Ghost Rider Team-Up

Reprints Marvel Premiere #91, Ghost Rider #27 and #50, Marvel Team-Up #91, Marvel Two-In-One #80 and Avengers #214
Written by Bill Mantlo, Jim Shooter, Steven Grant, Michael Fleisher and Tom DeFalco.
Penciled by Frank Robbins, Don Perlin, Pat Broderick, Ron Wilson and Bob Hall.
Inked by Steve Gan, Dan Green, Bruce D. Patterson, Don Perlin and Chic Stone.

A six-pack of Bronze Age tales starring the Spirit of Vengeance!

A mountain sprouts up in the middle of Los Angeles and causes an earthquake! It attracts the attention of four of the world's most horrific super-beings: The demonic Ghost Rider, known to the world as Johnny Blaze, famous stunt cyclist! Michael Morbius, the Living Vampire! Werewolf By Night! And the macabre Man-Thing!

They learn that the mountain is the work of Starseed.  He lived on Earth millions of years ago, on the same mountain. He's the sole survivor of a society that dwelt in the mountain, creating advanced technology in the time of the Neanderthals.

Starseed invites them to come with him and live inside the mountain. But Ghost Rider points out that the world has changed and that one cannot just park a mountain on Sunset Boulevard and cause earthquakes. Morbius and the Werewolf are both hungry so they attack Starseed! It's every monster for himself!

Sometime later, Johnny Blaze's personal life is in shambles, so he seeks solace in the Mohave Desert.  Blaze ends up at Cheery-O's Dude Ranch, where he bumps into the Avenger Hawkeye and Matt Hawk, the Two-Gun Kid! Hawk is a hero from the Wild West who recently time-traveled into the 20th century.

Things are going well for the heroes. Blaze is teaching Two-Gun how to ride a motorcycle. But suddenly Hawkeye is attacked by a monster who calls himself Manticore! He tells Hawkeye he has been contracted to kill an Avenger, and Hawkeye was available, but Manticore didn't bet on Ghost Rider being around.

Peter Parker and his friend Glory Grant go to a carnival in Connecticut. They take in a sideshow, where Peter notices a familiar face.The Ghost Rider is performing as The Blazing Skull. Parker points this out and gets thrown out of the carnival.

Later that night, Peter returns to investigate the sideshow as Spider-Man. He learns that Ghost Rider has been hypnotized by Spidey's old foe Moondark the magician. Moondark has torn the soul of Johnny Blaze away from the body of Ghost Rider. Spider-Man ends up going toe-to-toe with Ghost Rider, who is under the control of Moondark!

Subsequently, Johnny Blaze time-travels back into the Wild West! He inadvertently ends up on a sacred Indian burial ground.  Several Indians respond by shooting Blaze full of arrows before he can turn into Ghost Rider. Thankfully, Blaze is rescued by Carter Slade, better known as the ghostly cowboy hero called Night Rider!

Night Rider saves Blaze's life, which is a good thing. Ghost Rider aids Night Rider in a battle with the outlaw who calls himself the Tarantula. And if that's not enough trouble, they're also attacked by the mythical winged serpent called Hobomokko!

Following that adventure, Johnny Blaze goes to New York City for a stunt cycling performance at Shea Stadium. But he's starting to lose control over the Ghost Rider persona. His demonic side is taking over and acting irrationally. Ghost Rider leads the NYPD on a high-speed chase until he turns back to Blaze.

He's spotted by Ben Grimm of the Fantastic Four. The Thing sympathizes with Blaze, since he's also a "monster" like Ghost Rider. Blaze gives Ben two tickets for his stunt show.

At Shea Stadium, Blaze jumps over a row of cars on his motorcycle. But in the middle of the show, two teens in the crowd decide to steal one of the cars. Blaze turns into Ghost Rider and goes crazy and his thirst for vengeance takes over, he wants to kill the teens. It's up to the Thing to save them.

