The Wonderful Movies Of OZ!

The Wizard of OZ by L. Frank Baum was a hugely successful book that generated movies almost from the get-go. I've looked at a few of the silents as we've been going along. Now I'd like give some snapshot reactions to some of the more famous OZ film efforts. 

The 1925 Wizard of OZ is a wild ride. Mostly it's a comedy vehicle for Larry Sermon who portrays the Scarecrow and is supported by Oliver Hardy who is briefly the Tin Man. This movie famously failed because the studio collapsed and despite some decent reviews the movie just didn't get to theaters. Larry Sermon was the man behind the production and played the Scarecrow and sadly he lost a lot of money. This loss haunted him until his death. 

There's no denying that the 1939 The Wizard of OZ is a blockbuster and was intended as such. Special effects were brought to screen to give the viewer a colorful notion of what OZ might be like. I was introduced to the land of OZ by way of this movie which played every Spring on CBS (as I recollect). Judy Garland was a top-notch celebrity even in the 60's when I was growing up. There's little to say. It's a classic and fun to watch. 

Filmation's Journey Back to OZ is notable for its cast which includes Liza Minnelli, the daughter of Judy Garland. Dorothy ends up back on OZ where she meets Jack Pumpkinhead (Paul Lynde) who becomes her ally to save the Scarecrow from the evil witch Mombi (Ethel Merman). We only briefly get new looks at the Cowardly Lion (Milton Berle) and the Tin Woodman (Danny Thomas) because basically they profess to be too busy to help out. There's lots of running around from the exact same green elephants, but animation is expensive. 

The Wiz is something else. I appreciate it more than I enjoy it. I've always thought that Diana Ross is miscast in this movie, though I understand the attraction. She was a big star in the 70's, but I don't think her acting skill was sufficient to lead a big film. Michael Jackson is a draw of course, but his whispery mouthings don't help things either. Nipsey Russell gives the show a much-needed jolt when he finally joins the group on the way to OZ. My biggest problem with it, is that the songs are too long, and the editing isn't spry. Scenes just linger on the screen forever before we finally slip to a new one. It definitely needs to be tightened up. 

Return to OZ might be my favorite OZ movie. This 1982 production from Walt Disney is darker than the lavish 1939 musical and actually casts a girl in the role of Dorothy. She is thought to have mental issues because she won't stop talking about her trip to OZ and Aunty Em decides she needs medical treatment. She's just about to get electro-shock therapy when a power failure saves her. Rescued by Ozma she runs to a river and is swept away only wake up in OZ with her chicken Bellina. She meets Jack Pumpkinhead, and Tik-Tok among others. The Scarecrow has been captured by the Gnome King and they need to save him.

Tin Man was a SyFy Channel production. It's a mini-series that updates many of the details of the classic Baum tale, some in quite ingenious ways. Neal McDonough plays the title character, not a man of metal but a man of metel it turns out. The "Scarecrow" is a man who has had his brains removed and his head zipped up. The "Cowardly Lion" is a man from from a race that can read minds.  D.G. as she's called in this one is a princess who has been transported to Earth under the care of two well-meaning robots and has had her memory wiped. Richard Dreyfuss appears as the "Mystic Man" or wizard in tihs one. The story is her searching for her memories and family. It's okay, but too long. 

OZ the Great and Powerful is a missed opportunity. The problem for me was casting, as I find James Franco an incredibly unlikable actor. The Witches are fine but my favorite parts of this movie is Finley the flying monkey who serves as the Wizard's sidekick and the China Doll who tags along. These two seem to capture the charm which is missing from many of the other characters. The visualization of OZ is tremendous though, and the movie might be recommended just for that aspect. 

And that's a wrap. I've had a great deal of fun exploring OZ over the last several months. I have to say the novels are not as strong as I expected given the praise I've seen heaped on them over the years, but it was fascinating to see how Baum created each of them. 

Next month something completely different. 

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Fantastic 4 - Antithesis!

Fantastic Four - Antithesis is the final published work of the late great Neal Adams. I am proud to be able to have and hold so much great work by an outstanding and important artist in my collection. The story was written by Mark Waid. 

MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD SO TREAD WITH CARE. 

The creative team of Waid and Adams are joined by inker Mark Farmer who does a remarkable job taming the pencils and giving them a nifty polish. The story begins with the Fab 4 battling Annihilus yet again. Once they've mopped him up and sent him scuttling back into the Negative Zone, one of Reed's many machines issues a warning about an object entering Earth's atmosphere and posing a threat, so the team combine their powers ingeniously and deflect it. Turns out it was the Silver Surfer all along. (Not like the cover wasn't a tip-off.)

A wounded Surfer is in need of fixing and warns that Galactus is no more, having been defeated by a powerful enemy called Antithesis who emerged from the Negative Zone and absorbed the might of Galactus making him merely Galan, the mortal man he once was, again before tossing him into the Negative Zone. The FF race to save him, and of course have to battle Annihilus yet again and end up on the mighty ship of Galactus. 

Galen arranges to give the Fantastic Four the Power Cosmic which they use to confront the forces of Antithesis and the monster himself. They succeed in defeating him and send him packing into the Negative Zone, hopefully returning the power to Galen so he can become Galactus once again. But it turns out Reed ends up the power cosmic (didn't see that coming) and world eating has a whole new name. 

Mister Fantastic / Galactus plans to starve himself and end the threat for all time. But Sue ain't having it and she and the team along with the Surfer and Galen go to Whisper Hill to enlist the aid of Agatha Harkness. They lure the Reed/Galactus hybrid to them and then reminds him of his children. This proves to be the right move and he surrenders the power back to Galen, and the Surfer and the new improved  Galactus head back into the cosmos. The improvement is a bit of compassion for the people of the worlds he encounters. 

SPOILERS HAVE COMPLETED. 

Once again, the Fab 4 have saved the day with a combination of bravery, smarts, and the proper application of superpowers. It's just what you want in a Fantastic Four yarn. The artwork is lush, and the storytelling works almost all the time. This final published comic story produced by Neal Adams is a worthy contribution to his legacy. 

The four-issue run of this FF story was deemed a little too slight to run as a trade itself. It clocks in at around eighty pages, so we get couple of choice more vintage reprints such The Uncanny X-Men #65 which proved to the last of the Neal Adams issues on that venerated run,and told the story of an alien invasion. This invasion was anticipated and so gave an excuse to revive Professor X, who had been dead for a bit. Denny O'Neil is the scripter. That's Marie Severin's work on the cover. 

We are also treated to the first issue of the Fantastic Four by Waid and artists Mike Wieringo and Karl Kesel. This was the last time I paid regular attention to the team, and I enjoyed the late Wieringo's work very much. 

All in a dandy little package and a great way to enjoy the work of a master. Look out for more than a few more Neal Adams posts as the year rumbles along. 

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The First X-Men!

There is a problem with success in an ongoing comic book series. If the story goes on too long, then the weight of accumulated details begins to crush the life out of it. Marvel Comics is the longest story ever told, filled with more characters and places and events than any other single narrative. DC reboots periodically allow freshness. Marvel is stranded, depending on its creators, to wrench yet one more tale from the mountainous heap. Neal Adams and Christos Gage try to do just that in The First X-Men. 

UNCANNY SPOILERS THROUGHOUT THE REST OF THIS POST. 

We begin with Wolverine and Sabretooth, still called Logan and Creed. These savage brothers work as mercenaries and Logan gets a notion to try something different, something larger and nobler. Creed is reluctant but trusts his brother enough to tag along. When the first mutant they work to save is a young woman called Holo who can cast beautiful illusions, Creed finds something more to stay for than crowing when Logan's project fails. 

In addition to Holo, this "team" adds a fantastically strong chap dubbed Yeti and kid who can blow- things-up-good referred to as Bomb. They seek out other mutants, working from files stolen from the government which is itself spending great sums of money to "solve" this mutant problem. One such mutant is Eric Lensheer, a master of magnetism, who spends his days hunting Nazi war criminals. He tells Logan to scram. 

