Invasion of the Dragon Men

This is a comic book and record set, that you can listen to while you read. I read it through once, without the audio, then did the combined thing.

I read this at the wrong time, since we are told “it is a warm summer night”, and I believe the comics I’m reading are still shortly after Christmas. Also, this was released in 1974, so I probably should have read it earlier. In fact, I can’t fathom why I placed it here in my reading order.

Draco, King of the Dragon-Men, attacks New York after seemingly landing from outer space. In reality, he is a Lizard rip-off – a biologist who transformed himself into a type of lizard-man (or dragon-man), and is now hell-bent on world domination. This thing is full of huge plot-holes, and the dialogue is terrible (not to mentioned filled with errors). Also, MJ is a brunette and looks kinda weird.

This was a cool idea, and kinda had potential. Too bad they blew it so bad.

Rating:

Day of the Grizzly!

The Grizzly is a bit of a lame character, but I’m happy at the re-emergence of the Jackal. His design is great, IMO, and I really love his poses. Even though he only shows up in the last page here, he totally steals the show.

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The City Stealers!

I was looking forward to Gerry Conway guest-writing Team-Up because, despite my problems with him, he’s been far more consistently good lately than Len Wein in the Team-Up issues. This, however, totally blows. It literally makes no sense, and absolutely nothing is explained. Here is a blow-by-blow of the plot:

1. robots cause earthquakes by drilling in the ground
2. Spidey and Hercules try to stop them
3. the robots divulge their plan: to pull Manhattan into the ocean using a submarine and ransom off its safety
4. Spidey and Herc beat the robots, and find a tiny man hiding inside on of them. The man is afraid of some bigger boss.
5. Hercules pulls Manhattan back to its rightful spot
6. the mayor gets mad about wrecked bridges and tunnels

There is no explanation for the tiny man, no explanation of who was in the submarine or in charge. And Hercules pulled all of Manhattan! There are about a million other flaws too, but I just can’t even get to those. This book was just insane.

This is possible the worst Spider-Man story I’ve ever read.

Rating:

Madness Means…The Mindworm!

This was a pretty cool story, with a very classic sci-fi feel to it. I really like the Mindworm character, and his design was great. My biggest problem is that the Mindworm was able to figure out that Spider-Man was Peter Parker, but this really didn’t seem to bother Pete, and it didn’t seem to go anywhere. In fact, the whole resolution was kind of weak, which was disappointing after such a strong setup.

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Death-Trap Times Three!

Wow, yet another great issue. Harry is such a dick! He kidnaps Flash, Aunt May, and Mary Jane and puts them in three different locations around the city. Each apparently has a bomb above their heads, but only one bomb is real. Spider-Man only has time to find and save one of his loved ones, but if he chooses the wrong one, somebody will die! Talk about fiendish!

Of course, with an inadvertent clue from Harry, Spidey is able to guess correctly and all involved are saved. But still – great suspense, great story.

In the end, Harry even reveals Pete’s secret identity. Luckily enough, nobody ends up believing him.

Rating:

The Green Goblin Lives Again!

Well, Pete and MJ are full-on dating, and I gotta say they make a good couple.

This was an exciting, fantastic issue. Harry Osborn has finally taken on the mantle of the Green Goblin and gone after his former friend. I felt pretty bad for Pete when a bomb in his apartment hurt MJ, and he flashed back to Gwen’s death. Pete’s just got a shitty life, man.

I can’t wait to see how this turns out.

Review:

A Friend in Need!

We haven’t seen the Chameleon since way back in Amazing Spider-Man 80. I went into this not expecting much, but it ended up being relatively decent. I liked the friendship theme, even if it was a bit corny. My biggest complaint is that the Chameleon completely unexpectedly runs into the Hulk, but still happens to have a perfect Rick Jones disguise on him. This guy just carries Rick Jones disguises with him wherever he goes? That’s malarky.

There’s a radio announcement in here about the Wrecking Crew, that I think is stuff that happens in Code of Honor 1. So, as previously stated, I read it far too early.

Rating:

The Beast Within!

Moon of the Hunter!
Writer: Tony Isabella
Artist: George Tuska
Inker: Vince Colletta
Letterer: C. Jetter
Colorist: Jan Brunner
Originally published: November 1974

Deathgame!
Writer: David Kraft
Artist: George Perez
Inker: Klaus Janson
Letterer: Tom Orzechowski
Colorist: Petra Goldberg
Co-plotter: Tony Isabella
Originally published: January 1975

Moonbound
Writer: David Kraft
Illustrators: George Perez, Fred Kida
Letters: Dave Hunt
Colors: Irene Vartanoff
Originally published: September 1975

These are just kind of like the daily life of John Jameson, Man-Wolf. He turns wolf, he turns human, same old, same old. I guess I’m not particularly invested in the character, so it’s hard to get into.

