Now that we’re over the Fantastic Four special that I read separately, let’s go back to the issues that I already had before learning how to read.
Fantastici Quattro #108 (1975)
Published by: Corno
The original title “One from four leaves…three!” is simplified in the translation with “Four minus one”.
Fantastic Four #110 (1971)
by Stan Lee & John Buscema
Also: “the story we hoped never to print”? Because the FF might lose one member?
Yeah sure, that NEVER happens.
This is the follow-up to a cliffhanger, but thankfully Reed provides the essential details on the first page: he’s stranded in the Negative Zone.
The rest of the FF are stuck looking at this through a monitor in the Baxter Building.
Not really sure why the Human Torch doesn’t just fly there (there’s air in the Negative Zone), catch Reed and bring him back.
Maybe the portal only works in one direction?
No that can’t be, because the Thing says they can’t get to Reed in time (he’s falling towards the part of the Negative Zone that disintegrates you when you touch it).
Also, the Thing is being a dick because of an ongoing subplot about his personality changing thanks to experiments that allow him to turn human at will.
Buscema is often critized by the unenviable task of replacing Kirby, so he’s underappreciated in this book. He definitely has trouble making this HIS book, but he’s still John Buscema: just look at the detail on what the Thing is sitting on!
Unfortunately he also replicates one of the very few things (possibly the only one) that I never liked about Kirby’s artwork… the unnecessary montage.
The modern digitally re-colored version looks KIND OF okay, but I think the printed version is truly awful.
Not sure why Stan went with the idea that “there’s no time” to rescue Reed, when he had a perfectly good reason: Annihilus is just right around the corner, waiting to invade Earth the second anyone tries to rescue Reed.
As mentioned the Thing can turn human now, and he wastes little time using that ability while demonstrating his new lovely personality.
As you saw on the cover, Agatha Harkness plays an important role in the issue. In this period she was the nanny of Franklin.
The 70s are a bad period for the Fantastic Four. I don’t mind Buscema at all, and the plots are still fine (at least for a while)… but this is the period when everyone is histerical the entire time.
I’m willing to give Susan SOME slack, however, since her husband is about to die and her best friend has turned into a jackass.
Speaking of Buscema: I really, REALLY like this panel. It stuck with me for years.
After all this drama the Human Torch finally decides to do SOMETHING: throw into the Negative Zone the device that Reed needs to come back.
Took you all this time to do this!? Also, wouldn’t it safer to have Invisible Girl’s force field protecting it?
You might think the reason is that she can’t project the force field into the Negative Zone, but nope: her field is still part of the plan.
I can buy that the Human Torch has enough control over his flame that he can protect the device without melting it.
I can buy that he fire can keep burning after it’s been separated from him.
What I CAN’T buy is the fire disapperaring when it recognizes Reed’s “human aura”.
OH COME ON!!! Just fly back home!!!
This is when Agatha Harkness plays a crucial role, thanks to her magic powers.
Technically speaking this is the first time she’s straight up acknowledged to be a witch: her previous appearances kept things vague.
Some may complain about this, but I’d say it was inevitable: you can only keep things vague up to a certain point.
You can tell that Buscema was really trying to replicate Kirby’s style in the scenes with the FF or the Negative Zone, but this is where he’s using his own style.
She uses her unfathomable mystic powers…
…to project a lot of images of Reed to distract Annihilus.
Not a bad trick, but a serious disappointment after such a powerful buildup!!!
And that’s all Reed needed to get back.
They really needed Agatha Harkness for this, it’s not like the Human Torch often uses his powers to create flame duplicates of himself that could distract Annihilus.
We end with an incredibly off-model Alicia showing up.
Seriously, if it wasn’t for the dialogue and for her blank eyes I would never tell this is supposed to be her.
The story SHOULD be over, but we need to set up the next issue with the Thing going on a rampage.
I didn’t have the next issue, where the Thing fights the rest of the FF.
It probably has the best cover Buscema does in his run.
And the best panel ever with the Thing driving.
Historical significance: 3/10
This storyline is remembered only because it’s the transition between Kirby and Buscema on the artwork, with FF #108 being the last one with (partial) Kirby artwork.
Other than that, Stan Lee was really off in how much people remember this one.
The plot bleeds into a fight with the Hulk and the Overmind storyline, but the only historically significant part of this one is the confirmation that Agatha Harkness has magic powers.
Personal significance: 4/10
I did like the artwork, and I didn’t have trouble understanding the Thing was acting weird for a reason. Annihilus didn’t register with me as a great villain, mostly because he has a small role.
Silver Age-ness: 6/10
The Torch’s flame can react to “human auras”.