An insidious mutant named Virus works for the government and uses his ability to invade minds to take control of people to become his "mounts" and carry him around. Yeti's brother is one such mount this fledgling team of X-Men rescue. But alas Virus maintains control of his mounts even after they've been severed from him, making Yeti's brother a spy in the middle of Logan's fledgling team. 

They work to rescue other young mutants such a human fireball named Meteor, and a pair of brothers who I guess I'm supposed to know, but as far as I can tell are never named. Another program from the government is Bolivar Trask's first round of Sentinels and our team needs to fend them off as well. It's quite a melee. Charles Xavier gets into the mix as well. 

I love the work of Neal Adams, but I have to call out this stuff which while dynamic is so chaotic it's hard to read all the time. The eye too often goes where it shouldn't as the storytelling tumbles apart. Nonetheless by the end of the five-issue effort many of the most famous characters are where we find them at earlier stages and as promised we do learn why Creed hates Logan so much and why Logan hates himself as well. The tottering monument hat is the Marvel Universe has added yet another log, but the weight is still enormous. 

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Glinda Of OZ!

Glinda of OZ is the fourteenth installment of the OZ series and the final book written by L. Frank Baum, the creator of OZ. Baum died after completing this novel but before it could be published in 1920, two decades after the publication of the original The Wizard of OZ. Sadly, like so many of the later OZ books this one too is overwhelmed by a cast made up of pretty much anyone who had appeared previously in the series.

It begins well enough when Ozma and Dorothy consult Glinda and then go on a mission to the less known areas in the North of OZ where they have become aware of an impending war between the Flatheads and the Skeezers. The Flatheads are just that, with diminished brainpower. They are led by a tyrannical sorcerer named Su-Dic. He threatens Ozma and Dorothy who move on to the Skeezer city which sits in a lake. The queen of the Skeezers is also a mystic and as it turns out a tyrant as well. When the war happens the city of the Skeezers is sunk to the bottom of the lake for security, but this time with Ozma and Dorothy inside it. The battle goes poorly for Queen Coo-ee-oh who is turned into a swan. Since the city can only be raised by her magic the Skeezers and hour heroines are stuck.

(MGM's Glinda with Dorothy)

Glinda becomes aware of this threat and gathers a mob of trusted OZ people to journey to the rescue. The Wizard is included as are the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, the Patchwork Girl, Cap'n Bill, Button Bright, and Jack Pumpkinhead among others. This gang get to the lands of the Skeezers and find that they cannot get the sunken city rise. A solution presents itself but it's a very roundabout journey. 

(Can you see Glinda's nipples?)

Maybe I'm just burned out on OZ books, but this one seemed to have even less spark than many of the lackluster later efforts by Baum. Despite being the title character Glinda is not in the book all that much. One thing though, it's a book ripe with different kinds of magic. I read in some sources that Ruth Plumly Thompson, who takes over the series, might have had a small hand in polishing this one for the publisher. One thing for certain is that L. Frank Baum created a blockbuster moneymaker with his OZ books, the first real modern American fairy tales. His publishers were not going to allow the series to stop with his demise. 

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One more visit to OZ when we take a look at some of the movies derived from the books. 

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The Phantom - The Curse Of The Two-Headed Bull!

The Curse of the Two-Headed Bull is the final novel in the now long-ago series "The Story of the Phantom" from Avon Books starring Lee Falk's legendary comic strip creation. It sports a dynamic George Wilson cover and was written in 1975 by Carson Bingham from Lee Falk's and Sy Barry's "The Curse of the Sacred Image". 

This story begins in one of the settings which I detest about the Phantom -- the Isle of Eden. This is an  isolated island on which animals, predator and prey exist in harmony. I cannot imagine why Falk thought this was a good idea. It does suggest that the Phantom has some association with Jesus, but that's a lame idea. 

But while enjoying some time in this paradise the Phantom finds a man floating just off the shore. He rescues him and knows he a local fellow named Murph. Soon after being saved, he died. Then the Phantom gets a message that a sacred idol has been stolen. This idol is one of great importance and historical significance and the Ilongo tribe which lost it attaches all their good luck to its presence. Only a member of the tribe is allowed to touch it without calling down a curse, according to legend. One member of the tribe stole it, and the Phantom follows the trail to London. Sure, enough Diana Palmer tags along and sure enough she gets kidnapped by the perps to hold as leverage against the Phantom. We also see quite a bit of evidence that the curse of the idol just might be real. The scene shifts from London to a small kingdom of Suda-Kalara and Diana is made part of a harem. The Phantom is able to locate her and the idol, and his rescue is a bravura moment in the series. The idol is returned and the luck it brings returns. 

