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…
- The Avengers #37
- Strange Tales #154
- Thor #138
- Sgt. Fury #40
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The Avengers #37: Things I liked: using teamwork to fight big robot, Ixar using the team’s code against killing to see thru Hawkeye’s bluff, and Black Widow scaring the bejeezus out of Ixar.
Things I didn’t like: this goofy threat giving the team so much trouble, names like Ultroid and Ixar and Ultrana, and not understanding why was Ixar in the Burger Master.
From the animated special “Santa Claus is coming to town”, the jerky town official was “Burgermeister Meisterburger”. It’s also interesting that “major” is pronounced “mayor” in Spanish. Well, it’s interesting to me. I’ll stop now.
Strange Tales #154: Fury versus the Dreadnought. One thing that robots need is a metallic lion’s mane. And abs. Very important that robots do their crunches.
I did like the earlier “gadget review” which introduced toys to use in future issues, rather than immediately, especially with such short stories per issue.
Dr Strange versus Umar, where Clea must die, but doesn’t appear, except as a face in a floating mirror. Wait a minute, is this an homage to Snow White? Evil queen who looks alternately beautiful and ugly? Clea has white hair? Handsome dude coming to rescue her? We just need 6 more Mindless Ones instead of 7 Dwarfs!
Thor #138: The Orakal. That is totally a Kirby spelling of a character’s name. When he gets to the Eternals or DC’s New Gods, that’s his signature. Is this the first instance we’ve seen of a Kirby-esque name? Oh wait. Klaw. Never mind.
It’s pretty disappointing that Sif spent almost the whole story held captive, after 2 issues of being a kick-butt warrior. Here’s hoping the next issue turns that around.
Thor losing his hammer. The tension was real!! But with the amount of talking Thor did, no way was that less than 60 seconds. Just no way. And I know comics in the 80s still had that limitation, so I’ll be surprised if it’s gone now.
Tales of Asgard with the cyclops. The old guy in that story made me think of the hermit in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, I think played by Terry Jones, with him basically naked and a beard going below his waist to cover his “junior hermit”. You’re welcome.
Until next time, or until the Dreadnought returns and Nick Fury gets help from Spider-Man*, make mine Make Ours Marvel.
* – See Marvel Team-Up #139