Welcome to Make Ours Marvel, the weekly show where Michael Kaiser and Jon M. Wilson read chronologically through Marvel Comics’ spandex adventures and discuss their thoughts with little to no authority.
In this episode…
- Sgt. Fury #13 (Dec 1964)
- Amazing Spider-Man #20 (Jan 1965)
- Tales of Suspense #61 (Jan 1965)
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Sgt Fury #13: It sure didn’t take long from the modern return of Captain America to have him appearing in a WW2 comic, and nowadays, most Cap WW2 stories have Fury and the Howlers as guest stars. Not that I’m complaining, because I think this story was handled really well. Fury not knowing Private Rogers makes this sound a lot of fun, letting us readers in on the joke.
Nick drinking tea with his pinky out. Wow.
Amazing Spider-Man #20: Spidey says “It’s some nut in a scorpion costume!” You know what color I identify with scorpions? NOT GREEN. Let’s see, also, there’s no claws, only 4 limbs plus tail, and no stinger. Honestly, if the book didn’t tell me this guy was named “The Scorpion”, I wouldn’t have guessed that in a million years. All I come up with is “Green Michelin Man! with a tail.”
But you know what? I’ve always loved the Scorpion. He’s a great match for Spidey without being identical. Not a dark reflection, maybe a dirty mirror reflection. And a great issue to boot. Jonah goes too far, has remorse, but doesn’t learn the right lesson. Heh-heh!
Tales of Suspense #61: So Tony can’t remove the armor, including the pants, because he needs the external pods. How … does he go to the bathroom? Is that why his trunks have those horizontal segments? It’s not an artistic flourish, it’s zippers so little Tony can do his business? Ugh! I don’t want to think about that!
Oh, and also Tony has to protect his secret identity so his employees and loved won’t be attacked by Iron Man’s enemies. So what happens? The Mandarin attacks TONY! Not Iron Man. Tony Stark. Thus immediately nullifying the argument right there. But… is that the point? Was Stan deliberately poking fun at the superhero secret identity trope? I don’t think so, because it should have led to Iron Man going public back then. Just an interesting thought.
Cap fighting a Sumo wrestler. It was pretty cool, and what I expect from a comic book sumo guy. But consider. In the very first Ultimate Fighter Championship (which I saw with my Tae Kwon Do friends), the hook was having guys from all sorts of disciplines matched up. The first two was a sumo versus a savate kickboxer (basically Batroc the Leaper). The sumo just charges, savate skidooshes out of the way, sumo runs into the ropes and turns around, as savate does a jump roundhouse kick to sumo’s face and a TOOTH GOES FLYING OUT! So, sumo lost right there. Yes, I know the comic versions are not intended to be realistic. But it makes it hard to take big guys (who are still just human) seriously when they’re fighting a skilled, strong, fast opponent like Cap.
Besides that, the issue was ok. Honest! I see them trying to set up Cap as an amazing fighter, and are working to find the hook for the stories to tell. I’m really interested in seeing more about Mandarin, especially his beef with Stark. So keep them coming.
Until Spidey’s foes all notice their shared color choice and rebrand as “The Green Team”, make mine Make Ours Marvel!