Does it stand the test of time? 7/10
As mentioned, the Lee-Buscema is better than its reputation. But it really drags in places, and it’s hard to feel the idea there’s a ticking clock until Reed dies because there’s still time for endless discussions AND an elaborate magic ritual.
Captain Marvel #29 (1973)
by Jim Starlin
Captain Marvel was the backup feature in this period, and this one is from the middle of the original Thanos storyline.
It also has THE Captain Marvel cover.
Not only that, but this is a VERY important story for Captain Marvel for several reasons!
One of which is the real introduction of the cosmic entity Eon (technically speaking he first appears in the previous one, but he didn’t do anything there).
Eon has one of the weirdest designs of all of Starlin’s creations, WHICH IS SAYING SOMETHING.
Just in case you ever doubt the idea that Starlin took massive amounts of drugs in the 70s.
I looked at this garbage bag that was on the street corner which had this grease stain on it. The grease stain was such a fascinating shape that I sort of stared at it for a moment until I saw what I thought it would be. That’s how Eon from the metamorphosis Captain Marvel came about. I just got home that day, sketched him up and by the end of the week he was part of the story.
JIM STARLIN
What follows is one of the craziest Starlin Mindf###s you’ve ever seen, which again IS SAYING SOMETHING.
First Eon needs to give Captain Marvel the backstory of the Titans, straight out of Greek mythology.
But this is a science fiction series, so the war of the Titans ends with Uranus being exiled to the planet by the same name. And Chronos (later typically spelled Kronos) becomes a peaceful leader.
Among the “many children” of Chronos, only Zeus and A’Lars get named.
I will talk later about the flimsy connection this has with Greek mythology, but it does make me wonder why Starlin took certain decisions.
Not only in Greek mythology Chronos has SIX children (three sons and three daughters), but he famously ATE FIVE OF THEM. And none of them could possibly be identified with A’Lars (the other two are Hades and Poseidon, if you’re not up to speed on mythology).
But then Chronos loses control over an experiment that turns him into the cosmic being that is sometimes seen interacting with Thanos.
This wouldn’t be ENTIRELY out of character for the Zeus of mythology, but considering who this actually is (more on that later), it’s weird.
So A’Lars goes to Titan, the satellite of Saturn, where he find a civilization that had already destroyed itself.
Complete with a hot topless chick!
I remembered her being white in the original version, and I went back to check if she was changed to darker skin in the digitally recolored version… but she WAS like this in the original as well, which I totally forgot!!!
Also A’Lars turns out to have been a young Mentor, a.k.a. the father of Thanos.
This is where the story ended for me, but for completion’s sake I’ll review the rest.
This could’ve been my introduction to Thanos, but he still shows up in the retrospective in a Warlock story further down the line.
He’s definitely moved away from looking like a Darkseid ripoff since his first appearance.
At this point in the story Thanos already has the Cosmic Cube so he SHOULD have already won, but he’s wasting time to give the heroes a chance.
Captain Marvel wants to know why exactly Eon is interfering, which is when we get the revelation that Chronos created Ego “eight billion light years ago”, which:
A) will be heavily retconned in the Quasar series, since Eon really is 8 billion years old while Chronos is significantly younger than that
C) THAT’S NOT HOW LIGHT YEARS WORK
This is where the Starlin Mind###k really begins.
It’s an interesting deconstruction of Captain Marvel’s self-image as a warrior.
I think.
Interesting to see Eon referring to Death as a “he”, since Death’s personification is consistently a woman throughout the Thanos saga.
Eon has some crazy forms in this trip, as he taunts Captain Marvel about his dead first love interest Una.
In a previous story Captain Marvel did everything to resurrect Una, and Eon really drives home how meaningless it was.
All of this makes Captain Marvel that he has to change, and Eon takes this both metaphorically and literally.
And here he is: the new Captain Marvel. This is his third look, and BY FAR his most iconic.
As far as I know we NEVER get any explanation for why Eon made him blond!!!
I think it works much better with the costume than his white hair: his symbol and his Nega-Bands are already yellow. But still weird, I guess Eon just liked this better.
Also, and this has perplexed me for many years: what alterations to the costume, it looks EXACTLY the same to me!!!
Seriously, what am I missing!?
As silly as the hair color change is, Eon gets a great line about Captain Marvel noticing.
It’s also the moment when Captain Marvel receives his most unique power, the Cosmic Awareness (although it’s not named here).
And since things have been too normal for a while, Captain Marvel has to fight some abstract representations of his enemies, because 70s Starlin.
You can’t have Philosophical Starlin and Cosmic Starlin without some Silly Starlin.
