Mort Todd's Monsters Attack!

Mort Todd was an editor for Cracked Magazine, MAD's longtime rival during the 80's. A fan of monsters, he incorporated them into Cracked with great success as born out by the Cracked companion magazine Cracked's Monster Party. Then Todd went one step further and created Monsters Attack. According to Todd, he did this without the okay of his publishers and pushed out a few issues before they even knew. They put a halt to the magazine until they saw the sales numbers and then gave it the thumbs up after a half year layoff. 

Todd wanted to create a magazine which was a synthesis of Famous Monsters of Filmland and Creepy. He succeeded, especially in the early issues. He tapped proven pros such as Steve Ditko, Gray Morrow, Pat Boyette, Gene Colan and even the reluctant Alex Toth. The latter didn't draw a new story for the magazine, but did offer up one he'd done for Charlton, but withheld due to the meager pay. (That story titled "Bookworm" was written by Nick Cuti and was given to Nicholas Alascia to draw. That story too is included in this collection for those who want to compare.) Todd took advantage of his position to ink a Ditko story, much to the story's detriment. Todd recognized his error thankfully and most of the Ditko stories are pure. 

But things grew difficult as the final issues began to be produced. Todd eventually left after purchasing stories for the fifth and final issue, but he had little control of the magazine after that. Given that these two collections are titled "Mort Todd's Monsters Attack!", he does not include any work he didn't commission or played a key role in obtaining. Strangely that seemed to also apply to a Poe adaptation by Walter Brogan from issue two. 

In addition to great horror tales by proven masters, we are treated to articles on movies, books, ranging from classic reviews of Universal's Frankenstein films to an exhaustive examination of the Godzilla movies. One of the stranger things in the collections is a detailed chart documenting Jason's kills over the course of several of the Friday the Thirteenth series. Even if like me you already own all five of the Monsters Attack! series, there is still some new-old goodness with "Transformation Flying", a Todd-John Severin effort which for some reason was never used and is delivered here for the first time. 

Here are the covers. 

(Debut cover inspired by the first issue of Creepy.)

(Severin cover meant to evoke that Famous Monsters of Filmland vibe.)

(Another solid John Severin offering of a splitting headache.)

(Severin again, this time it's Godzilla based on an Aurora model.)

(A George Bush --not that one--painting of Karloff's monster.)

These are fun comics produced by an editor who was rich with youth and energy, tapping veterans who were in need of a place to create. 

One great detail I never noticed is that the "Attack!" part of the title was copied from the vintage Charlton classic Fantastic Giants which celebrated the work of Steve Ditko. 

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Don't Be Blue!

Put a happy smile on your face! (I have to remember to follow my own advice.)

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Nick Fury Agent Of SHIELD - File Three!

Following the epic war with Hydra, the SHIELD series was left with a problem -- how to top what had been a bravura performance. We had seen the series under the guidance of Steranko become a lithe and compelling visual spectacle. What could follow? Well, it turns out he reached into the dim recesses of Marvel's own past to pull out a baddie worthy of Nick Fury's agents -- The Yellow Claw!

(Joe Maneely)

One of the most vivid examples of the "Yellow Peril", Marvel's Asian evil mastermind Yellow Claw started his ominous career in his own rather too on-the-nose self-titled 1956 comic. His debut adventures were written by Al Feldstein and drawn by Atlas-era mainstay Joe Maneely.

The earliest stories introduce Yellow Claw himself, a supremely confident and thoroughly reprehensible genius who sells is talents to the Communist Chinese, or at least they suppose he has. He is opposed by noble FBI agent Jimmy Woo and torn between these two powerful men is Suwan, Yellow Claw's niece and Woo's true love. We also meet former Nazi  and regular henchman Fritz Von Voltzmann. The formula developed by Sax Rohmer in his Fu Manchu novels is in place here with the Yellow Claw perpetrating some villainy and Suwan working both sides while Jimmy Woo seeks to find a way to end the menace.

(John Severin)

That formula gets a shot of adrenaline when with the second issue Jack Kirby fresh from his long partnership with Joe Simon, steps in to handle both the art and writing chores. Suddenly Yellow Claw is working less for the Reds than for himself and the Communist angle is little mentioned. Also, his schemes become wilder and crazier and the art by Kirby with assists from his wife Roz, reflects that change.

Yellow Claw uses mutants to alter reality, and later tries to escape Woo aboard a ship with wild disguises, and uses a gigantic robot to fool some local natives into rampaging against the civilized world. It's all very rockem' sockem' with a frenetic pace.

(Bill Everett)

If anything, the second Kirby issue is stranger.

The Claw makes use of a squadron of "microscopic" soldiers to infiltrate U.S. secrets, he works in league with an actual alien who is dubbed "U.F.O. the Lightning Man",and makes use of a noxious sleeping potion to subdue whole cities. 

(John Severin)

The fourth and final issue of the series sees Kirby inked by John Severin and while that tones down the artwork a might, it doesn't limit the stories.

Yellow Claw enlists the aid of shadow people from another dimension, mutant birds who are creepily human, and a powerful psychic who puts people to sleep by means of television.