He tries to get help from various places, he gets in trouble for being AWOL, he gets captured by Kraven, he goes into outer space; none of it interested me. Ok, actually, the space station stuff in #37 was pretty sweet, but mostly because I love space stations and aliens and junk. Also in that issue, somebody calling himself “God” shows up.

Spider-Man appears in flashbacks and very small non-speaking cameos in issues 31-33. After these three issues I skip three more and in 37, Spidey again appears in a tiny cameo.

Rating:

Three Into Two Won’t Go!

This issue sees Spidey and Daredevil rescuing a damsel in distress from the Unholy Trio – Cat-Man, Bird-Man and Ape-Man.

I think one of my problems with Marvel Team-Up is that it doesn’t (usually) shed any light on the characters or any on-going story arc stuff. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s all very formulaic, and it’s pretty easy to get sick of. This issue was better than some of the more recent ones, but it still didn’t really offer anything other than a relatively well-done villain-of-the-week type story.

Mooney’s art was nice.

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Masterstroke! / Cross…and Double-Cross! / Pinnacle of Doom!

Fu Manchu

Shang-Chi

So we move from racist stereotypes of one kind directly to another. I’m not into the whole kung-fu thing, and I’m not into the extreme yellow that Shang-Chi is coloured. I’m also just not a big fan of these Giant-Size books, they really tend to drag.

Rating:

Moondog is Another Name for Murder

Why are people green in this issue? Glynis? Yes, I am colour-blind, but I sought confirmation with my GF. Have black people always been green in these books?

I have nothing good to say about this book. This thing just screams all kinds of racist stereotypes. What the hell is with this Brother Voodoo character?

Shoot-Out in Central Park!

Tarantula was a government-sponsored crook from a South American dictator state! That’s bad-ass!

This issue was pretty straightforward, and could have been a Marvel Team-Up issue with the Punisher, except that it was too good for that book’s current shit-streak. Again, I liked the book and I liked the Tarantula. I also liked the Harry Osborn cliffhanger ending, and I’m looking forward to him becoming the Green Goblin. (Unfortunately, I’ll have to wait a bit, as there are a number of other intervening issues of other series first.)

Rating:

Danger is a Man Named…Tarantula

This book sees the introduction of Tarantula, another spidery character that I will be following as part of this project.

(I haven’t really made it clear up until now, but in addition to reading Spider-Man appearances, I’m also going to keep up with the various Spider-Women, Venom, the Tarantulas, etc. Perhaps I should add a note about that somewhere.)

In this issue, Peter is careless and Harry Osborn is finally able to confirm that Peter Parker is Spider-Man.

I quite liked this issue. The pace was brisk, the action fun, the art crisp and clean. I also really love the Tarantula.

Rating:

The Night of the Frozen Inferno

This issue describes what happens to the Torch after he splits off from Spidey in the Giant-Size Spider-Man I just read. The stuff in this issue is also in Code of Honor 1, meaning my placement for that was even more screwed up than I though. Basically it’s the Human Torch and Iceman fighting this guy, Equinox, that has both their powers. He was kind of a cool villain, but I would have liked more of a back story on him. I hope he comes back.

Spidey was really only in it in flashbacks to GSSM 1.

Rating:

Ship of Fiends! / The Masque of the Black Death!

Some of the art in here was really kinda bad, and I think I mostly blame Don Heck. The story was also super, super boring. Seriously. It was about Spider-Man trying to find some doctor to get a flu vaccine for Aunt May, and it was stretch to 39 damned pages. Come on. Dracula and Spider-Man never even interact, except for bumping into each other in a hall! WTF?! I’m also getting pretty sick of all the vampires and werewolves. Enough is enough.

Rating:

The Messiah Machine!

Hawkeye and Spider-Man fight the robot Quasimodo. Hawkeye’s simultaneous defeat of all the robots around, including Quasimodo, is just far too preposterous. The story was pretty precarious too begin with, and that ending just pushed it over the edge into absurdity.

Rating:

Man-Wolf at Midnight! / Duel of the Demon Duo! / When Strikes the Vampire!

Pretty good story in which John Jameson reverts to Man-Wolf form, Morbius comes to New York to control him, and Peter Parker gets nominated for Photographer of the Year. In the end, Morbius gets tricked into leaving, Jameson is still suffering from Man-Wolfism, and Pete does not win the award.

Twice in the issue characters say “that’s the boy” instead of “atta boy” or “that a boy”, and both times it caught me off guard and struck me as very odd.

This was fine, but I certainly didn’t dig the whole “giant-size” thing. For me it was way too long, and would have worked better being shorter, or perhaps spread across two issues. One of the biggest problems was that there wasn’t really a b-plot. It was just all Morbius and Man-Wolf for the whole thing.

Rating:

The Molten Man Breaks Out!

Wow, Liz Allen is the Molten Man’s step-brother! That’s kinda crazy. Wanting to help Liz, Spider-Man basically tricks the Molten Man into killing himself. What a friend! Yet another character’s death!

Rating:

The Master Plan of the Molten Man!