Lastly, Warren Worthington III, better known as the mutant superhero Angel, is driving through the mountains of New Mexico. He spots Ghost Rider, his former teammate with the Champions, cycling on the highway. Angel's girlfriend, Candy Southern, is frightened, but Warren says Ghost Rider is a friend.

Things change when Ghost Rider runs them off the road! Their car is wrecked and Angel is shocked.  Johnny Blaze has lost control over the spirit of vengeance and decides Angel is an enemy, hitting him with a blast of hellfire!

Candy calls Avengers mansion, seeking help from the Beast, Angel's former X-men teammate. Beast has left the Avengers, but Captain America takes the call. The Avengers arrive in New Mexico and try capture Ghost Rider. The Avengers outnumber him, but it won't be easy to subdue the Spirit of Vengeance.

Review:
Ghost Rider Team-Up is not a very good book. What makes it frustrating is that I can think of several other stories featuring Ghost Rider and another hero that would've been better choices for this tpb. Why wasn't the ridiculous-but-fun Christmas story from Marvel Two-In-One #8 used instead of the one from MTIO #80? Ghost Rider teamed with Daredevil in a crossover against Death Stalker that featured some early art of John Byrne. This book contains pin-ups that mention Son Of Satan's guest appearances in Ghost Rider. Why not include one of those, instead of Avengers #214, where Ghost Rider is basically written as a villain, albeit a reluctant one. Moving on to what's in the book:

Story:
A mixed bag that has a couple good stories and some clunkers. I'll start with the positives

The Hawkeye/Two-Gun/Manticore story isn't great, but it's a decent "villain of the month" story.  Manticore looks pretty cool, though he's not much of a match for the Ghost Rider.

I thought the Spider-Man team-up was the high point of this book. Placing a battle on a rollercoaster makes for a great action sequence. And it was interesting to see Peter Parker go on a date with his friend Glory Grant, something that rarely happened to my recollection.
  
The team-up with Night Rider is a solid western story, with plenty of action. Of course, in the early days, Night Rider was known as Ghost Rider. This is never mentioned in the story, but I presume this was meant to be an inside joke for the readers.

Johnny Blaze is surprised to find himself in the 19th century.

Johnny Blaze's meeting with Ben Grimm is okay, even if it's not as good as their aforementioned Christmas team-up. But it's hardly essential Bronze Age material.

The first tale promises the teaming of "The Legion Of Monsters." But the "monsters" spend most of the story listening to Starseed tell his backstory or fighting with each other. Some "legion" they turned out to be. Starseed isn't very interesting either. A pointless story, Starseed has never been seen since this issue and the Legion Of Monsters doesn't appear again until 2010 (without Ghost Rider).

The Avengers story is an odd inclusion. It takes place in the middle of a long storyline built around the mental breakdown of Yellowjacket. Ghost Rider doesn't appear until the 7th page of the tale. He's the bad guy here, since Blaze is losing control of his demonic side at this time. It hardly constitutes a team-up, and Angel's appearance feels very random.

Art:
Ghost Rider Team-Up contains art that's generally better than the stories.

The best art here comes from Pat Broderick and Bruce D. Patterson, from the Spider-Man portion.

Their art looks influenced by Michael Golden (a star penciler at the time) with a little bit of Steve Ditko thrown in.  Nice work.

Johnny Blaze performs stunts at Shea Stadium

Don Perlin and Ron Wilson were always reliable for good, enjoyable "Marvel house style" pencils. Chic Stone's inks overpower Wilson's art a bit, but it's still okay. Perlin and Dan Green make Manticore look pretty cool in their story.

The Legion of Monsters story wouldn't be good under any circumstances. But the art of Frank Robbins and Steve Gan makes it even worse. Bob Hall and Dan Green are okay in the Avengers story.

Starseed promises to turn the "monsters" back to their human forms.

