By The Dawn’s Early Light!

Dragon Man!
Writer: Roger Stern
Co-plotters: Roger Stern, John Byrne
Penciler: John Byrne
Inker: Josef Rubinstein
Letterer: Jim Novak
Colorist: Bob Sharen
Originally published: August 1980

Death, Where Is Thy Sting?
Co-plotters: Roger Stern, John Byrne
Penciler: John Byrne
Inker: Josef Rubinstein
Letterer: Jim Novak
Colorist: B. Sharen
Originally published: September 1980

The Terror of the Taskmaster
Writer: David Michelinie
Penciler: George Perez
Inker: Jack Abel
Letterer: John Costanza
Colorist: Carl Gafford
Originally published: June 1980

Cap For President!
Story: Roger Stern
Photography: John Byrne, Josef Rubinstein
Typography: James Novak
Color: George Roussos
Originally published: October 1980

CA 247-249 tell the tale of Machinesmith, a robot master. They’re good, but Spidey never appears. There is a Spidey robot, and an off-hand mention of the real Spider-Man, but that’s it. I just read them for fun basically, but technically they shouldn’t really be in the project. Also, CA 247 and 248 should have come before M/TU 95.

Avengers 196 features a one-panel flashback of Spidey swinging on a pole — completely inconsequential. Its story about the Taskmaster was pretty good as well.

CA 250 features Spidey in one panel, considering the possibility of Captain America as president.

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Verdicts

Ok, Marvels was pretty good. But all these other shitty painted books about real people are crap. Seriously, NO GOOD.

Update: this should come about one Marvel-year later than I have it.

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A Child is Waiting

This was a mildly entertaining kidnapping caper, in which little Franklin Richards gets abducted and held for ransom. Spidey and the Invisible Girl team up to get him back, and everything ends up wonderful.

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And Lo, A Child Shall Lead Them

I’ve been looking forward to this issue for a long time. Godzilla and Spider-Man are just too awesome a combination.

In the issue Godzilla attacks NYC and squares off against the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and S.H.I.E.L.D. The story is fairly evenly split between the heroes fighting Godzilla, and some little kid asking Godzilla nicely to leave. The kid succeeds where the heroes’ violence failed. Spidey appears briefly photographing the big ol’ lizard.

This book wasn’t bad, really, but there wasn’t any depth to it either. Perhaps if I had read some of the other issues there would be more, but it all seemed really superficial. This is a pretty big disappointment, especially considering this is the last Godzilla issue — I would have expected a little more bang for my 40¢. Also, Spidey was barely in it! Dang, man.

JJJ looks like a crazy person and Robbie Robertson has a crazy-weird ‘fro. Oddly, Robbie says that he left “a message for parker with his girlfriend”, but at this point Parker doesn’t really have a girlfriend. Maybe I have this in the wrong spot, or maybe Robbie doesn’t realize Pete and MJ are on the splits. I guess they’re still kinda seeing each other, so it probably makes sense…

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A Matter of Love… and Death!

Captain DeWolff is back! Woo!

This was another fantastic issue. I didn’t dig Claremont’s last few stabs at Team-Up, but if he can continue this streak I’ll be super happy.

Oh, and Yellow Jacket’s not dead, which I guess is a good thing.

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Some Say Spidey Will Die by Fire… …Some Say by Ice!

Fantastic issue! Equinox, and old villain from Team-Up returns and we start getting some back story on him. This issue is all action, but there’s also tons of character development. The Wasp is a pretty lame hero, but Claremont’s made her very likable here. And he seems to have killed off Hank Pym!

Seriously, this was really good.

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‘Tis the Season

My Treasury Edition 13 showed up! I’m finally back on track with my reading order.

It’s Christmas time, and the Marvel superheroes are playing in the snow! This is kind of a wrapper story around some reprints of past issues. Nothing much happens, but it’s nice and cute, and fun to see everyone relaxing and having a good time.

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Along Came a Spider!

This was a nice little backup story featuring the first meeting between Captain America and Spider-Man. Cap takes the time to give Spidey some friendly advice and some much-needed moral support. Both characters come across as very human. Definitely a great read.

This should have gone fairly early in Spidey’s career, but I’m not super certain where. I would guess just before Avengers 11, but I haven’t checked closely to see if that makes sense.

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KISS / Precisely as Hot as Hell! / The Andromedia Hustle! / See Latveria and Die!