The stories are short little exotic masterpieces full of vigor and a bristling pace. Sometimes Jimmy Woo is effective, but often he is just lucky. The series ends with Suwan and Jimmy wondering where Yellow Claw will strike next. We'd have to wait a long, long time for that next assault. 

The story begins when Dum Dum Dugan, Gabe Jones, Jasper Sitwell and Laura Brown step away from the spotlight of the series for various reasons leaving Nick to find new allies. His first step is to go to the training center for SHIELD called UNIT and there he meets Sidney "The Gaff" Levine and Contessa Valentina Allegro De Fontaine.

Later he will meet the loquacious Clay Quartermain. He later battle trains with the inimitable Captain America.

This leads to the arrival of Jimmy Woo and then Nick tells the story of an event a few years earlier when New York City had famously gone dark. We learn that some mysterious armored soldiers had taken over Bedloe Island (home of the Statue of Liberty) and that Nick and Cap had fought them.

That battle ended up with the help of the Fantastic Four and an awesome battle which did indeed black out the city for a time. They never find out who was behind this scheme, but Jimmy Wood announces it was The Yellow Claw.

This leads Nick to confront the Yellow Claw directly and the mysterious Asian menace is able a few times to get Nick to fall into booby traps. He even manipulates SHIELD into gathering up the parts of a deadly death ray developed by Advanced Idea Mechanics.

Armed with this deadly device Yellow Claw and his forces take to the skies over NYC and prepare to destroy it when SHIELD is able to use the Helicarrier to attack and board the Claw's ship. Stalled but not defeated Yellow Claw withdraws to his hidden lair beneath the Hudson River.

But he is followed by Nick Fury and soon enough all of SHIELD as they wage a final and all-out war to stop the malignant forces of the Yellow Claw. The battle rages and seemingly the Claw's niece Suwan is killed but then a deadly secret is revealed that calls everything into question. I will not spoil one of the great hidden twists in Marvel lore.

 

I will not spoil one of the great hidden twists in Marvel lore. The ferocious climax was captured in this four-page scene which require two issues to enjoy in all its glory. 

Later after the battle, a weary Nick Fury dreams about what might happen if an alien descended and brought death and destruction to NYC. Fortunately, it's not the end of the world, but it is the end of Strange Tales. The series will become Doctor Strange and Nick Fury and his agents of SHIELD will get their own beautiful spanking brand-new number one issue.

More on that next time when Nick and his agents get their own comic all to themselves. 

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Nick Fury Agent Of SHIELD - File One!

Thanks to the massive hit James Bond, spies were very much among us in the 60's with espionage-flavored entertainments all around. Movies gave us Harry Palmer, Matt Helm and Derek Flint. TV gave us The Man from U.N.C.L.E, Get Smart, and The Wild Wild West. And Comics gave us plenty with material like the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents from Tower, The Man From R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E. from Archie, and assorted stuff like that. 

Marvel though delivered the most long-lasting variation when they dusted off World War II veteran Nick Fury and had him take charge of the Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-Enforcement Division or S.H.I.E.L.D.

Nick's first foray into the 60's was in the Fantastic Four #21 when he shows up to help the Fab 4 put down the vile Hate Monger. With it firmly established that Fury had now survived the war and was part of the then-current Marvel Universe it only remained to figure out how to best utilize him. 

The story in Strange Tales #135 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby kicks off with a bang with Nick Fury, currently a C.I.A. agent having been recruited into a super-secret super-scientific force to battle a nefarious secret army called Hydra. Hydra is a sprawling cadre of evil-minded types who want to take over the world and are led by a masked individual called the Supreme Hydra.

The organization takes elements of Hitler's old S.S. and blends it with vintage America Ku Klux Klan regalia, and we have a dangerous mix of criminal zealots in a secret army who are willing and apparently able to undermine the United States itself using the cold efficiency of modern business applied to crime and terrorism. John Severin is brought back into the Bullpen to take over finishes over Kirby's layouts.

Against this threat steps in Nick Fury who is quickly joined by his old comrades Dum Dum Dugan and Gabe Jones of the Howling Commandos. All of these hard-nosed veterans are more than willing to fight the good fight using wild and crazy technology dreamed up by Tony Stark and other bigwigs who work in the mysterious hallways of SHIELD.

Quickly on in the series the EC Comics great Severin gives the artwork a realistic polish that Kirby's potent energetic poses cannot deliver on their own. Severin seems slated to be the guy but sadly after a few issues gives way to a committee of talents who slide in and out, doing their best over Kirby layouts.

One of the things about these early issues is that there is real death as SHIELD agents lay down their lives throughout the series, though of course Fury himself always seems to escape unscathed.

Hydra proves to be a relentless menace with a vast organization which allows the criminal army to bring the efficiency of modern industry to the world-conquering game.

There is an end to the Supreme Hydra eventually, but it has much in common with the kind of enemy and demise that a Steve Ditko might have developed. Of course, we know that Hydra will return, as they must because as they say all the time -- "Cut off a limb and two more shall take its place".