How Does It Look?:

Here's the splash page of Marvel Premiere #28, borrowed from Diversions of the Groovy Kind:

And here's how it appears in Ghost Rider Team-Up:

It's a pretty good facsimile. 

Extras:

Ghost Rider #50 contained a checklist of Ghost Rider's appearances and several pin-ups. Those are represented in this tpb as well. 

Ghost Rider Team-Up isn't great, but if you're a fan of the artists featured inside, or a Ghost Rider completist, you might enjoy it more than I did. The art from Broderick, Perlin and Wilson earns it an extra half-Sal.

J.A. Morris' rating.

.5



2 and a half Sals.

The Avengers Versus Thanos

Reprints Iron Man (1968) #55, Captain Marvel (1968) #25-33, Marvel Feature (1971) #12, Daredevil (1964) #105-107, Avengers (1963) #125, Warlock (1972) #9-11, #15; Avengers Annual (1967) #7, Marvel Two-In-One Annual #2, material from Logan 's Run #6.
Written by Jim Starlin, Steve Englehart, Steve Gerber, Scott Edelman and Mike Friederich.
Penciled by Jim Starlin, John Buscema, Mike Zeck, Bob Brown,Don Heck.
Inked by Jim Starlin, Mike Esposito, Chic Stone, Dave Cockrum, Pablo Marcos, Dan Green, Al Milgrom, Joe Sinnott, Don Perlin, Sal Trapani, Sal Buscema, Klaus Janson, Steve Leialoha, Josef Rubenstein and Mike Zeck.

Every Bronze Age adventure that featured Thanos, the mad Titan...and more!

A green-skined alien named Drax the Destroyer sends out a call for help. It's received by none other than Tony Stark, AKA the invincible Iron Man. Drax communicates with Stark telepathically, telling him about life on Titan, a moon of Saturn.

Titan is ruled by Mentor, who had two sons, Eros and Thanos. After Thanos attempted to take over Titan with weapons (which are banned on Titan), Drax was created to destroy Thanos. Drax warns Iron Man that Thanos and his minions, the Blood Brothers, are attacking Earth.

Iron Man answers Drax's call and flies off to rescue him, but he's attacked by the Blood Brothers. Iron Man is knocked out after a brief fight and taken to Thanos.

The Blood Brothers capture Iron Man & deliver him to Thanos.

Thanos introduces himself to Iron Man, telling the golden Avenger he has nearly conquered Titan and will soon conquer Earth. The heroes are imprisoned by Thanos and the Blood Brothers and all hope appears lost. But Titan's supercomputer, known as Isaac, comes to their rescue and frees Drax, who helps Iron Man defeat the Blood Brothers. Thanos' scheme is thwarted, but the villain escapes.

Iron Man meets Thanos.

Sometime later, Captain Marvel (AKA Mar-Vell of the Kree) is accused of murder. In reality, the killer was Super-Skrull, who used his shape-shifting power to disguise himself as Mar-Vell.

But Super-Skrull is merely a pawn of Thanos. This time, the Titan has a new ally: the personification of Death herself. He is on Earth to find the Cosmic Cube, a weapon which make him deadlier than ever.

Thanos recruits the Controller to act as his regent on Earth. The Controller has discs that he places on people which allow him to control their minds, as well as giving him the strength of everyone he controls. Some of his discs have been placed on powerful government officials.

While Controller takes over, Captain Marvel has been transported to another dimension, where he encounters a being named Eon. Captain Marvel undergoes a transformation. Eon makes him "Cosmically Aware." This makes him one with the universe and gives him the ability to uncover an adversary's weakness simply by thinking about it.

Mar-Vell's Cosmic Awareness helps him in his confrontation with the Controller. During their battle, Thanos observes them and tells Controller that he has failed. Thanos punishes the Controller by taking his life. Captain Marvel has won the round, but Thanos has succeeded in acquiring the Cosmic Cube.