“Forty pages of full-color comics. Plus never-before-published photos and features. Printed in real KISS blood.“

Everything about this is badass!

Platform shoes? Check.
Blind old man in a fur loincloth? Check.
Gene Simmons breathing fire? Check.
Teleportation? Check.
Moon-shaped spaceship? Check.
Sexy robot ladies with machine guns and robot monks with laser eyes? Check.
Outerspace alien disco? Check.

This is literally the best comic I’ve ever read.

Here are some amazing panels and things. Check out the fucking awesome fake ad for Air Latveria!

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At Last: The Decision!

A new set of Avengers is chosen. It very much resembles the existing lineup. There are lot of flashbacks, including one with Spidey. This was kind of like a crappy clips episode of a sitcom.

Why is Ben Grimm human, but wearing a Thing costume? I’ve clearly missed something there.

I probably shouldn’t have this smack dab in the middle of a cliffhanger.

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Saturday Night Furor!

This is a Tarantula issue, not a Spidey issue. He’s Spidery enough for me, though!

Captain America is found floating in a river, with a face that’s not his own, and a bitchin case of amnesia. As he reconstructs the events of the last few days, he’s lead to an operation by the Tarantula. It’s a sweet story, I just wish there was more of Tarantula.

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The Incredible Shrinking Doom!

Hank Pym, now pretty much retired from super-heroing, is a professor at ESU. Peter Parker is helping him and his stupid dog with some experiment with American Indian drugs when some thug shows up and says that he and his goons have kidnapped Curt Connors’s son. They want the drugs in exchange for his safe return.

Hank turns into Ant-Man and sets of with Peter to stop the kidnappers. Ant-Man attacks and Peter – still in his civilian identity – joins in. Unfortunately, the good guys need to cooperate; the baddies have injected the kid with some kind of lethal injection, and unless the antidote is administered he will die. Everyone takes off together and heads into a secret mountain complex.

The Connors kid ends up escaping, Ant-Man and Peter end up getting injected and yadda yadda yadda the dog saves the day.

Peter does turn into Spider-Man at one point, but it’s not very exciting.

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Hostage!

The entire island of Manhatten is taken hostage by an efficient army led by the ram-headed Aries (of the Zodiac crime syndicate). The Fantastic Four are out of town, Spider-Man doesn’t want to worry Aunt May, and most of the Avengers are either away in New Jersey or have been captured. The only Avenger who can do something is the Black Panther, and he seeks out Matt Murdock – Daredevil – to help him.

They find and attack Aries, but only end up pissing him off. Aries decides the best thing for everyone is a public execution of the four Avengers members that he’s captured – Thor, Quicksilver, Captain America and Iron Man. This upsets some people, and Daredevil – in a typically daring maneuver – managers to free the Avengers. After that, it’s all over.

Bitchin issue, really cool story and really well-told. It seems like a huge, major thing that happened to all of the city. I’m hoping it at least gets a mention in Amazing Spider-Man, but I kind of doubt it will. Oh well, that’s why it’s important for me to branch out into some of these other comics sometimes I guess.

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Burn, Namor…Burn!

I was supposed to read this before ASM 72 but it really made no difference, so…who cares? Nobody.

Neat: The original, android Human Torch is in this issue. Or is he? It actually turns out that it’s Toro, the Human Torch’s old sidekick. He and Namor fight the Mad Thinker.

Spider-Man appears while listening to a terrorist threat.

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The Name Is…Yellowjacket!

Writer: Joe Casey
Pencils: Will Rosado
Inks: Tom Palmer
Colors: Wil Quintana
Originally published: March 2007

…Till Death Do Us Part!
Writer: Roy Thomas
Artist: John Buscema
Inker: Mickey Demeo
Letterer: Sam Rosen
Originally published: January 1969

Writer: Joe Casey
Pencils: Will Rosado
Inks: Tom Palmer
Colors: Wil Quintana
Originally published: March 2007

Writer: Joe Casey
Pencils: Will Rosado
Inks: Tom Palmer
Colors: Wil Quintana
Originally published: April 2007

Writer: Joe Casey
Pencils: Will Rosado
Inks: Tom Palmer
Colors: Wil Quintana
Originally published: May 2007

In Avengers #59 a new super-hero, the mysterious Yellowjacket, shows up in town and tackles a few crooks. The next morning, Goliath – Hank Pym – doesn’t show up for an Avengers meeting. Just as everyone starts wondering where Hank is, Yellowjacket appears claiming that’s he killed Goliath. He kidnaps the Wasp, then makes out with her and lets her go. The rest of the Avengers show up as she’s leaving and they attack Yellowjacket – until Wasp stops them! When they ask her what’s up, she says she’s going to marry him! WTF?!

Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes #005 starts in basically the same spot as Avengers 59. There are some crooks, Yellowjacket shows up and trounces ‘em. (This time it’s a hell of a lot bloodier, which is sweet. Yellowjacket really seems like a lunatic.) It covers basically the same events, but shows much more of the background that’s going on – continuing investigation of Vision by SHIELD, Hawkeye’s relationship with the Black Widow, T’Challa’s secret life as a school teacher. When Yellowjacket shows up in Avengers Mansion in this issue, we see Jarvis scan the intruder and determine he is none other than – Hank Pym, Goliath! In this version of the story, all the Avengers realize it’s Hank but don’t let on at first. They suspect that he’s had some sort of breakdown (he has) and doesn’t really realize who he is (he doesn’t).

This is a nice retcon. It’s pretty insane to believe the Avengers wouldn’t recognize their teammate, and I like how this book handles it. They even have a SHIELD psychologist around who tells them to humour this new personality, so as not to harm Hank’s obviously fragile mind. This goes a long way towards explaining why the Avengers actually fight Yellowjacket in Avengers 59. Cool.

The issue ends right before Hank kidnaps the Wasp.

In Avengers #60, we continue the elaborate charade. To be honest, the retcon doesn’t work that well in this issue – there are still some moments when it’s painfully clear that the Avengers have no idea who Yellowjacket is. It works well enough, though, that will a little bit of suspension of disbelief, a little bit of slack, we can buy the whole thing. Sort of.

Anyway, because the story of Wasp apparently abandoning Hank for this Yellowjacket character – his supposed murderer – wasn’t enough for those 1960s action-hounds, there’s a whole other mess thrown into the mix. At the wedding ceremony, the caterers turn out to be the Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime! Man, talk about nutty. The event is hella rolodex, as weddings in the Marvel universe tend to be: there are super heroes up the wazoo.

This issue is actually shockingly lame. The fight with the Circus of Crime is really stupid, the big reveal is really stupid…I don’t know, it just kind of a huge let down.

Switching back to Earth’s MIghtiest Heroes, we again get to see the events of the wedding. This time we learn that whole wedding is a SHIELD operation. Everybody on staff, including the minister, is a SHIELD agent. The point? The Wasp seems to think it will snap Hank out of his psychosis. Everybody – the other Avengers (active and otherwise), SHIELD – is pissed at the Wasp for doing it, but they still go along with it.

Meanwhile, that Death Tiger character is still after the Black Panther. He shows up outside the wedding and is stopped by SHIELD agents on patrol. The issue ends with Princess Python’s dumb snake jumping out of the dumb cake.

EMH 7 continues, with Yellowjacket flipping out and revealing himself as Goliath – basically the end of Avengers 60. Once the smoke has cleared Hank gets carted off by SHEILD for a thorough examination, and we learn that SHIELD lost some agents. Knowing full-well that the Circus of Crime are a bunch of lame douchebags, they wonder how that could be…but we know it musta been bad ol’ Death Tiger. The Black Panther, God bless him, figures it out pretty quickly after seeing the bodies.

A couple days later, Death Tiger shows up at the public school where Black Panther is teaching, but doesn’t do anything really..at first. Later, this bullied kid that the Panther is trying to help goes off the deep-end. He’s preparing the blow the brains out of his tormentor when Death Tiger shows up again, this time in the school. Death Tiger and the Black Panther fight like crazy in the middle of a classroom and, after the Panther ends up getting knocked out of window, out in an alley (I think…). The Panther puts up a good fight, but is eventually knocked down. Just as the Tiger is about to finish Panther off, the nutso kid with gun shoots the Death Tiger! Yeah!

The obvious message is that all schoolchildren should carry guns and, hopefully, be capable of murder. Right? Actually, the Panther looks pretty shaken up and disappointed in the kid. But whatever.

Back at the Avengers mansion, Vision is down in the dumps about all the humans in the city hating him. In the last page of the issue, he goes up to the roof and runs into the evil escaped adaptoid.