I don’t make the rules.
But now that he has conquered… whatever it is he was fighting… Captain Marvel is a new man.
And so we end with Captain Marvel returning to Earh, having understood… SOME of what happened.
Reading Starlin in a nutshell.
As a footnote: the entire flashback about Olympus will be retconned to Hades and back.
First of all “Zeus” is actually Zuras from the Eternals.
In fact, ALL these characters will be retconned to be Eternals descending from Chronos, who I guess gets spelled Kronos to distinguish him from the Greek god.
The civilization from Titan that the future Mentor finds devastated is actually a colony of Uranus, which itself was a colony of the Eternals from Earth.
And that’s not even getting into the massive retcons from the Neil Gaiman and Kieron Gillen runs on Eternals.
But I’m leaving the details to the Eternals retrospective that I’ll do next year.
Historical significance: 10/10
Captain Marvel receives his most distinctive power (the Cosmic Awareness), is anointed Protector Of The Universe, and slightly less importantly turns into a blond.
It’s also the real debut of Eon AND it provides the backstory for the people of Titan.
On the cosmic side of Marvel, few stories get to be THIS significant.
Personal significance: 10/10
I absolutely LOVED this story, even if I only read a few pages. Not only the artwork is great, but Eon and the Titans are endlessly interesting! Its personal significance only increased over time because Eon is incredibly important for the Quasar series, which is of such important for me that it will most likely receive a retrospective at some time.
Silver Age-ness: 2/10
Eon is kind of out of nowhere, but he’s too 70s to count.
Does it stand the test of time? 8/10
The backstory of Titan is a bit of an infodump, but it’s still compelling enough and doesn’t take a lot of pages. The deconstruction of Captain Marvel’s thoughts on what it means to be a soldier still holds up, as does the vast creativity surrounding Eon.
What hurts it are the pages dedicated to a completely meaningless fight that, while visually interesting, doesn’t really go anywhere and drags everything to a halt.
Sub-Mariner #46 (1972)
by Gerry Conway & Gene Colan
cover by Gil Kane
This is the first time I ever saw Stingray. I didn’t realize from his first appearance that it was the same guy, but to be fair he was in his civilian identity there.
Namor’s human father has been captured by two of his enemies, Llyra and Tiger Shark.
Of the two, Llyra is by far the most intriguing. She’s one of the most ruthlessly evil villains in Marvel.
But Tiger Shark is no lightweight: he’s almost in the same weight class of Namor, so the two fight each other for a couple of pages.
Llyra throws them both into the ocean: they’re currently inside a ship, and while she can breath underwater her hostage can’t.
Namor notices Tiger Shark is not acting as usual, something that I don’t really see.
That’s because Tiger Shark is a human mutated to have Atlantean characteristics, which are now fading.
So Llyra just blasts them both, capturing Namor.
This is where Namor’s father recognizes him, since up to this point he had amnesia.
Although, considering the sliding timescale, he could just be senile!
Namor was canonically born in 1920, and his father was said to be 25 years old when he was born.
This would’ve made him 77 years old when this story was published.
But as of 2024, even if we give this story the benefit of the doubt and say that it was 15 years ago (which is REALLY generous), that would mean he’s 114 years old in this story!!!
Stingray’s connection requires a bit of complicated connections.
This girl named Diane is the sister of Tiger Shark, and the one who found Namor’s father before he was kidnapped.
Diane’s friend (who will later be her husband) at this point was part of Namor’s supporting cast, and he’s already become the occasional superhero Stingray.
And he’s the one to rescue Namor.
Stingray’s suit allows him to go toe-to-toe with Tiger Shark, something that I don’t think get replicated often… his suit is not THAT powerful.
And Gerry Conway is pulling a Roy Thomas trope, having Llyra monologuing about the stupidity of monologuing.
With Stingray keeping Tiger Shark busy, Namor rescues his father.
Llyra is ready to murder Namor’s father. She already has a bodycount, having already murdered Namor’s wife Dorma.
But it’s actually Tiger Shark to kill him, by throwing a pipe.
Both Llyra and Tiger Shark then escape, and that’s the end.
Historical significance: 6/10
The death of Namor’s father. Which has not been revisited, possibly because he’s not a big part of his history and because it’s reeeeeally pushing the timeline.
Personal significance: 6/10
I liked this one, but Stingray didn’t leave much of an impression on this. Neither did Tiger Shark and Llyra; I would appreciate them as good (him) to great (her) villains until much later.
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Not really.
Does it stand the test of time? 8/10
As a standalone issue it’s not particularly impressive, but it does its job. Namor takes a backseat to the supporting cast, something rare for him.