Iron Man visits the site of his previous duel with Thanos and the Blood Brothers, in the Mohave Desert. The Blood Brothers are there as well and attack Stark. Thankfully for Iron Man, and the world itself, Ben Grimm, the Thing, arrives to help the Avenger. The Blood Brothers learn the meaning of "Clobberin' Time" when they wind up at the business end of Ben's fists.

In San Francisco, Daredevil stumbles on the secret hideout of Moondragon, who is Drax's daughter.  She tells DD that she fled Titan when Thanos took over and killed everyone. Moondragon says that she has come because San Francisco is under the control of Thanos. She used her psionic powers and genius intellect to create villains named Ramrod, Dark Messiah and Angar the Screamer to defend the city from Thanos.

When Daredevil tells her of their villainy, she realizes it was a mistake. But it's too late, as they are attacked by DD's corrupt law partner, Kerwin J. Broderick. He shoots Moondragon and then releases a giant named Terrex to attack San Francisco. Terrex was created by Titan scientists to be a doomsday device. Daredevil is out of his league dealing with a cosmic menace. Thankfully, Captain Marvel arrives to even up the odds agains Terrex.

With the Cosmic Cube under his control, Thanos attacks Earth once again. He sends a fleet of ships to the planet as well. But Thanos shows he is truly insane when he uses the Cube to become a god, disembodied and one with the universe.

Drax goes after Thanos, after the mad Titan has become a mad god.

The Avengers are chipping in against Thanos as well. Vision, Scarlet Witch, Mantis and Swordsman attack Thanos' fleet.

At this time, Captain Marvel wore nega-bands on his wrists. When he brought the bands together, he was sent to the Negative Zone and replaced by Rick Jones. Playing to Thanos' vanity, Rick says the mad Titan doesn't have the courage to fight Mar-Vell "man-to-man." Thanos takes corporeal form and duels Captain Marvel on Earth

This allows Mar-Vell to defeat Thanos. He destroys the Cosmic Cube, which destroys Thanos as well.

But Thanos returns, showing up on the same world as Adam Warlock. Thanos has sent his agent Gamora to keep tabs on Warlock, who is battling a genocidal deity known as the Magus. Thanos sees the Magus as the only threat to him and his goals and believes that only Warlock can take out the Magus.

Later, Thanos captures gems that will make him the most powerful being in the universe and sets out to destroy Earth once again. He will be met on the field of battle by the Avengers, Captain Marvel, Warlock, Spider-Man and the Thing!

The Avengers attack Thanos' fleet and are met by various aliens minions.

Plus, Drax defends the last flower on a planet from Thanos!

And if that's not enough, there's also a brief appearance by Spider-Man's old foe Kraven The Hunter!

Review:
There are so many pages in this book (453), so many characters, and so much going on that it's tough to review Avengers Versus Thanos without getting bogged down in every detail. I'll just cut to the chase and say it contains some of the Bronze Age's strongest stories and excellent art.

Mentor & Thanos introduce themselves to Rick Jones.

Story:
Jim Starlin created Thanos, his family, Titan, and wrote most of the stories here. Revisiting these stories,  I was impressed at how much of it was right there at the beginning. In the first story, we're told all about Titan, Thanos' origin, the creation of Drax. These were things Starlin wrote at the beginning, not retcons.

Thanos communicates to the Blood Brothers through the Cosmic Cube.

Of course what makes Thanos "special" is his worship of and love for Death. It's truly sick and creepy, perhaps even creepier when Death herself won't embrace him. He's not quite evil enough for her!
  
In addition to Starlin, the stories reprinted in Avengers Versus Thanos also contain contributions from several other Bronze Age heavy hitters.

Mike Friedrich wrote and/or scripted several tales in the tpb. Super-Skrull is one of my favorite villains, Friedrich makes good use of him here. Steve Englehart, the best Bronze Age Avengers writer, gives us a good action story from Avengers #125.