For whatever reason, this final installment of the Avon novel series proved to be a slog. I don't blame the book, but it is a bit more of a dense read than some of the breezy adventures which have come before. Still and all, it's a fascinating ending to a venerable series. I'm incredibly happy that Hermes saw fit to reprint these blasts from my past. It proves the Ghost Who Walks works in more mediums than just comics. 

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The Phantom - The Complete DC Comics Volume Three!

The third volume of The Phantom -The Complete DC Comics wraps up the relatively short run on the classic Lee Falk character by writer Mark Verheiden and artist Luke McDonnell. 

"Trains" from the ninth issue showcases just what Verheiden wanted to do with his Phantoms stories, and that is to confront the grim realities of Africa and somehow find a place for the Phantom's justice. The grinding poverty creates strange and dangerous games for children to play.

"Blind!" is perhaps the most tragic of the stories in the run. It speaks of people robbed of their sight by contamination and then into rice fields as slaves. The Phantom can possibly give them back their freedom, but they have lost something even beyond the powers of the Ghost Who Walks. He gets involved though when Dr. Axel, the man who delivered the current Phantom many years before is attacked. This is McDonnell's most powerful cover in the series. 

The story "Famine" is yet another brutal reminder of how this world is so powerfully indifferent to the suffering of the helpless. The Phantom rushes to save a Nun and her companion when they are captured by a warlord who is stealing food supplies. We also meet Rex, a young boy the Phantom adopted some years before. The impending marriage of the Phantom to Diana has given him some qualms. 

Verheiden and McDonnell wrap up this fascinating run of Phantom stories with a potent two-parter in which the Phantom himself is set up to look like a murderer. "Framed" introduces us to a noble leader who is assassinated, and the police believe the Phantom is involved when a mysterious skull is found on the victim's forehead. Sadly, the Ghost Who Walks must leave the Deep Woods just as his wedding to Diana Palmer is getting planned. We all know he will prevail. The wedding goes off without a hitch and includes a few guests we know. Though he's not namechecked a man in a top hat and tails, and his ally introduced as Prince Lothar shows up to celebrate the union. We are treated to a wonderful last page for this saga. 

I have always liked the Verheiden and McDonnell run on the character. Mark Verheiden is a fantastic writer and McDonnell's work is shown in its finest form in this series which presents the material in a slightly larger format. They brought more depth and a wonderful characterization to a hero who all too often is presented as invulnerable. And truth told, sometimes I like that juggernaut of justice, but it's great to see him as just a man, a man who has chosen a difficult path for honorable reasons, but sometimes struggles with the cost. 

And that wraps up my long look at The Phantom comics. I have one more glance at a classic Avon novel tomorrow. 

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The Avengers - This Beach-Head Earth!

The Kree-Skrull War is appropriately celebrated by most as one of Marvel's great early epics of storytelling. It is a story which has its oldest roots in the earliest days of a budding Marvel and a story which at once closes story lines and opens others. And it might just be my all-time favorite comic saga of all time. This time I read it in the handsome oversized Gallery edition, and the larger format did give the work a fresh feel. 

But what is often overlooked when this epic is showcased is the significant role that "Our Pal" Sal Buscema played in the early chapters. With inks by himself and longtime ally Sam Grainger as well as veteran George Russos he drew nearly half of the story, but is often forgotten because of the later blockbuster work Neal Adams did when he famously debuted on the series.

The story by Roy Thomas begins in Avengers eighty-nine in Miami where the Avengers are hunting down the Kree Captain Mar-Vell. After a quick slugfest he is shot by Rick Jones who surprisingly is no longer connected to the Captain by dint of the Nega-Bands. Mar-Vell is swiftly taken to a lab to extract deadly excess radiation which is soon to prove fatal to those around him. This radiation had come about when Captain Marvel was able to finally find a way out of the Negative Zone thanks in no small part to Reed Richards who had himself been trapped there in the pages of Fantastic Four and who Cap had seen escape through a portal to the Baxter Building.

