If I was forced to pick only one comic book ever and that's all I ever got, Marvel Super-Heroes #18 might be the one. I love this comic for its pure blend of science fiction and super heroics. I love this comic for its wonky heroes, four very different men from across the solar system and beyond, fighting against a bizarre tyranny of Lizard Men.
Arnold Drake and Gene Colan were at the top of their respective games with this showcase for a new super team, each though merely the product of circumstance.
Charlie-27 is my favorite, a simple man who merely seeks to save his family and who is forced to run for his life despite his great strength and speed when he can't do that. Martinex is properly shiny and knowing and weird, but he is similarly motivated. These are not heroes who sought out danger, it came knocking.
And then there's Major Vance Astro, the thousand-year-old Earthman who is at once bitter and selfless, a proper blend of human characters which Drake was so adept at showing. Alongside this "Lone Ranger" (resurrected masked man don't you know) of the future is the noble native, the taciturn Yondu with his delightful Yaka arrows which act like living things and obey his commands.
And then there's Major Vance Astro, the thousand-year-old Earthman who is at once bitter and selfless, a proper blend of human characters which Drake was so adept at showing. Alongside this "Lone Ranger" (resurrected masked man don't you know) of the future is the noble native, the taciturn Yondu with his delightful Yaka arrows which act like living things and obey his commands.
These are fascinating characters who were united and committed by story's end to battling against the alien threat of the dominating "Badoon" (aforementioned Lizard Men).
The same Badoon who had only a few months before appeared in the pages of Silver Surfer #2 in our then modern day. That invasion was thwarted but now we see they returned, and they have won the day conquering not only Earth but all its disparate colonies on Jupiter, Pluto, and beyond. We leave the assembled heroes declaring that "Earth Shall Overcome!". And it would eventually. It's a fresh dazzling world that Drake and Colan presented and I was hungry for more after the first Marvel Super Heroes outing. I never got it, that is I never got it for a good long while.
More on that tomorrow.
The same Badoon who had only a few months before appeared in the pages of Silver Surfer #2 in our then modern day. That invasion was thwarted but now we see they returned, and they have won the day conquering not only Earth but all its disparate colonies on Jupiter, Pluto, and beyond. We leave the assembled heroes declaring that "Earth Shall Overcome!". And it would eventually. It's a fresh dazzling world that Drake and Colan presented and I was hungry for more after the first Marvel Super Heroes outing. I never got it, that is I never got it for a good long while.
NOTE: This is a Dojo Revised Classic Post.
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This was a favorite of mine in the day as well. I found myself trying to imagine how one would pursue an "underground partisans" kind of war when dealing with cultures spanning many planets and including many species. Lots of potential for "interplanetary realpoilitik." Prose science fiction sometimes attempted the same with stand-alone novels but I don't think there were ongoing serials on the theme like, say, the modern-day EXPANSE.
ReplyDeleteI'd theorize that Drake, who had scripted more than a small number of DC war comics, was seeking to parlay his experience with that genre into a Marvel comic. But Drake didn't seem to click with the Marvel way of doing things, for whatever reason. A few years later Marvel's KILLRAVEN did a not dissimilar take on the concept of a "partisan underground" struggle, but that one tended to use more tropes of barbarian/post-apoc fiction than that of war stories.
When Marvel did launch a series, they wrapped up the Badoon occupation quickly so the concept could become an open-ended space opera a la STAR TREK. Some OK issues but never outstanding as I recall.
I'll be commenting on the later issues later this week. I agree that nothing that was produced after this wonderful debut ever quite captured the utter strangeness of it.
DeleteI first read this comic in Astonishing Tales issue 29, thinking that was the first outing for the Guardians. Like yourself and Gene I lto love this comic (a lot) and understand your comments. This is certainly my favourite version of the Guardians and looking back I'm surprised Marvel didn't make more of the characters here at this time.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that issue of MSH didn't sell as well or something explains it. The old saw about sci-fi comics don't sell was also in the atmosphere at the time.
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