Prior to this tpb, I had never read the Daredevil stories written by Steve Gerber. I'm a big Gerber fan, but they're a step down in quality from the other chapters of the book. But it's not bad. Gerber brought his trademark zaniness to the stories and they serve as a bit of a breather from the cosmic level life and death drama found in the rest of Avengers Versus Thanos. This was an interesting time for DD's series, since it was set in San Francisco rather than New York.

Angar turns on Terrex, Matt Murdock prepares to attack without changing to Daredevil!

Lastly, Scott Edelman's contribution, "The Final Flower" was short (five pages) but very good.

Art:
Starlin's art evolves throughout the book. It's always good, but in the first story, you can see he's still figuring out how Thanos will look. Starlin also gives us some unconventional page layouts, like this one, there are more than 30 panels on the left side of the image!

And I love the way Starlin depicts the mind war between Moondragon and Thanos:

The story from Avengers #125 features pencils by John Buscema with inks by Dave Cockrum. Of course, Cockrum was a great penciler, so we see a nice combination of his and Buscema's art on display here.

Mike Zeck delivers some great pencils and inks too. He only contributed five pages of artwork, but Zeck leaves you wanting more.

The weakest art in the book is found in the Daredevil portion. Don Heck pencils it, with inks by Don Perlin and Sal Trapani. It looks like something from the Silver Age. The last of the Daredevil three-parter was penciled by Bob Brown with inks by Sal Buscema, and it's an improvement.

Black Widow, Daredevil & Moondragon tangle with Dark Messiah & Ramrod.

But the art is generally as great as the writing in Avengers Versus Thanos.

How Does It Look?:
Here's a scan from Captain Marvel #26:

And here's how it appears in Avengers Versus Thanos:

Extras:
A gallery of covers from previous reprints, all drawn by Starlin.

Spider-Man seeks the Thing's help in defending Earth & saving the Avengers from Thanos.

Avengers Versus Thanos contains stories that feature one of the greatest villains of all time in any medium. Jim Starlin was at the height of his storytelling powers and these tales are still as exciting today as they were 1970s.  Highly recommended.

4 Sals!

Nova Classic Vol. 3

Reprints Nova #20-25, Fantastic Four #204-206, 208-214
Written by Marv Wolfman.
Penciled by Carmine Infantino, John Buscema, Keith Pollard, Sal Buscema and John Byrne.
Inked by Dave Hunt, Steve Leialoha, Mike Esposito, Klaus Janson, Joe Sinnott, Bob McLeod and D.Hands.

Summary:
Richard Rider's father Charles is in a tight spot. He recently lost his job and was forced to borrow money from a shady organization called the Inner Circle. Charles turns state's evidence and will testify against the Circle. But he decides to go to the Inner Circle and tell them off first. Richard changes to Nova and follows his father. Unbeknownst to Nova, his younger brother Robert is following him.  Robert has built a Sherlock Holmes robot because he believes Richard is hiding something and has the robot tail his older brother.

The Corruptor returns.

It turns out that the leader of the Inner Circle is Nova's old foe, the Corruptor. Nova finds the Inner Circle's hideout and beats them up. When he unmasks one of them, he's shocked to find it's Charles Rider. Robert walks in, sees this, and accuses Nova of attacking Richard. This leads to Nova unmasking and revealing his identity to his family.

Elsewhere, Richard's high school classmate Mike Burley finds an old man who is very sick. When the man is taken to the hospital, the x-ray machine has a surprising impact on him. It restores the superpowers he once wielded as the 1950s hero know as the Comet! He can fly with the speed of a comet and shoot energy blasts from his fingers.

The villain Diamonhead resurfaces in New York. Nova tries to stop him but winds up unconscious.  Comet arrives and helps Nova recover. The older hero will team up with Nova and act as a mentor of sorts to Richard.

Comet helps Nova deal with Diamondhead.

Crimebuster returns, too, and we learn that Comet is his father. Until their reunion, Comet thought his entire family had been killed in a bombing.

