Spy Wednesday - The Ultimate Cosmic Experience!

The Silver Surfer graphic novel from 1978 is part of the Fireside publishing program which gave us the Origins of the Marvel Comics volume as well as its three sequels, and The Art of Marvel Comics. One source suggested this original story was prompted by the desire to make a Silver Surfer movie and the Ardina character was concocted specifically for Oliva Newton-John. (It might've been a hit like Grease or a notorious bomb like Xanadu. But if true, we'll never know. Rest in peace Olivia.)

Whatever its original inspiration, it is to my understanding the final collaboration between Stan "The Man" Lee and Jack "King" Kirby. It is also the only original material publication Fireside published for Marvel. All the rest featured reprints of classic material. 

The Silver Surfer is Jack Kirby's creation, no one disputes that these days, but Stan is a little coy on that particular detail in his introduction to this alternate version of the Surfer's initial trip to Earth. Stan had really taken a shine to the Sky-Rider when he showed up and had produced an ongoing series about the Surfer without Kirby's input or participation (at least at first) a year or so before Kirby departed Marvel for DC and the Fourth World. That perceived snub was one of the sore points between the two creators. (I'll have much more on the series this weekend.)

This is retelling of the Silver Surfer's first journey to Earth. There is no Fantastic Four to stop Galactus this time, and as far as I can tell, there are no other superheroes of any kind. No Watcher appears to give warning that Surfer is about to descend and bring the Devourer of Worlds to the hapless globe.

Instead we have a story from the Surfer's perspective for the most part which begins with the hand of Galactus opening and releasing the Surfer into the universe.

The dialogue tells us this is Norrin Radd of Zenn-La who left his planet and his love Shalla-Bal to serve Galactus. We see the Surfer as he comes to Earth and for reasons which even the Surfer seems confused about is struck by some aspect of humanity which he deems worthy to keep. So he turns on his master and is stuck down, forced to stay on the planet he has championed.

Later Galactus seems to regret his decision and having consulted his own quality of deviousness fashions a woman intended to seduce the Surfer and return him to the side of his master. Ardina is a golden woman who appears to have the essence of Shalla-Bal in some sense and the Surfer is indeed much attracted to this golden woman and the two have a dalliance. But afterwards when confronted with the choice of returning to Galactus, the Surfer rejects his master again.

The two meet and have conversation with humans but in the end the Surfer leaves and Ardina having failed in her initial mission is drawn back to her master who has set up a base of sorts on the Moon.

Ardina is again tasked with bringing the Surfer back, this time with a different bargain. Galactus has found he needs and wants his herald back and offers the Surfer his freedom from Earth and a return to servitude for Galactus. All this and Earth can live.

The Surfer still seems torn and soon loses Ardina who is reduced by Galactus to her atoms. But in the end the Silver Surfer sees that he has little choice if Earth is to survive and so he accepts the conditions offered by Galactus and flies back into space, returning once again to hand from which he had first emerged in his shining glory.

This is a weird story, more a fable really. It's set apart from the Marvel Universe and since it largely recapitulates the events of the first Galactus story in the Fantastic Four, it cannot be blended into chronology. I suspect this story occupies an Earth which has been given a number designation by now, but I haven't yet bothered to look that up. This is a very talky tale with exceedingly little "action". There is a battle between the Surfer and Galactus but it's mostly a miss since we know how that has to turn out. There is no Ultimate Nullifier this time, so Galactus withdraws from Earth the first time for his own, most inscruable reasons.

We do get a fascinating sequence when the Surfer adopts a human guise and walks among men, falling victim to crime almost immediately. Despite this, he continues to champion mankind and sees in the youth  of the population a great hope. There is surprisingly little racial diversity in this story. All the characters who speak save one are white and even the crowd scenes have an upscale suburban look to them. This is weakness for a story which wants to preach about the needs of humanity to overcome its differences. This is a surprising failure on Kirby's part. There is one significant black face in the story and sadly that belongs to a mugger. Perhaps I overstate this weakness but that it occurred to me at all is not good.

The way in which the Silver Surfer emerges from the hand of Galactus and then returns to it seems much more in keeping with Kirby's original conception of the character as being of pure energy and not really having a past. This story seems to want to have it both ways. Really it could be argued that this whole story is all about Galactus who divides aspects of himself out and then contends with them. The Surfer is part of him, the sly gray bird like man is part of him and Ardina likewise seems to be part of Galactus. It's only in the dialogue really that you see variations on this. Kirby was hurt when Stan absconded with the Surfer and contracted with John Buscema to do the series way back when. It was one of the many grudges he nursed as he took his talents to DC. Now a decade later we seem to get the Silver Surfer story that the King intended.

