Red Raven Comics #1 (1940)
by Martin A. Bursten & Jack Kirby
This is the first Marvel story penciled by Jack Kirby. He’s also been credited as the writer, but see the Red Raven review for the truth behind that.
We begin on Mount Olympus, where Jupiter is worried about War World II.
Hey at least this one is in the correct pantheon and not in Valhalla like the Jupiter of Marvel Boy.
He blames it on Pluto, which is mythologically confusing since he’s not a war god, but it’s in the long tradition of making Pluto (or Hades) the bad guy even if he’s actually one of the least dickish gods.
Not that Jupiter has a high opinion of any of the other gods he namedrops, something particularly notable because most of these are his children!
WTF does “Diana is still a woman” have to do with anything? Is that the same reason why Minerva is not even considered?
But no, Jupiter decides that the son who can defeat Pluto is Mercury.
This leads to what are, unquestionably, the most legendary words in all of Roman mythology.
The immortal “I want you to lick the pants off that demon”.
Mercury descends on Earth, just in time to witness some gorgeous Kirby artwork.
At this point Marvel is still very careful to avoid talking about Hitler directly (most likely because America hasn’t joined the war yet), so we have “Rudolph Hendler” as the leader of “Prussland”.
Also I initially thought that Pluto was taking the place of Mars… except the caption calls him Mercury’s cousin, but neither applies from mythology: Pluto would be his uncle and Mars his half-brother.
Pluto his hiding his true face from mortals, because only Mercury can see he’s ripping off Satan.
I mean he’s not exactly subtle about it!
I’m not exactly sure Pluto is still the god of the underworld here… he acts as either the god of war or of evil but it’s never specified… but he’s still immortal.
So Mercury decides to “show man the way to peace”…
…by saving a ship from being torpedoed.
But more importantly, he’s working behind the scenes to disrupt the chain of command. Not exactly high action, but that’s brilliant!
Pluto then dispatches his spies to catch Mercury in the act, which they do.
Which is completely useless because, again, he’s a god.
And that’s it! Mercury basically stopped the war right there.
Historical significance: 1/10
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
Does it stand the test of time?4/10
How close is this to the modern character? 0/10
This is the last Golden Age appearance of Mercury… with this name!
He will be retconned into being Hurricane, another speedster hero debuting in Captain America Comics #1 (which I’ll eventually review).
While it may have originated in a handbook, that retcon is addressed courtesy of Roger Stern on 1998’s “Marvel Universe #6”.
But more importantly, issue 7 is the one that reveals that both Mercury and Hurricane were actually Makkari, from Kirby’s Eternals.
He would debut only in Eternals #5 in 1976.
AND we learn that “Pluto” was actually Kro from the villainous Deviants.
I assume the other “Roman gods” shown are actually Eternals.
If you’re familiar with them Jupiter would be Zuras, Minerva would be Thena and Vulcan would be Phastos… but I can’t think of any Eternal we know that would pass for Aeolus, Diana or Apollo.
Eternals and Deviants pop up EVERYWHERE in the backstories of the Marvel Universe; they’re incredibly useful to tie up loose ends and give SOME origin to characters that lack one, so it’s kind of neat that they’ve been sneaked all the way back to the earliest Marvel comics.
As a fan of the Eternals in general and Makkari in particular I would approve this retcon anyway, but I think anyone can agree that at least this retcon makes the Mercury story have SOME sense.
I was skimming the Eternals collection, and so was instantly reminded of Kro’s gimmick.
The Eternals, Deviants and Celestials have always been a bit of a weird sideshow in the Marvel universe, where Kirby never intended for them to be in the first place (and they fit even worse in the MCU), but they’ve been very useful in making the odder parts of old continuity make sense. I loved the reveals that Stern did in Marvel Universe concerning Mercury/the Hurricane/Makkari and that Mole Man’s monsters from FF #1 were actually Deviant Mutates.
I wish that series would have continued, as I loved it when continuity obsessives like Stern or Kurt Busiek would decide to try to make sense of things past. (Byrne, not so much, as his retcons usually tended to complicate rather than clarify and seemed like good ideas only to him – although Gormuu was pretty cool.) But Marvel Universe was an exercise with a limited audience, and soon after we were ushered into the Bendis-ian era of “What doth continuity matter to a man such as I?” writers. Which isn’t to say that’s worse – decades of stories that all still take place in less than a decade gets more unwieldy the more decades get smooshed into it. But it was always fun watching smart guys like Stern and Busiek taking swings at making it all line up.
Don’t forget Steve Englehart! He was one of the best continuity obsessives.
” . . . Pluto knows women.”
I guess that’s a reference to Pluto/Hades’ kidnapping of Persephone and forcing her to live with him for several months each year for eating pomegranate seeds. Although the mythology is somewhat garbled, it’s interesting to note that Bursten had a clear understanding of the characters and their relationships. I have no problem with Jupiter being a sexist jerk because that seems appropriate for him (and a common attitude of the times). Bursten’s writing seemed to be on a higher level than that of most Golden Age writers. A pity he didn’t stick with comics.