After another fight with Diamondhead, Nova is transported to the Xandarian spaceship that gave him his powers. He is the prisoner of Doctor Sun, a brain connected to a computer network, contained in an android body. Doctor Sun believes the Xandarian technology is his key to immortality.

Doctor Sun reflects on his confrontation with Dracula;
Nova goes after Sun.

Unbeknownst to anyone, Nova's old villain the Sphinx is on the spaceship as well. He tells Sun that immortality is a curse and that he, the Sphinx, wants to die. He believes that only the planet Xandar can provide the knowledge that can end his life.

Comet, Crimebuster and Powerhouse (who reluctantly battled Nova in the past) join the others on board the ship. We learn that Powerhouse is a native of Xandar. And Diamondhead has sneaked on the ship too!

But shortly after they begin their journey, they are attacked by a fleet of skrull ships.

In a short time, they will be aided by the Fantastic Four in a war against the Skrull Empire.

Plus, the Sphinx gains the powers of a god and battles Galactus!

Review:
Nova Classic Vol. 3 collects the final six issues of Nova's original solo series and these stories show why the series was cancelled after 25 issues.

Story:
Marv Wolfman doesn't seem to know what to do with this series and tries a different direction every 20 pages or so. He brings in Comet to be a mentor to Nova. Wolfman has Nova unmask in front of his family. Nova becomes part of team fighting in outer space. Unfortunately, none of the "directions" add up to much.

The Champions of Xandar team with the Fantastic Four against Sphinx.

The revelation that Crimebuster is Comet's son feels more random than dramatic. And neither character is developed enough for the reader to care about them very much.

So Nova's series ends with a whimper.

The second half of the book is very good. It focuses on the Fantastic Four rather than Nova. But it features the skrull attack on Xandar, so I guess it makes sense to include it in this tpb.

Prime Thoran shows the FF Xandar's living computer.

All but one of these FF stories was also reprinted in Fantastic Four: In Search Of Galactus, which I reviewed the other day, so I won't go into detail again. Click here for my take on the FF stories.

The Fantastic Four & Herbie battle Terrax.

In any event, the FF portion of the book is better than the Nova stories.

We don't get to see the ending of the Xandar/Skrull war. It didn't end until Rom #24, published about a a year and a half after the last issue reprinted in this tpb. But Marvel doesn't currently own the rights to Rom the Spaceknight, so all we get is a text recap of how the war ended. Talk about an anti-climax!

Art:
Carmine Infantino pencils five of the six Nova stories that are reprinted in this tpb. His art is okay, except for the last issue. Infantino is inked by Klaus Janson in that last issue and their art looks very slapdash and sloppy. They were two of my favorite Bronze Age artists, but they don't make for a good combination in this book.

Nova, Comet & Sphinx defend their ship from a Skrull attack.

John Buscema, who penciled Nova's early issues, draws one issue here and his art is good as usual. He's inked Bob McCleod and Joe Rubinstein and they do a fine job.

The Fantastic Four stories were penciled by Keith Pollard, Sal Buscema and John Byrne with inks by Joe Sinnott. Their art is excellent.

How Does It Look?:
Here's a scan from the last page of Nova #23, borrowed from SuperMegaMonkey:

Here's how the same page looks in Nova Classic Vol. 3:

Extras:
Nova Classic Vol. 3 gives us entries from the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe for Nova, Sphinx, Corruptor, and the Champions of Xandar. It closes with several pages of original art. It also contains a three-page story published in What If #36 where Richard returned to Earth and recaps his battles with the skrulls.

While the first six issues reprinted in Nova Classic Vol. 3 aren't very good, the inclusion of the Fantastic Four stories makes it worth picking up. But if you already own Fantastic Four: In Search Of Galactus, you may not feel the need to get this tpb just for the Nova stories, unless you're a Nova completist. The FF stories bump it up from a 2-Sal review.

J.A. Morris' review:

3 Sals.