The Fixer and Mentallo are two of my favorite Marvel baddies. This dastardly duo first get together following the downfall of Hydra and when we meet Mentallo, a former SHIELD technician who went astray and was removed from his position with the organization in the E.S.P. Division.

Mentallo wants to take revenge and to that end recruits the Fixer, breaking him out of jail. Mentallo's mind-reading abilities give him advantage, but Fixer's uncanny skill at making deadly equipment makes the pair something to reckon with.

The infiltrate SHIELD but are rebuffed and later kidnap Fury attacking him to a deadly atomic weapon. But eventually as it must they are defeated and sent off to jail once again. SHIELD's encounter with this deadly duo was a nice little triad of stories which served well to transition away from the heavy emphasis on Hydra.

Loved Kirby's designs in these issues especially the overall look of Fixer and Mentallo, two of Kirby's better designs. After casting about for an artistic direction Howard Purcell was brought in, to tighten up Kirby's layouts for these few issues, though there's little doubt that Kirby's imagery is what makes these issues vivid.

One curiosity for me was the familiar look of the E.S.P. Division trio who are mostly seen in these stories hooked into the SHIELD equipment. They remind me mightily of New Gods characters Dave Lincoln, Claudia Shane and Victor Lanza who along with a fourth youngster named Harvey Lockman were saved from Darkseid by Orion in the debut issue of that series. 

When we first encounter that quartet, they are likewise hooked up to machines to explore their minds. 

The Druid is one of those missed opportunities. When the mysterious Satan Eggs show up and blow up a plane they seem to be a real threat and we quickly learn that they are the emissaries of a deadly cult which functions as a high-tech variation on the ancient druid cults of ancient times. They are lead by a distinctive looking character called the Druid.

But the threat is quickly tracked and quelled and the Druid proves to be far less impressive when he attempts to go one-on-one with Nick Fury. The Druid cult and their weird Satan Eggs are merely diversion in SHIELD's long war against villainous types.

These issues are probably most interesting in the long run for the debut of Jasper Sitwell, the top graduate of SHIELD's academy and a rather funny counter to Fury's shoot-from-the-hip style. Jasper has always been a fave of mine, a nerd who was capable of some true mayhem but easily discounted because of his precious appearance.

Don Heck does some pretty fine work over Kirby's layouts in these issues (with the help of inker "Mickey Demeo" - that's Mike Esposito actually), the two of them almost always delivering to my eye a handsome end product. Wished they'd worked more together. 

The saga of SHIELD and Nick Fury takes a detour when Nick shows up at Avengers Mansion in Tales of Suspense #78 to have a chat with his old WWII comrade Captain America. The two of them come under attack by a deadly android from the DNA-rich vats of the super-science organization dubbed "THEM'. (I was reminded of "The Evil Factory" from the earliest issues of Kirby's Jimmy Olsen.) This android can combine chemicals in his body to create all sorts of deadly effects but together Cap and Nick bring him down eventually. At the end Nick gives Cap a SHIELD security badge and we realize we haven't seen the last of him.

Over in Strange Tales #147 the battle continues as Nick and SHIELD track down where the android came from and discover an underwater laboratory lair occupied by two of THEM's agents. Previously he had learned that the attack of Mentallo and the Fixer had been at least partially financed by THEM. Dressed in the now familiar yellow radiation-suit inspired togs of A.I.M. these two scientists appear to be a criminal branch of A.I.M. which at that moment is represented by Count Bornag Royale as a legit think tank which is offering high-tech weapons to the world if they will remove Nick Fury as commander of SHIELD. So, it seems that THEM and A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics) are two arms of the same outfit, but it gets more complicated yet.

During a hearing to possibly remove Fury, he abruptly takes a header out of the window of the awesome helicarrier. Thought dead he then leads a counterattack against the forces of A.I.M. who have shown up in force at SHIELD headquarters to try and take control of LMD technology. The attack is foiled and eventually Count Royale is revealed. Followed by Jasper Sitwell, Royale appears to be killed when A.I.M.'s main secret base is exploded by forces unknown.

The long missing Gabe Jones reappears in the garb of the Secret Empire, as it was shown in the pages of Tales to Astonish where that secret criminal outfit had been giving both Hulk and Sub-Mariner problems. Infiltrating their ranks Jones was able to remove the threat for the moment. But now Fury and his agents begin to suspect that THEM, A.I.M. and The Secret Empire might all be merely "arms" of a larger and more deadly enemy - Hydra!

These are some fun issues and the shifting back and forth of the enemy does really have an espionage feel, though it does seem that the writers lost track of what they were all called. The artwork though suffers a bit as Odgen Whitney steps in to handle the pencils on the last chapter of the story, his work is developed but lacks that Marvel energy and punch. One notable event was that one chapter of his run was written by Jack Kirby (and credited as same) before Denny O'Neil stepped into take over from Stan.

The attempt to blend all of these secret organizations in sundry comics really amps up a feeling of paranoia and a larger world threat worthy of the heroes.

More next time when that special someone is added to the SHIELD mix. 

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