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…
- Daredevil #19 (Aug 1966)
- Tales to Astonish #83 (Sept 1966)
- The X-Men #23 (Aug 1966)
- Thor #131 (Aug 1966)
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Daredevil #19: Foggy STILL pretending to be Daredevil. I agree this is poking a little fun at the silver age trope of the girlfriend trying to prove the hero’s secret identity. Usually this would get resolved at the end of each issue, but getting drawn out is pretty wild.
It reminds me of a story I’d heard about but not read. Hal Jordan’s brother’s girlfriend thought Hal’s brother was Green Lantern. So she Lois Lane-d him, and Hal ended up having to save her repeatedly, but also it sounded like GL did a terrible job at convincing her that he wasn’t Hal’s brother, which should have been easy as, you know, he wasn’t! Oh Hal.
Tales to Astonish #83: Namor fighty-fight with Krang. It was some cool fighty-fight, but that’s all I have. Except that Namor’s such a jerky-jerk by not trying to listen to Dorma.
Hulk and Secret Empire shenanigans. Do none of the Numbers have a sense of self-preservation? “Wait, you kill each other to advance? Yeah, that’s ok, I’ll go back to working at Waffle House. Bye!”
Wait, is Boomerang wearing a boomerang on the front of his pants? (My eyes!) I could swear that’s what I saw, but I’m too terrified to go back and confirm. Leads to jokes that are *not* family-friendly!
The X-Men #23: Count Nefaria? More like Count Nefari-yuck! Amirite? (I can do “bits”. Not well, but I can do ’em.)
Certainly an interesting thought that rather than “anti-mutant hysteria”, what really was depicted here is “anti-X-Men”. Pretending to work with the bad guys, a trope that normally would be resolved in a single issue with medals being handed to the clever heroes at the end. But instead, since they don’t have PR like the FF or Avengers, the public just sees 2 X-Men robbing banks (Blob and Unus), and the main team threaten to kill the US capital city! Suddenly, the notion that people don’t know if the X-Men are heroes or villains by the 70s makes sense! I didn’t understand it before, but now I do. Crazy!
The Strange Tales Squaddies totally could be an animated series. I hear lots of sad trombone sounds at the end of each episode.
Thor #131: The Colonizers! I know *of* them, but have read almost nothing with them. Except for the humanoid Recorders they build and send all over the universe. How long until we see them, I wonder?
When I read “Tana Nile”, I think of “Tana Moon”, the 90s Superboy’s reporter girlfriend. Since Superboy’s series had a bunch of Kirby influences, maybe Moon’s name is an homage to Nile’s.
“From the depths of the 24th quadrant.” Yes, that’s said in this issue. My math major sense is tingling.
“How did Volstagg get into that barrel?” “Thor looks weird with brown hair.” Yes and yes.
Thanks for another fun episode, guys. Until next time, or until Volstagg shows off his finishing move, sitting on someone’s foot, make mine Make Ours Marvel.