Avoiding the deadly threat of Annihilus Cap makes good his escape but then runs afoul of the Avengers who have answered an intruder alert. They follow Cap to the Cape in Florida where they capture him. Thanks to the Vision his deadly radiation is dispersed. But the story shifts to the distant home world of the Kree and we see Ronan the Accuser defy the Supreme Intelligence and activate Sentry 459 who attacks as the story closes.

In Avengers ninety the Sentry takes Captain Marvel and disappears with him as the Avengers get a rundown on the Kree on Earth as well as Mar-Vell's long career.

When they return to the Avengers Mansion they find a distress call from the Wasp saying that her husband Hank Pym, the Yellowjacket is lost in a mysterious green area of the Arctic. The Avengers head north to follow Goliath who had gone earlier to assist, and find a world where time seems to have been lost and ancient pre-historic beasts roam. There they find both Goliath and the Sentry protecting a Kree experiment run by Ronan which will devolve the humans of Earth and remove them as a threat to the Kree Empire. As the story closes we see Yellowjacket himself has been turned into a ferocious caveman.

As the next chapter opens in Avengers ninety-one, Yellowjacket kidnaps his wife Wasp showing more tenderness in his transformed state than Ronan expected.

The Avengers meanwhile battle the Sentry and a mind-controlled Goliath and defeat the latter. The latter captures them all and the Vision and Scarlet Witch are held prisoner, and we get a hint of the romance which will blossom between the two. While Yellowjacket battles other scientists turned cavemen for the Wasp, Ronan reveals his scheme to use the atavistic radiation of the Kree outpost to devolve all of humanity into dust. But Quicksilver and Rick Jones are able to bring an attack which stifles that plan while Ronan gets an urgent message that the ages-long Kree-Skrull conflict has broken out again. He leaves to serve and the Senry without instructions shuts down as the transforming radiation disperses and the changed humans return to normal. The Avengers seem to know more is coming soon.

In the next chapter in issue ninety-two the Avengers recover at the Mansion and are shocked to learn that the technicians they saved have taken the story to the authorities. The result is a congressional investigation headed up by a unscrupulous fame-seeking politician named H. Warren Craddock. The Avengers are called to testify before his committee as is Captain Marvel. SHIELD is called upon to see to it that the Avengers and especially Mar-Vell do not elude the public. When Captain Marvel saves Carol Danvers public attention is somewhat more positive to him, but she quickly indicates he should come with her to find some measure of isolation from the media. He agrees and Nick Fury allows them unofficially to elude capture.

(This is  a strange array: In addition to Sub-Mariner, Captain America, and the Human Torch, we have Catman, Fighting Yank, Fantoman, the Green Lama and the Heap. They come from several defunct Golden Age companies.)

As the Avengers head off to testify Rick Jones reveals that he has been having some incredibly potent dreams populated with the four-color heroes of his comic book drenched youth. The Avengers refuse to cooperate with Craddock's committee and when they return to the Mansion they find Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man there who voice their disapproval and disband the team effective immediately.

Outstanding stuff, a real nifty blend of adventure and social commentary. Clearly Thomas is attempting to evoke the infamous McCarthy hearings of the 1950's when he creates the loathsome Craddock and the Avengers are the noble types who stand up to the browbeating. But this does call into question the nature of the team as they are officially sanctioned by the United States government. Given the situation one is forced to agree that while it is a strong reaction, the behavior of Cap, Thor, and Shellhead is not totally without merit. We shall of course see that more is at play there, but the uncomfortable nature of the Avengers, a team of vigilantes and ex-criminals who become agents of the government is a sticky wicket indeed.

It's great to see Sentry 459 back in action. Sal does a great job drawing him and his oddball nature of being something more than robot and less than a fully-realized living entity is developed a bit when he's compared to the Vision, another more fully developed enigmatic artificial being.