Finally we reach the end of this saga. EMH 8 opens with the crazy-gun-kid in the police station, and the Black Panther showing up (in super-hero costume, rather than teacher-costume) to talk to him and chastise him. He ends up revealing to the kid who he is, and does thank him for his actions. He tells the dumb kid to accept the consequences of his actions like a man, and to use them as a source of strength. Nice, I guess.

Back at the mansion, there’s a big-ass fight with the super-adaptoid. The adaptoid mostly picks on Vision, and tries to get him riled up with insults and attacks on innocent bystanders. Vision wipes the floor with him in a very anti-climactic fight, but it does warm the public’s opinion of him.

After that, it’s just a bit of wrap-up. T’Challa’s still teaching and becomes Avengers chairman, Hawkeye and Black Widow break up, and Captain American and Iron Man hug. It’s all warm and fuzzy.

Spider-Man shows up to heckle J. Jonah Jameson at one point in Avengers 59, and at the wedding in Avengers 60 and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes 6.

Ok, so overall these issues were OK, but sorta boring. The wedding thing really threw the whole story off in my opinion, but I don’t know who to blame for that. It was in the original series, so it can’t really be ignored. Then again, Casey chose to write about this point in Avengers history… I didn’t mind reading this series, but I certainly wasn’t as enthralled as I was with the first series.

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Writer: Joe Casey
Pencils: Will Rosado
Inks: Tom Palmer
Colors: Wil Quintana
Originally published: January 2007

Writer: Joe Casey
Pencils: Will Rosado
Inks: Tom Palmer
Colors: Wil Quintana
Originally published: February 2007

Writer: Joe Casey
Pencils: Will Rosado
Inks: Tom Palmer
Colors: Wil Quintana
Originally published: February 2007

So far this series is focusing on the induction of the Vision into the Avengers. He is an android — actually a “synthezoid” — originally designed to destroy the Avengers. Having changed his ways, though, he is welcomed by the Avengers into the fold. Other groups, however, are not so sure about Vision. The government and SHIELD get involved and take Vision into custody.

Meanwhile, another android — a super-adaptoid with the powers of all/most of the Avengers — has been captured by AIM (bad guys) and is being used to create a secret army of duplicates. SHIELD asks the Avengers (including Vision) to go in and solve this shit. They do (mostly), but it leaves Goliath (aka Hank Pym, former Ant Man and Giant Man) suffering from severe shock and psychological problems. The fourth issue ends with him waking up from nightmares and flying off the deep-end, tearing the shit out of his own garage.

There’s a C-plot involving T’Challa, the Black Panther, who has also just recently joined the Avengers. He has taken on a secret civilian personality as a public school teacher in Harlem. His motivations (other than pure do-goodery) are unclear, but the whole thing has pissed off some of his enemies and they’ve hired an assassin to rub him out.

I loved the first Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. This one’s good too, but I don’t think it’s quite as good as the original. The plot is interesting, but I think I’d be getting more out of it if I had been reading more of the Avengers stuff that was going on at this time. My main problem with these issues, though, is that the writing seems a little disjointed. It’s almost as if certain panels or pages have been removed to make space, leaving the connections between the remaining panels more tenuous and opaque. It’s not impossible (or even difficult) to read, it just seems a little fragmentary.

No Spider-Man in this series yet.

Rating:

This was pretty intense. It was all about S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra, and a bunch of stuff I don’t really know about — but it was still pretty awesome.

When the Supreme Hydra declares that he’s killed Nick Fury (not true), Spider-Man is shown with a bunch of other heroes receiving the news.

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The Avengers are considering offering Spider-Man membership in their group. They call up Daredevil to ask what he thinks, and he gives Spidey the thumbs-up. Spider-Man decides to give it a shot, but in typical fashion he completely blows his top over nothing and starts fighting with all the assembled Avengers. Peter’s temper really pisses me off. For some reason they look past that and give him a test to determine his worthiness – bringing in the Hulk.

Spider-Man goes after him, but during the fight he discovers the Hulk’s true identity of Dr. Bruce Banner and has second thoughts about fighting him. He ends up lying to the Avengers and telling them that he couldn’t even find the Hulk. Spider-Man doesn’t realize that the Avengers wanted to help the Hulk as much as he did. It’s all kinda sad actually.

