ofstories drawn and later plotted by John Romita thatharkened back to the character’s Golden Age justafter Steve Ditko had left the company. Those storiesended in a reprint taken from the pages ofSpectacular Spider-Man #1, a black-and-white magazine-sized experiment that had appeared a few yearsbefore and failed due to distribution problemsamong other things. Romita returned briefly to inkGil Kane through the deaths of Gwen Stacy and theGreen Goblin in issues 121 and 122 before the artchores were taken over by DC veteran Ross Andru,who may have won the Spider-Man gig followingan audition in Marvel Super-Heroes #14 in which hehad an early opportunity to draw the character.Andru’s reappearance now marked the beginningof the dry rot that would set in on the regularSpider-Man feature and later spread to the otherflagship titles. Although sales on the strip wouldcontinue strong, artistically, Andru’s style was farfrom satisfying with its awkward, unappealingfigures with facial expressions more akin to waxdummies than real people. An old time professional,Andru had most recently been employed at DCdoing such strips as “Gunner and Sarge” for warbooks like GI Combat, but was probably most wellknown for his work on the Metal Men, whose goofy

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The Destroyer, a very distant literary descen-dent of Street & Smith’s pulp hero theAvenger, was likely the inspiration for Marvel’sPunisher.

1974

adventures Andru’s style was perhaps better suitedto. What it was definitely not suited for was theSpider-Man strip which, due to its melodramaticelements, had always depended on a realisticapproach to the artwork to make it work. So Andruwasn’t well served when almost at the start of histenure in #129, he was given the job of illustratingthe first appearance of a new character who wasdestined to revolutionize the definition of a comicbook hero over the next decade. But exploitation ofthe full potential of the Punisher (whom writerGerry Conway based on the Destroyer, the star of apopular series of novels who specialized in fightingorganized crime) would have to wait until otherartists who were better able to portray the gritty,violent nature of the character had the chance tohandle him. In the meantime, behind an eye catchingKane/Romita cover, Andru tried valiantly to bringsome drama to Conway’s story of a plot by themysterious Jackal (actually one of Peter Parker’sprofessors at school) to destroy Spider-Man. Butthe arrival on the scene of the uninspired Andrureflected the general state of lackluster artworkthat had begun to fill the pages of Marvel’s otherflagship titles including the Fantastic Four andThor where John Buscema, chastened from hisexperience on the long since cancelled Silver Surferbook, produced solid but uninspired work. Hisbrother Sal, who’d graduated from inking John topenciling the Avengers, Captain America and theDefenders was workmanlike, while Daredevil wastaken over by Bob Brown, another DC alumnuswhose stiff, ill-proportioned figure work had beenon display with the Challengers of the Unknown.Meanwhile, Iron Man was still the province ofGolden Age stalwart George Tuska. Although suchwriters as Steve Englehart and Doug Moenchmanaged to come up with some interesting plotdevices, overall, Marvel’s big guns largely began torun out of ammo. Even Conway himself, who hadbeen one of the company’s shining lights earlier inthe Twilight era started to slip when he began tointroduce more and more ridiculous elements tothe Spider-Man strip, including the wedding ofelderly Aunt May to the villainous Doctor Octopus(who had won her hand from underworld gangsterHammerhead!), the introduction of the Spider-Mobile, and the infamous clone of Gwen Stacey.With such increasing carelessness on the part ofwriters, the infusion of less than stellar artists fromrival DC and a general shift in creative energy toless high profile books, the flagship titles, likeburning wrecks on the high seas, slowly driftedinto mediocrity and irrelevance.

Marvel Premiere #14“Sise-Neg Genesis”; Steve Englehart (co-plot & script),Frank Brunner (co-plot & pencils), Dick Giordano (inks)

Steve Englehart had never planned to be a comicbook writer. In fact, he started out as an artistdoing freelance jobs and working as an assistant toNeal Adams. Then one day, he received a call fromGary Friedrich, who’d become an assistant editorat Marvel since joining the company as a writer.According to Englehart, Friedrich asked him tofill-in for him while he was out of town for a fewweeks. Englehart agreed, but ended up keepingthe job permanently when Friedrich decided not toreturn. Asked by editor Roy Thomas to try hishand at writing, he did well enough to be assignedthe scripting chores for Captain America and theAvengers. In no time, the former artist was writingstories for a half dozen of the company’s mostimportant characters, including Dr. Strange.Englehart took over the Strange feature at a difficulttime for the strip. After a strong start under StanLee and Barry Smith, the strip veered into the horrordomain of writer H. P. Lovecraft (appropriatingideas from the author’s famous story “The Shadowover Innsmouth”), but not doing a very good jobof it. Under various writers and artists, thestrip lost direction and began floundering. That’swhen Englehart made the scene. Dropping theLovecraftian elements, Englehart brought the stripmore into line with precedents set by Lee and