(Mister Fantastic first enters the Negative Zone in Fantastic Four #51 1966)

As for Captain Marvel, splitting him from Rick was a crucial step in setting up this story. The two of them had evoked the classic Billy Batson-Big Red Cheese combo in the last issues of Cap's magazine and it's nice to see that thread untied going forward. The tie-in to Fantastic Four was also neat and the weird landscape of the Negative Zone did become a bit more fully realized. We'd seen it had some really dark and dangerous denizens in the pages of the FF and now that becomes more fully realized in the larger Marvel Universe.

The great Kree-Skrull War is a remarkable story by Roy Thomas and a team of artists such as Sal Buscema and his brother John. But the name almost everyone thinks of first is the great Neal Adams.

Apparently after all these decades Roy and Neal disagree about who did what sometimes on this epic, but there's no denying it was exciting at the time and still bristles even all these many, many moons later. Neal Adams actually started his run on the title (fresh from his stint on the defunct X-Men) with the cover to issue ninety-two, an issue actually drawn by Sal Buscema.

It is issue ninety-three that's the blockbuster of his series. For a brief moment Marvel toyed with the tantalizing notion to make all of their comics larger twenty-five cent comics. This move lasted a month maybe a little more and then the switch was made to a regular size comic with a nickel increase of for twenty cents total. DC had followed Marvel's lead but stayed with the quarter price longer and many say this is the move that finally once and for all put Marvel into the sales lead in the great contest between the Big Two. I for one loved DC's quarter comics and still regard them as great, but apparently at the time I was a minority opinion.

Whatever the case "This Beach-Head Earth!" is a robust and raucous tale picking up the threads of the story after the apparent dissolution of the Avengers by the Big Three (Cap, Iron Man, Thor) who seem not to be award they have done this. The sudden arrival of the Vision who immediately collapses adds more mystery but then suddenly Hank Pym arrives in his Ant-Man guise and he takes one of comics great journeys into the innards of the Vision to help diagnose and repair him. He does just than and flits away leaving the Big Three to discover how the Vision came to be there.

He tells them of their seemingly to have disbanded the team who went to find Mar-Vell but only find creepy cows who attack them in the weird forms of three of the members of the Fantastic Four. The Vision is able to escape leaving Goliath, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver behind.

The scene shifts to a spaceship on which are the captured Avengers and Captain Marvel himself. They have all been captured by Skrulls who attempt to get Mar-Vell to reveal the secret of the Omni-Wave which will allow the Skrulls a profound advantage in their war. But while the suddenly arrived Avengers battle the three Skrulls in the FF forms Captain Marvel uncovers the ruse of Carol Danvers really being his old enemy the Super-Skrull and destroys his Omini-Wave device. Switching schemes the Skrulls then make off with Mar-Vell and the two mutant Avengers leaving Goliath behind, his growing serum having worn off.

In the next issue (ninety-four) the Avengers consult the Fantastic Four to investigate the Skrulls who have deceived them. They realize that the Vision is missing, having slipped aboard the ship of the Super-Skrull who is on his way to unleash a deadly bomb against the Inhumans in their Great Refuge. But a force field protects the Inhumans homeland. The Super-Skrull is incensed and he and the Vision reach a stalemate as the latter resigns himself to Wanda's capture and leaves to get reinforcements.

In a chapter drawn by John Buscema the Super-Skrull heads to his home world where he is met with resistance by the Emperor's forces who himself takes the hostages Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and Captain Marvel. The two mutants are sent to a bizarre environment occupied by deadly fuzzball aliens and used to force Mar-Vell to capitulate and give the Skrulls the secret of the Omni-Wave. Meanwhile the Avengers  themselves come under direct assault from the government, specifically SHIELD who use agents in high-tech armor, the Mandroids to attempt to subdue the Assemblers. As that battle breaks out, Triton appears out of sewers of NYC.

After the Avengers are finally able to end the threat of the Mandroids they learn from Triton of the threat to the Inhumans and go with him to find Black Bolt who is dealing with other issues in the slums of San Francisco.