Kirby's original cover was rejected (sort of) and a version of that same illustration was done by veteran cover artist Earl Norem. (See the top of this post.) To my eye the Norem cover is much weaker than the Kirby original, but that's how things went in the late 70's. If you'd like to actually read this epic fable, check out this link. It's an amazing glimpse into the last hurrah for one of the great comic book duos.

More Surfer next time as his we see what happened after he broke with Galactus in the regular Marvel Universe of 616. 

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Star-Lord!

The snarky marginally portly chap who calls himself Star-Lord in all those very successful Marvel movies ain't your Momma's Star-Lord. That fellow, named Peter Quill too was a pretty safe distance from the entertaining malarky that defines those Guardians of the Galaxy movies. But due to the success of those movies Marvel saw fit to reprint in one handy volume Star-Lord's earliest appearances. 

Star-Lord kicked off in the fourth issue of Marvel Preview. The story was written by Steve Englehart and drawn by Steve Gan. Beneath this handsome Gray Morrow cover we meet Peter Quill, a young boy and then young man who is filled with anger. His Mother was killed by aliens and Pete saw this, then vowed to get revenge. To that end he seeks service in the space corps of Earth and is not at all concerned about how he obtains his goals. 

He's a very unlikeable character in this first installment. But nonetheless he schemes and brutalizes his way to encounter the Master of the Sun who gifts him with his abilities and weapons. Peter only wants vengeance for his Mother's death, but he then finds out he is meant for more Much is made of Astrology in this story, as Englehart was a devotee at the time. But this aspect of the character was dropped in his very next appearance. 

It is Star-Lord's next appearance in the eleventh issue of Marvel Preview though that really stuck in the memories of many a Marvelite of the time. Chris Claremont and John Byrne were a new team, yet to tackle the X-Men when they came to this space saga. Now we see Star-Lord doing his work, saving people from slavers from space. This is a splendid yarn and we can see the raw talent of Byrne quickening with each page aided by the inks of Terry Austin, while Claremont makes Peter Quill a much more aloof yet still more sympathetic hero. This story also introduces "Ship", the intelligent spacecraft which is Star-Lord's partner. 

This story has proven so popular that it has been reprinted twice as a standalone comic, once in the 80's and again in the 90's. New material was created by Claremont, Austin, and artist Michael Golden to make the story make a bit more sense. 

The fourteenth issue of Marvel Preview brings Star-Lord back under a very handsome cover by Jim Starlin. Chris Claremont stays with the character but the new artist is the legendary Carmine Infantino. His pencils defined the future in many a DC comic of years past and he brings a strong powerful style to this hero. We learn a great deal more about Ship as she adopts a humanoid form to interact with Peter Quill. The two of them are trying to survive on a very deadly planet. 

That same team is back in the fifteenth issue which shows the duo stopping a deadly fleet from destroying worlds. Peter is alerted to this threat by a dream, and given his powers combined with that he seems a real precursor to Nexus who was likewise motivated by dreams. The similarity between these heroes really stood out to me as I read these stories for the first time in years. By the way that's a Joe Jusko cover above. Star-Lord didn't appear often but when he did, he got the best of the best. 

Star-Lord appears in color for the first time in a story written by Claremont but drawn and apparently painted to some degree by Gene Colan. This is a lush package underneath a powerful Earl Norem cover. Peter Quill finds romance of a sort with a creature who only appears to be an Earth woman to suit him. 

Doug Moench becomes the regular writer of Star-Lord in the eighteenth issue of Marvel Preview and is joined by artist s Bill Sienkiewicz and Bob McLeod. Quill is matched up against a race of "Lion Men" (shades of Flash Gordon). Somewhere along the way Star-Lord lost his helmet and it was a mistake in my opinion. The look of his costume is hurt with its absence. But clearly the creators wanted to show his face more, the same reason mask don't last long in most feature films not starring Batman. 

Star-Lord jumps to color comics in the sixth issue of the second Marvel Spotlight series. His origin is revisited, and we learn much more about the Master of the Sun and his connection to a young Peter Quill. Tom Sutton becomes the new regular artist, joining Moench. I really like Sutton's take on the character. 

The pair are back in the next issue in a story in which the life cycle of a species is central to the outcome of the plot. While Peter Quill is a powerful man, he is a man who is often confused by the creatures he meets. Moench is really quite good at presenting alien intelligences. 

The stories jump to Marvel Premiere and we get a story told from the point of view of a planet. That gives the story a larger and more profound perspective. Moench with Sutton's input is really interested in doing interesting things with the character, but alas this issue will be the last Star-Lord story for many years. 