Steve Ditko. While notcompletely jettisoningeverything that’d beenhappening in previousissues, he managed towind things up on amore or less satisfactorynote. By that time,Englehart had beenunited with artist FrankBrunner, and soon thetwo men were workingin a close partnershipthat yielded one of themost outrageous and


Although Steve Englehart worked on numeroustitles while at Marvel, like Wolfman onDracula, his work on Dr. Strange rose abovethe others. He provided similar services at DCfor a time with his work on Detective Comicswith artist Marshall Rogers being the standout.

the being called Genesis then recreates the universe exactly as it wasbefore with the exception that Mordo (driven mad by the experience)and Strange are the only human beings to know that the world wasdestroyed and recreated! It was probably the most incredible, mostaudacious story Marvel (or any comics company for that matter) hadever done, and what’s more, it called into question the existence ofGod: after all, if a human being, Sise-Neg, could go back in time,destroy the universe and recreate it again, what about the God thatbegan the universe in the first place? Was he a similar time traveler?

daring stories ever presented incomics. Begun in #12 and concludedhere in Marvel Premiere #14 (March1974), the story they came upwith involved a time travelingmagician from the future whohas discovered how to absorbthe universe’ ambient magicalenergy. The catch is, the moremagicians there are tapping intoit, the less there is to go around.As a result, Sise-Neg decides thatthe only way he can get more ofthe energy is to go back in timewhere there would be fewermagicians. And so, the fartherback he goes, the more energy heabsorbs, and the more powerfulhe gets. DoctorStrange and Mordocatch up with himafter he’s reachedthe Middle Agesand becomes themagician known tohistory asCagoliostro, but hegives them the slipand escapes topre-historic times.There, Strange learns that Sise-Neg intends to go all the wayback to the dawn of creationwhen he will have all the magicalenergy in the universe for himself.“And what is another term for anall powerful being at the dawn ofcreation?” he asks Strange. “It isGod!” That’s right, Sise-Neg(Genesis spelled backward!)intends to go back before thecreation of the universe and,assuming the role of God,recreate it in his own image! Butwhen he gets there and uncreatesall reality, (an event witnessedonly by Strange and Mordo), hediscovers that “My plan to recreatethe universe in my image wastruly pitiable! I have achievedmy godhood, but in doing so Ihave learned the truth! Thateverything is as it should be, if onecan only see it!” Thus humbled,

Marvel Premiere #14, page 27: Frank Brunner lets it rip inthese scenes setting up Sise-Neg as the God of Genesis.

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s the Twilight Years drew to a close, Marvelbecame less a trendsetter than a follower of thelatest fad. Income from corporate product andmovie tie-ins formed an increasing part of thebottom line, even as the company’s own creativeenergies began to run dry. Ultimately, even Kirbyhimself became a casualty of the new reality.

Captain America #193“The Madbomb Screamer In The Brain!”; Jack Kirby(script & pencils), Frank Giacoia & Mike Esposito (inks)

It had only been six years, but to longtime Marvelfans it felt more like twenty. “King Kirby is back!”screamed the blurb on the cover of Captain America#193 (Jan. 1976) and indeed the legendary Jack Kirbywho, in partnership with Stan Lee, had helped lay thefoundations of Marvel’s Silver Age triumph, hadreturned to the company with an immense store ofgoodwill among its readers. Unfortunately, what hehad in mind for his return to Marvel would prove tobe a disappointment to fans who expected him topick up where he’d left off in 1970: perhaps takingover on such classic characters as Thor and theFantastic Four while working within the continuityhe himself had helped to build. It was not to be. Thepersonal factors that had driven Kirby from Marvelsix years before were still operable and in agreeing tocome back, the artist made clear that he would be hisown man as he wanted to be at DC. He would writeand draw his own features and outside of CaptainAmerica and the Black Panther, would concentrate onnew concepts such as the Eternals. In addition, Kirbywould eschew collaboration with inkers such as JoeSinnott and Vince Colletta who had made his art somemorable at the height of his success during theGrandiose Years. His determination to separatehis new work from the general run of the MarvelUniverse became immediately apparent on the BlackPanther, a strip that for the past several years had beenwritten by Don McGregor in a complex, layered style

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Captain America #193: The initial excitementover Kirby’s return to Marvel was quicklydampened when it became apparent that notonly would the king ignore ongoing continuityin his various books, but that he would also bedoing his own scripting.