They find him and after he bids farewell to Roscoe, the young boy he was helping, Black Bolt remembers how his brother Maximus became mad long ago, it was when Black Bolt himself discovered his treacherous brother helping the Kree to take command of the Inhumans and in a last-ditch effort Bolt used his powerful voice which ended the threat but drove his brother mad and resulted in the death of their parents. Finding the Great Refuge at last the Avengers gain access and Black Bolt destroys the force field with his great voice and then commands the Inhumans to stand down. Once again, the Kree are plotting with Maximus and as they flee, they kidnap Rick Jones leaving the Inhumans relatively safe but the Avengers declaring that they will carry the war to the stars themselves.

This story by Thomas and Adams ignored the Gerry Conway and Mike Sekowsky tale in Amazing Adventures nine and ten, which followed on after their departure in which Black Bolt and the Royal Family are in conflict with Magneto and his minions. The conflict between these two narratives appears impossible to make coherent. And what's stranger, the two titles appeared on the stands in the same month. 

In the ninety-sixth issue the Avengers commandeer a spaceship from SHIELD (Nick Fury is of two minds about their criminal behavior) and head into space. They quickly find the "Andromeda Swarm" (Michael Crichton spins), a vast fleet of Skrull warships headed to Earth. They engage the lead craft and using deception and their array of superpowers attempt to forestall the invasion.

The emperor of the Skrulls shows them his prisoners Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and Captain Marvel who once again deceives his captors. The Avengers vow to go to the Skrull home world and save their allies.

Meanwhile Rick Jones is taken to the Kree home world and confronts Ronan the Accuser who puts him in a locked room with the deposed Supreme Intelligence, who itself tells Rick that he is the source of some great power and sends him into the Negative Zone again where Annihilus appears.

And finally at long last the finale. In issue ninety-seven Neal Adams steps aside and John Buscema takes up the last chapter in this grand tale. Rick Jones evades the threat of Annihilus and then is informed by the Supreme Intelligence that he is the source of a great power which can end the war. He sees the Avengers fighting the Skrull armada on the outer reaches of the Earth's solar system, he sees Captain Marvel and the twin mutants held captive by the Emperor of the Skrulls, and then he is pulled from the Negative Zone itself. He is then able to produce from the depths of his memory and imagination palpable dopple-gangers of the four-color heroes of his youth and seemingly the Golden Age heroes (Captain America, Human Torch, Sub-Mariner, Blazing Skull, Vision, Fin, The Angel, and the Patriot) battle the Kree.

(Rick conjures Captain America, the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner, the Fin, the Vision, the Angel, the Patriot and the Blazing Skull.)

Then Rick unleashes an incredible mental bolt which flies across the universe and stops all the actors in their tracks, effectively ending the war. On Earth the Congressman Craddock is revealed to be the forgotten fourth Skrull who first attack the Fab 4 so many years before. The Supreme Intelligence reveals that the reason the Kree and Skrulls fight over Earth is a recognition of the potential of the human race while they are at an evolutionary dead end. Rick Jones collapses but Captain Marvel is summoned and agrees to merge his lifeforce with the teenager once again reestablishing their cosmic partnership.

With the war mostly all wrapped up, the Avengers are sent to Earth and there they then realize that Goliath, the former Avengers known as Goliath is MIA. 

Clint Barton would return soon enough dropping the Goliath identity for his old Hawkeye monicker, in a trilogy which reintroduced Hercules and led to the Assemblers' one hundredth issue. But that's another story. 

The story has been reprinted many times, beginning with two Baxter issues in the 80's. At the turn of the century Neal Adams returned to add one more cover image to his contribution to the epic tale. It's reverse view of the classic scene when the Vision breaks in and collapses. It was later used to great effect on an Essential volume. And so it goes, volume after volume. 

In 1992 Marvel revisited the concept of the Avengers getting involved in an interplanetary war, this time between the Kree and the Shi'ar. "Galactic Storm" as it was called to evoke the militaristic fervor of "Desert Storm" from the time period. This was a sprawling crossover bringing in all of the Avengers related titles of the time. 

We've learned that war is and always has been a curse on mankind. Violence has been used by men and women forever to get what they need and what they want. That animus was on full display in these fables from Marvel. And Neal Adams was the right artist to bring those themes home with power and grit. It's too bad didn't finish the job. 

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