Friday Special: Trial of the Black Panther
Jul 8, 11
In issue 30 of his 1998 series, T’Challa, King of Wakanda and the heroic Black Panther to determine whether he should be deported from the US like he was a Sicilian gangster or something. Anyway, the two big witnesses in his favor were Mister Fantastic and Captain America. Reed has the easy part: all he had to do is summarize FANTASTIC FOUR #52-54 (and if he put it in writing he could send it in to Julio’s Fantastic Four Library to get an ePass—or could, if Julio had an FF Library). Cap gets the harder task: relating the never-before-seen first meeting of Cap and T’Challa’s father T’Chaka during World War 2—and giving Marvel the idea for CAPTAIN AMERICA/BLACK PANTHER: FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS a decade later, which covers the same story in more detail (and is already on this site). The later miniseries had Sergeant Fury and the Howling Commandos, Red Skull, Master Man, Warrior Woman, and more…but the Black Panther issue had the one and only Everett K. Ross, so I’d say it came out ahead. Thanks to Rob Johnson for sending in the details on this issue, which can be found here.
This Week: Three Cheers for the Red White and Blue!
Jul 4, 11
It’s Cap’s favorite holiday—Independence Day—and the final regular issue of the 2009 CAPTAIN AMERICA series is here: but the title ends on an odd note. How? Because no one appears on the cover or inside wearing the familiar Captain America outfit. The "Gulag" story arc wraps up in a satisfying fashion but Cap is out of the picture. Best they can do: Steve Rogers is on the cover dressed in blue and white; and Bucky appears in his Winter Soldier guise—which makes him a Red. Red, white, and blue. The things we have to go through to tie these updates together. Oh yeah, the issue write-up appears immediately to the right—and the new series starts in a couple of weeks, with the movie a week later.
And as promised, we return with the next three issues of MARVEL SUPER-HEROES SECRET WARS. The 1980s event designed to sell a new line of action figures featured a large number of Marvel’s favorite heroes and villains, including Captain America. Occasionally it hit the heights of greatness…and in issue 4 we have one of Hulk’s greatest feats: holding up an entire mountain range to save his pals. Who says he's not a team player? Here are issues #4-6 of 12, and the remaining issues will be up in coming weeks.
Friday Special: More Tales! More Suspense!
Jul 1, 11
CAPTAIN AMERICA: SENTINEL OF LIBERTY #5 offers us a bit of 1960s nostalgia. It is designed to look like an issue of TALES OF SUSPENSE, down to the split cover and the Cap Iron Man pairing.
The first story is the Iron Man tale, guest-starring Captain America naturally, set right after Cap’s return from icy exile, as Shellhead takes Cap on a tour of the modern world. Early sixties alien invaders soon show up for the standard action.
This is followed by a Captain America tale, wherein Steve goes undercover in an insane asylum to solve the mystery of a man who knows all the nation’s secrets, featuring an encounter with a familiar foe—of another hero.
It’s a nice look back at the comics of a gentler time, when Bucky was the only one who was dead.
This Week: More Avengers!
Jun 27, 11
Avenger Aficionado Rob Johnson does more of what he does best: filling us in on the history of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. This time around he sends us AVENGERS #30-37. These eventful eight issues see the writing duties pass from Stan Lee to Roy Thomas. Thus we have the return of Hank (now Goliath) and Jan (always the Wasp) to the team, while Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver take a brief sabbatical. Black Widow starts hanging around with the team and is proposed for membership. And we get the first appearances of Bill Foster (Later Black Goliath/just plain Goliath), the villainous Living Laser, and the hate group Sons of the Serpent. And there’s always more to come; the details start here.
The Dean is Gone
Jun 25, 11
Gene Colan, one of the great Marvel artists, passed away on June 23; he was 84 years old. Mr. Colan was known for his dark and shadowy art, which brought a more realistic look to Daredevil, Iron Man, and Captain America in the 1960s. He was also the unlikely artist for the original HOWARD THE DUCK series. His greatest contribution to comics was, in my opinion, drawing all 70 issues of TOMB OF DRACULA in the 1970s, the best work I’ve ever seen for the character (and there are a lot of Dracula comics out there). His Dracula may be one of the finest marriages of character and artist in comics history. Mr. Colan penciled CAPTAIN AMERICA (1968 series) #116 to 137 wherein he co-created the Falcon; his last great Cap contribution was issue #601, "Red, White, & Blue-Blood" for which he won an Eisner Award. We’ll miss him.
Friday Special: The Five Captains
Jun 24, 11
Not long ago this site featured CAPTAIN AMERICA ANNUAL #6, wherein the enigmatic Mister Buda brought together all four men who had served as Captain America to team up and deal with a crisis in an alternate timeline. It read like a variation on the old DOCTOR WHO multi-Doctor stories—except all four incarnations dressed alike.
Well, last week, Marvel came out with CAPTAIN AMERICA CORPS #1 wherein Roger Stern has a whack at the same event. Mister Buda, going by his other name Tath Ki (which my SpellCheck keeps changing to "That Ki"), brings together five variations on Cap (who don’t all look alike): Steve (scaled outfit), Bucky (shiny outfit), USAgent (red, white, and black), American Dream (girl-shaped costume), and Commander A (new guy, wears armor), and puts them into a similar Whovian nightmare. At five issues, this miniseries looks like it’s going to be fun. And here are the details on this first installment.
This Week: Twenty-First Century Blitz!
Jun 20, 11
The Red Skull was up to some old tricks—and we mean old—in CAPTAIN AMERICA Vol. 5 #18-21: he was planning to blitz London with a sinister secret plan. Not to worry, Captain America is there—with the Invaders? Well, just the young Union Jack and the even younger Spitfire but it counts, right? Oh yeah and the Winter Soldier (remember him?) was on the scene as well. The Red Skull comes up with his most audacious—and impossible—plot yet, and the details are here.
Friday Special: Darkhawk and DD and Cap, Oh My!
Jun 17, 11
I was flipping through the quarter bin at my comic shop and spotted DARKHAWK #6 with Captain America on the cover. I said, "Who the heck is Darkhawk?" and decided that 25 cents was a good investment for a Cap comic to write up for the site.
So who the heck is Darkhawk? He was the star of a series published by Marvel in the 90s featuring a teen named Chris Powell. Young Chris had an amulet that would allow him to change places with an alien android with superpowered armor that otherwise sat in suspended animation in a space station orbiting Earth. Or something like that, I don’t remember everything Wikipedia said. What they didn’t say was that the hero seemed like a mash-up of Captain Mar-Vell and Nova (who was already a rip-off of Green Lantern) with some of the enigmatic qualities of Omega. And in issue 6 they teamed him with Captain America and Daredevil against the U-Foes (what, no Hulk? Julio’s gonna be jealous.). Cap was the Avenger on the scene but DD just happened to be walking down the street when stuff got real and jumped into the fray. DD’s appearance seemed like an editor told the writer, "Throw in another hero." "Who?" "I don’t care, roll a twelve-sided die or something!" And Daredevil was the winner.
So it was a lot easier writing this up for the Captain America Library than for the Daredevil Library (still available if you’re interested).
And if anyone out there wants to manage the Darkhawk Library, hey, here’s one issue already done. Smiley face.