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Writer: Joe Casey
Art: Scott Kolins
Colors: Wil Quintana
Letters: Richard Starkings
Originally published: April 2005

Writer: Joe Casey
Art: Scott Kolins
Colors: Wil Quintana
Letters: Richard Starkings
Originally published: April 2005

Once again, these were in the wrong order. They should have all come at some point before FF Annual #3 at least. That didn’t stop them from being awesome though! These three issues pick up the story of the early Avengers as they are about to go through some roster changes. After the Wasp’s shooting in issue #2, she and Giant Man are questioning their involvement and decide to leave; Thor is called off to Asgard for some godly duties; Captain America heads to South America to rescue Rick and finally defeat Zemo.

Then we get some new members: Hawkeye and renegade mutants, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. Subtract Iron Man, add back in Captain America as the new leader, and the new lineup is complete. Everyone rejoice!

This series did not disappoint, I loved the whole thing. The writing and art were consistently great, and it was a cool approach to a series.

One thing to note: when I got to the end I realized Spider-Man wasn’t in the series at all. I was under the impression he was, which is why it was on the list. But — surprise — he’s actually in one of the issues of the second volume. I guess I’ll have to add that in. As annoying as this mistake is, I can’t really complain; this series was just too good.

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Yeah, more Kurt Busiek! And Alex Ross’s art again! Woo!

Seriously, I love Marvels. It’s super good. In this issue Busiek deals with the emerging mutant “menace”. It turns out everybody — everybody — hates the mutants. A lot. Like, I thought Spider-Man was hated by the public, but Busiek puts people’s fear and distrust of mutants in a whole other category. Even our protagonist, photojournalist (and now budding author) Phil Sheldon, hates the “muties” and ends up clocking Iceman in the head with a brick.

That all changes, though, when Sheldon’s daughters find and rescue a lonely little mutant girl. Sheldon agrees to take her in, and his views begin to change. The mutant story comes to a head when the Sentinel robots are released, sparking mass riots and general chaos. Sheldon sees his friends and neighbours turn into far worse monsters than the mutants they’re raging against.

The chaos and anti-mutant fire is contrasted with the whole city’s celebration of Reed Richard and Sue Storm’s engagement and subsequent wedding. The city adores the Fantastic Four, and the wedding is a blow-out extravaganza that catches the interest of the whole town. The fact that the wedding and the release of the Sentinels occurs on the same day just helps further sharpen the contrast between these two groups – the so-called Marvels and the mutants – and the public perception of them.

This is a great issue in what’s turning out to be a great series. Busiek’s writing and Ross’s beautiful, stunning paintings, make it a sheer joy to read.

Rating:

Really strong writing and art once again. I love this series, even if I don’t really have a clue what’s going on.

No Spidey.

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Shit, I just noticed this wasn’t in the list and I should have read it before Spider-Man/Human Torch #1.

The Fantastic Four go against their new rivals, the Frightful Four: the (Wingless) Wizard, Paste-Pot Pete, Sandman and Madam Medusa. Also, there’s an engagement party for Sue and Reed. Also, it’s kinda boring, though mostly not bad.

Spider-Man shows up for one frame and one line (actually, it’s just his arm…).

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Stan Lee does not seem to have even the slightest grasp of how time, and time travel, work. This issue makes absolutely no sense at all. It’s infuriating.

Even if I could look past all of that (which I can’t), the issue is just one lone, stupid fight. I hated it so much.

Rating:

I’ve been all over the place for Thanksgiving and read this over the span of like three days. That doesn’t make for the most pleasant comic-reading experience. Fortunately, I thought this story was strong and I liked that it wasn’t a straightforward Spidey-beats-up-the-bad-guys kinda thing. Here we had a “villain” that was being a little reckless and dangerous but didn’t (really) deserve the full-frontal assault he got from Spider-Man (and every other hero in the area). This provides a good opportunity for some guilt and remorse on Spidey’s part, which I think is when I like his character best.

Apparently the story of this character, Sundown, is continued in ASM Annual ’97, but I don’t have that scheduled for quite awhile. I hope that’s right…

Rating:

I tell ya, I may not be the biggest Ditko fan, but there’s two things he does really well: close-ups and covers. I love the cover for this issue, I think it looks really fantastic.

This is the kinda shit I like, a completely character-driven issue. Spider-Man didn’t fight once! He just moped about feeling sorry for himself and making everything worse. My only complaint is that a lot of parts seemed pretty repetitive, like Lee was having trouble filling the space without a lot of action sequences.

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