The Molten Man hasn’t been seen for almost 100 issues of Amazing Spider-Man, but now he’s back! And Liz Allen! :O

Conway’s back to intrusive narration. He also slips up and has Robbie refer to Pete as free-lance, when at this point he’s actually on the payroll.

The Liz Allen thing gets dropped pretty early to focus on Molten Man, which is pretty typical stuff. I would have liked the focus to be more on her mysterious reemergence and less on his, but maybe that’ll happen next issue.

Rating:

Dinosaurs on Broadway!

Stegron and his dinosaurs are in Manhatten. Spider-Man and the Black Panther fight them, and Spider-Man accidentally drowns and kills Stegron. Oops! Chalk up one more death!

Haven’t seen Sal Buscema around for awhile. He does a decent job here, and it’s a refreshing break from Gil Kane and, to a lesser extent, Ross Andru.

Rating:

The Coming of…Stegron the Dinosaur Man!

Spidey os off to the Savage Land at the behest of Dr. Curt Connors, to stop a dinosaur-man named Stegron. A few comments:

• This issue starts off dumb, with Spidey opting to make a web parachute instead of accepting the offer of a real one. I’ve always hated the web parachutes, but this is stupider than normal. Even if he was able to make web parachutes and even if he had full confidence in them – which we’re shown, he does not – it’s a waste of web fluid. Why not just accept the real parachute? I guess Spider-Man always has been kind of a show-off, but this still bugs me.
• Weird art mistake – missing Spider from Spider-Man’s chest:

  

• Zabu the sabretooth tiger also looks incredible weird in this issue. Fail.
• Len Wein’s narration is bugging me again. Check this out:

  

  Based on this narration, the Savage Land is a creationist’s dream – man co-existing with dinosaurs, literal interpretation of Genesis. Maybe I’m just a modern cynic, but I really don’t need the Old Testament being brought into my Spider-Man comics. (BTW, there’s another Old Testament reference too: Stegron’s dinosaur-transporting airship is called “The Ark”.)

• Another thing I have a problem with is Spidey the golden-haired Ka-Zar fighting all the dark-skinned “barbarian” swamp men. I’m sure it’s not meant to be overtly racist, but it bothers me that Savage Land natives are depicted this way.
• At the end of the issue Stegron and a bunch of dinosaurs are heading towards NYC. All of that stuff is shown in Code of Honor 1, which means I read that book in the wrong spot. Boo.

Rating:

My Uncle…My Enemy?

They keep switching up Rimbaud’s first name. First it was Jean-Pierre, then Albert, now Arthur.

So, here’s the deal: Aunt May inherited something good, and that’s what both Doc Ock and Hammerhead are after. Rimbaud was a lawyer, as you may recall, that knew about it and was going to tell Peter. Naturally, Ock had Rimbaud killed to keep the inheritance on the down-low. And what is this inheritance? It’s kind of cool, actually: a Canadian island housing “one of the world’s most sophisticated nuclear breeding reactors”, “the most modern privately-owned atomic processing plant in the world.”

The whole island, including Hammerhead and Dr. Octopus, goes up in a giant nuclear explosion. It’s almost a given that they’ve survived, but I’d really like to see an explanation as to how. I hope they at least stay dead for awhile. A lot of people have been dying lately, it’s nuts.

This episode would be pretty good, if it didn’t involve Spider-Man flying a plane. That stretches my belief.

Rating:

Betrayed!

Spider-Mobile is finally done, and it’s a beaut! The best part about it is that Spider-Man doesn’t even know how to drive!

Ok, so there’s stuff going on here between the Jackal and Hammerhead, but then Doc Ock also makes an appearance. And what does he let slip? That Rimbaud, the mysterious man in Montreal from Amazing 120, knew something of Ock’s master plan. Very interesting! But, what did he want with May Parker?! Well, we find out with a fantastic cliffhanger– Doc Ock marries Aunt May! Crazy! (Although, I’m still not sure how Rimbaud fit in.)

Great issue! Conway, I think, is finally getting into the swing of things (ugh, sorry).

Rating:

The Punisher Strikes Twice!

I love this panel:

Having the Punisher appear so late in Amazing and (Code of Honor) makes me strongly question my placement of Punisher: Year One. So far, though, nothing really contradicts anything else. I think this is actually the Punisher’s first appearance anywhere (in real-world time), which is pretty cool.

Sexism:

I think Harry knows that Pete is Spider-Man.

This was a really fun, good issue. I’m excited that the Jackal is in the picture.

Rating:

On the Brink of Madness!

Two Worlds…and Dark Destiny
Writer: Steve Gerber
Artist: George Tuska
Inker: Vince Colletta
Letterer: C. Jetter
Colorist: G. Wein
Originally published: March 1974

Peter Parker just shows up briefly in issue 68 – in fact, only in the last panel – and his appearance in issue 69 is fairly brief too. This is a pretty boring story about Namor’s quest to get a forcefield projector to protect Atlantis. The art kinda stank, too, especially in 69.

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