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that addressed many of the social issues of the day. Tohave Kirby take over the book and without a singlereference to what McGregor had been doing onlyweeks before, throw the Panther into a simplistic,even goofy tale of straight super-hero action wasjarring to say the least. Similarly, when Kirby took overthe Cap strip this issue, what resulted had nothing todo with the evolution the character had undergoneunder the hand of writer Steve Englehart. In a singleswoop, Kirby returns Cap to an era reminiscent of theSilver Age with a Madbomb plot resembling that ofInferno 42 in Tales of Suspense #76 or the seismo bombin Cap #105. And as if the events that shook our hero’sfaith in the establishment had never happened, heallows himself to be recruited by “big wig” HenryKissinger: “If that’s who I think it is, we should getsome straight answers!” declares Cap. “Hah!” repliesthe secretary. “You dreamer you! The test isn’t overyet: we’ll have our chat…if you survive this finalhurdle!” The combination of Kirby’s decision toignore continuity and the wider Marvel Universe, aswell as scripting his own work, soon disappointedfans who had wanted so much to have his return toMarvel be a triumphant one. Instead, Kirby appearedto be a stranger displaying few signs of knowingwhat it was that made the company’s books tick. Infact, in this issue’s letters page, the rumblings hadalready begun with one fan openly expressing“regret” to see that Kirby would be scripting his ownstories. Plainly, some fans had learned their lessonafter following Kirby to DC hoping to enjoy the kindof stories that they had become used to when theartist was at Marvel. There, inker Vince Collettasucceeded in making the first issues of New Gods andother “Fourth World” titles look as sharp as Kirby’slater Marvel work, but he was soon forced off thebooks (for cutting corners and not inking everythingthe artist drew). Some fans who had given Kirby thebenefit of the doubt, left with him. Then there wasKirby’s scripting with its quirky eccentricities andmeandering, undisciplined plotting that succeeded indriving away the rest. So when the artist returned toMarvel, it was with a mix of hope and reservations onthe part of fans but as the months passed, and Kirbystubbornly refused to bring his stories into the 1970sor to allow anyone else to script them, resistancebegan mount against him both among older fans andin Marvel’s editorial offices. The problem was that,like Captain America, his own creation, Kirby hadbecome an anachronism. The revolution in comics hehelped to launch in 1961 had moved on without him.When Kirby had left Marvel in 1970 it was as if he’dtaken himself out of the time stream or put himselfinto suspended animation. In his own pocket universe,

away from New York, he was cut off from the latestdevelopments in comics, especially Marvel comicsand as a result, he’d failed to keep up. Slowly, whileacknowledging his greatness and the debt the comicsindustry owed to him, fans nevertheless grew todisdain his work. As happened at DC, Kirby’s majornew concept, the Eternals, would lose focus, founder,and be cancelled. After that, Kirby seemed to loseinterest, letting go of such mainstream titles asCaptain America and Black Panther and instead doingcovers and picking up the oddball assignment likeMachine Man and the frankly head scratching DevilDinosaur. A last fling with former partner Stan Lee on aSilver Surfer graphic novel was equally disappointing,paving the way for Kirby’s final departure fromMarvel. But by then, hardly anyone noticed.


New Gods #3: Inked by Vince Colletta, Kirby’sfirst few issues of such Fourth World booksas New Gods at least had the sheen of aMarvel product, but the artist’s eccentricscripting and meandering plots would not beenough to hold most readers after Colletta wasforced off the books.

Astonishing Tales #33“Reflections In a Crimson Eye!”; Bill Mantlo (script),Rich Buckler (co-plot & pencils),Klaus Janson (inks)

Wow! If only every installment of the “Deathlok”strip could’ve looked like this! It was late in theTwilight Years and the leadership at Marvel hadbecome uncertain if not stormy. Editors came andwent, deadlines were missed, and reprints andfill-ins peppered the line-up. Momentum at thecompany that had begun in earlier phases wasslowing down and soon, many of the artists andwriters that had managed to keep things going sofar would begin to jump ship for rival DC. But therewas still some life left at Marvel, still features thatheld promise, still creators with good intentionseven if they sometimes failed to completely realizethem. One of those features that still had promiseand still managed to deliver on them at least onan uneven basis, was Deathlok (the Demolisher).Begun in Astonishing #25, the feature had sufferedmany ups and downs as creator Rich Buckler wasable to put more or less time into it. Some issueshad great art and moved the diverse elements ofthe ongoing plot forward while others sufferedfrom pressing deadlines, too many hands tryingto help finish late artwork, or revolving writers.But the weird thing about the strip is that everyfew issues, it would deliver a great installmentwhere art and script came together. AstonishingTales #33 (Jan. 1976) was that kind of issue. Sure,it had Buckler on full pencils and firing on allburners layout-wise, scripter Bill Mantlo doingthe first person/computer interior dialogue bit intop notch form, and a book-length story withouta reprint or hastily produced short subject to fillout unfinished pages, but the standout elementthat really puts this issue in the spotlight is theinking by newcomer Klaus Janson. Destined tobecome Marvel’s most impressive and innovativeinker since Tom Palmer, Janson hit the readerwhere he lived with a relatively sedate openingsplash page of Deathlok in New York’s subwaysbefore ratcheting things up a bit on page 2 wherehe impresses with a near full-page shot ofDeathlok as he walks into a puddle with hisblood red image reflected in the purplish water. Asif having set up the reader for a visual one/twopunch, Janson knocks ‘em dead on page 3 with akiller full-page portrait of the cyborg in all hisscarred, decomposing glory! The rest of the issuewas only slightly less impressive as Jansonenhances Buckler’s unconventional layouts turningordinary scenes into things of striking beauty. The