This volume closes out by jumping to the 90's when a three-part mini-series starring the character is launched written by science fiction talent Timoth Zahn and drawn (painted really) by Dan Lawlis. We learn more about then nature Star-Lord's powers and the great cost it requires to use them. Actually this adventure doesn't feature Peter Quill who has been missing for some time as the story picks up but instead installs Sinjin Quarrel, a young telepath in the role. He picks up the mantle when he unearths Ship. The duo are then thrust into an adventure which has them confront some of the worst outlaws in space. I don't know how this fits into the larger Star-Lord saga but I'm not required to know. It was a nice addition. 

And that wraps up the classic adventures of Star-Lord, one of Marvel's more interesting Bronze Age characters. You have to give them credit for really staying with the concept and trying to find a way to launch it. But that old canard about science fiction not selling in comics seems to have proven true, at least back then. 

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The Tomb Of Dracula - Volume Four!

The fourth volume of The Tomb of Dracula Essential is different from the three which had preceded it. All of the Bronze Age Tomb of Dracula comics have been collected, so all that is left is a few issues of the The Tomb of Dracula magazine and then stories about Dracula from the copious pages of Dracula Lives. The editors went one step further and arranged those stories not as they appeared but as they occur chronologically in the fictional history of Marvel's Dracula character. We get to see him become a vampire, then consolidate his vampire legions and then we follow him as he tumbles through world history right up until the then modern day. It's a fascinating way to read these stories, produced by a virtual army of great comic book talent. 

But first a few of the later magazines. Dracula's daughter Lilith is front and center in a story from the fifth issue by Roger McKenzie and artists Gene Colan and Tom Palmer. The daughter of Dracula thinks her father is weak and chooses a moment to strike when she imagines she can once and for all end his existence. She is unrelenting in her attacks. The enmity between Lilith and Dracula is powerful stuff, the dark shadow of what such a relationship ought to be. 

Some of the stories of an historical nature are saved for their timely occurrence in the unfolding history of Dracula. But a few modern-day choices showcase the effects of vampirism on regular folks. One woman, a ballerina is bitten and struggles mightily against the transformation. which is robbing her of her soul, the very soul which informs her art, the most important thing in her life. Her struggle is a noble one and elicits even admiration from Dracula himself. 

Above is the debut issue of Dracula Lives with a stellar cover by Boris Vallejo. I'm not going to attempt to details the myriad tales which relate Dracula's history. We follow him through many famous events such as the French Revolution, the Salem Witch Trials, and more. His malign influence is often at the root of things we think we know. We see the origin of the generations-long clash between Dracula and the Van Helsing family. Dracula faces many brave men and women who sometimes win and sometimes lose, but mostly are lucky to live through the encounter. Artistic talents like John Buscema, Syd Shores, Neal Adams, Gene Colan, Steve Gan, Tony DeZuniga, Dick Ayers, Frank Springer, Frank Robbins, and many more offer up art inspired by the world's most famous vampire. Writers such as Roy Thomas, Marv Wolfman, Gerry Conway, Steve Gerber, Doug Moench, and many more create morsels of vampire delight. 

Below is a cover gallery for Dracula Lives! Enjoy!

Jordi Penalva

Neal Adams

Earl Norem

Luis Dominguez

Luis Dominguez

Luis Dominguez

Luis Dominguez

Luis Dominguez

Luis Dominguez

Stephen Fabian 

Ken Bald 

Earl Norem

Gray Morrow

Dracula is arguably the most infamous fictional villain in the world. With countless books and unending films, the saga of his heinous vampire seems never to end. For a time in the 1970's Marvel did an outstanding job of taking what was known and making of it an epic tale worthy of the character. But it's not over, it's never over, because as we know Dracula, King of the Vampires, Lord of the Undead, will always return. 

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Dragonslayer!

This artwork by the late Jeffery Jones is a pretty sweet image for a pretty sweet little 1981 movie.  Dragonslayer was a neat little micro-epic with outstanding special effects, even by today's standards, and an above average story of an apprentice dragonslayer having to fend off not only the monster but an entire village to boot. The movie loses its way a bit in the wildly spectacular ending which while visually compelling is at odds a bit in tone to the rest of the movie. But overall an outstanding effort. 

Here's a sketch Jones made as he constructed the poster.

 

And here is the final product, one of the more alluring posters from an era when posters were really nifty by and large. 

   

"Vermithrax Pejorative", the dragon remains the best evocation of a dragon on the screen that I've ever seen, and that's saying something given the advances in special effects since that time forty years ago now. Since then of course there have been a host of dragons done with computer graphics and some are quite excellent such as those in Reign of Fire and of course Smaug for The Hobbit trilogy, but somehow with the myriad physical effects and some dandy stop motion, this little movie gave us a dragon that was indeed scary and without uttering a word was vile as well. 

 

Marvel adapted this movie with art by Marie Severin, and the cover above by Earl Norem is effective if not especially opulent.

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