final panels on pages 7 and 30 for instance, thefirst showing the legs of a simple radio toweragainst a distant cityscape and a sky colored insunset hues and the second another close up ofDeathlok, are just plain eye candy! Where did thisguy come from? From Connecticut actually, byway of Germany. Janson broke into comics as anassistant to artist and sometime DC editor DickGiordano before moving quickly over to Marvel.There, he bounced around on different strips,enhancing the art of anyone he worked over.Unlike most other inkers, Janson, like TomPalmer, was never afraid to put a lot of himselfinto his work. Thus, books inked by him usuallylooked darker than they otherwise would haveunder someone else. But where Palmer’s workwas smooth and flowing, Janson’s was harderedged, giving his human figures a blockier feel.Extensive use of crosshatching on close ups andfine line detailing on backgrounds created a 3-Deffect and an overall darker atmosphere to what-ever strip he worked on. In the years beyondthose of the Twilight Years, this quality wouldenhance the work of such artists as Gil Kane andFrank Miller when they drew the Daredevil strip.Unfortunately, Janson was only assigned to the“Deathlok” strip late in its run, but the coupleexamples that remain to us are choice; workingover an artist at the top of his form, they have tobe some the best, if not the best, work the inkerhas ever done!

Part IV: 1976-1979 205

Klaus Janson’s inks put a dark, three-dimen-sional edge to Rich Buckler’s art on Deathlokbut it would not be until late in the decadewhen his work over Frank Miller’s pencils onDaredevil that his would become a householdname.

1976

Astonishing Tales #35“...And Once Removed From Never”; Bill Mantlo (script),Rich Buckler (co-plot & pencils), Klaus Janson (inks)

The meandering plot of the “Deathlok” feature finally came to aconclusion in Astonishing Tales #35 (May 1976) in a way that wasreminiscent of the Grandiose Years: it ended in the middle of theissue with the next storyline picking up immediately afterward.

In a finale credited as having“concept, plot, and art” by RichBuckler and inking and colorsby Klaus Janson, could theresults be anything but spectacular?The only element missing washaving the strip’s co-creatorDoug Moench on hand toscript, but as it was, the verycapable Bill Mantlo had beendoing a stand up job for thepast few issues, and his workhere was no less satisfying asLuther Manning and Gen.Ryker are reduced to “randomfrequency scanning-wave(s)”for their final battle! “I’m usuallyconsidered the creator ofDeathlok, but Doug was veryheavily involved from thebeginning,” recalled Buckler

in an interview.“He came up withthe name, andreally co-createdthe character.”Originally basedout of Detroit,over the yearsBuckler recruiteda number of localartists such asArvell Jones and

Keith Pollard to help him meetdeadlines on “Deathlok.” Forsimilar reasons, the artistasked to be teamed withMoench, who then contributedmany of the elements thatwould flesh out Buckler ’soriginal concept of a cyborghero. In fact, Buckler admitsthat it was Moench who cameup with the character ’s name.At first, he had intended oncalling him “Deadlok,” butminutes before the two were topresent the concept to editorRoy Thomas, Moench changedthe name to “Deathlok.” BesidesMoench, another key elementon the Deathlok strip turnedout to be inker Klaus Janson, atalent Buckler discovered. At

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MARVELCOMICS INTHE 1970sIssue-By-IssueField Guide

This 1970s sequel volume coversMarvel’s final historical phase: thetwilight years of the 1970s, afterthe initial ‘60s wave of popularitypushed the company to the fore-front of the comics industry, andmade many of its charactershousehold names! It details howSTAN LEE went from writer topublisher, JACK KIRBY left (andlater returned), ROY THOMASrose as writer and editor, and a new wave of writers and artists expanded theboundaries of comics beyond super-heroes, while planting the seeds for thecompany’s eventual self-destruction. Covers the Spider-Man “drug” issues,Conan the Barbarian, Tomb of Dracula, Master of Kung Fu, Howard the Duck,the new X-Men, and more, plus creators CHRIS CLAREMONT, BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH, GENE COLAN, MARV WOLFMAN, STEVE GERBER, JOHNROMITA, GIL KANE, SAL BUSCEMA, and others!

(224-page trade paperback) $27.95 ISBN: 9781605490342

http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=979

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Marvel Comics in the 1970s