Marvel Fanfare: Strange Tales

Reprints Marvel Fanfare #1-7
Written by Chris Claremont, Roger McKenzie, Bill Mantlo, Charlie Boatner, David Winn, David Michelinie, David Anthony Kraft, Mike W. Barr, Sandy Plunkett, Roger Stern, Steven Grant and Al Milgrom.
Penciled by Michael Golden, Dave Cockrum, Paul Smith, George Freeman, Joe Barney, Trevor Von Eeden, Marshall Rogers, Luke McDonnell, Sandy Plunkett, Charles Vess and Al Milgrom.
Inked by Michael Golden, Bob McLeod, Terry Austin, Armando Gil, Joe Rubinstein, Dan Green, Bob Downs, P. Craig Russell, Charles Vess and George Freeman.

Summary:
More than a dozen tales told by some of the Bronze Age's best writers and artists!

Karl Lykos was cursed with an affliction that forced him to absorb energy from others to survive. This caused him to turn into the pterodactyl man Sauron. As Sauron, Lykos battled the X-Men twice, giving the mutant heroes all they could handle.

Some years after Lykos' last encounter with the X-Men, the love of his life, Tanya Anderssen, has learned that Lykos is alive in the Savage Land. She seeks help from Warren Worthington III, better known to the world as Angel of the X-Men. Angel is reluctant to help, telling her Lykos probably doesn't want to be found, but Warren is moved by the love Tanya shows for Lykos and agrees to search for Karl in the Savage Land.

Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson learns of their expedition and gets exclusive coverage for his paper. Jameson assigns photographer Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man, to accompany Angel to the Savage Land on behalf of the Bugle.

As their helicopter arrives in the Savage Land, it's hit by a ptrerodactyl! They land safely and begin searching for Karl Lykos. They're attacked by the Savage Land Mutates, a team of swamp savages who were given super powers by Magneto. Parker has time to put on his Spider-Man costume and fight back, but he and Angel are overpowered and captured by the Mutates, while Tanya escapes.

The heroes are brought before the Mutates' leader, the super-intelligent Brainchild. He zaps Angel and Spider-Man with a genetic transformer ray. This devolves them, turning Spidey into a human-sized spider and Angel into a birdman.

Tanya is attacked by a dinosaur, but she's rescued by none other than Karl Lykos. He takes her to Ka-Zar and they plan to rescue the heroes. Before they can implement they're plan, they're attacked by Angel and Spider-Man in their new forms. Ka-Zar, Tanya and Karl are captured and taken to Brainchild, who mutates Tanya into a neanderthal.

Lykos knows that he can save Tanya by absorbing energy from her. He does the same for Angel and Spider-Man, returning them to their human form. However, this results in Karl being once again transformed into Sauron! As he flies off, Sauron tells Ka-Zar that he is declaring war on the Savage Land. Spider-Man and Angel are traumatized by their transformations and head back to the states.

Sometime later, Angel returns to the Savage Land. He summons the X-Men for help and they head out to find Sauron. They encounter the Mutates and make quick work of them. The X-Men get the mutates to lead them to Sauron's citadel.

However, when they arrive, Sauron attacks. An energy field around the citadel saps away their powers and they're captured. Angel flees, but he falls from the sky and is presumed dead. Sauron uses the genetic transformer on the X-Men so that he can use them to drain energy and increase his power.

Angel survives his fall and is found by Ka-Zar. They plan a counteroffensive to save their friends. If they can't stop Sauron, the X-Men and the Savage Land itself will be doomed!

Plus, several more stories, including:

When a street corner Santa is mugged, Daredevil helps track down the local crime boss behind the mugging!

Doctor Strange and Clea face the sorcerer known as Nicodemus!:

Spider-Man is attacked by Scarlet Witch and transported to a mystical realm. The webhead learns that Wanda has been possessed by the sorcerer Xandu! It's up to Spidey to free Scarlet Witch from Xandu's control and defeat the evil sorcerer.

Captain America is captured by the son of one of his wartime foes and must battle without his costume and shield.

A young man named Ian McNamee visits the Sanctum Santorum of Doctor Strange. McNamee claims to be the Socerer Supreme, a title held by Doc Strange. McNamee challenges Strange to a duel of magic!

Seeking food, the Hulk visits a carnival. He encounters his old enemy, the mutant called the Blob and a battle ensues. When the Hulk appears to have the fight won, he's attacked by Blob's friend Unus the Untouchable! 

Review:
There are too many stories in this book to thoroughly summarize, so I'll try to cover more details in this section.  I should also mention that the Savage Land portion is the only multi-part tale, which is why it takes up about 9/10 of the summary. On the whole, Marvel Fanfare: Strange Tales is a mixed bag, but the good parts are very good.

Story:
For those who don't remember, or who weren't alive back in 1981, Marvel Fanfare was conceived as a higher quality prestige comic printed on glossy paper that would present new stories by superstar creators. Every issue included a shorter backup tale that followed the main feature. 

The first story delivers on the promise, with Chris Claremont teamed with Michael Golden. Claremont gives us a good story set in the Savage Land. Sauron has long been one of my favorite villains and he's put to good use here as a very frightful villain who is willing to torture the X-Men in just to increase his power.

It's followed by a nice Daredevil story by Roger McKenzie that takes place at Christmas. It's not an essential tale, just a "Daredevil vs. small-time drug dealer" yarn, but it's okay and as I've said here in earlier reviews, I've long been a fan of comic book stories that take place during the holiday season. So it's something I read every year and it always holds up.

The Doctor Strange/Clea adventure, also written by Claremont, is solid as well. Mike W. Barr's Spider-Man's team-up with Scarlet Witch is enjoyable. I've long been a fan of stories that place Spider-Man in unusual settings like the mystical surroundings of Xandu. McKenzie's Captain America's battle with the modern day Nazi is solid. Hulk's encounter with Blob and Unus is very good. It's sort of told through the eyes of the mutant villains.

We get a sense that Unus and Blob are the best of friends who would do anything for one another. That's not a depiction of bad guys that we've often seen in comics and makes them multi-dimensional, not just generic super-villains.

The rest of the stories aren't that great.

The Dethlok and Iron Man stories both feature stories that are basically dreams of the main characters. They aren't bad, but they're placed consecutively in the tpb (just as they were in Marvel Fanfare #4), which makes them less enjoyable.

The seven issues reprinted here also feature three tales that focus on Doctor Strange or other sorcerers. Two such stories, the Spider-Man/Xandu battle and Strange's duel with MacNamee. They're okay adventures, but two even run back-to-back.

Mantlo penned the Daredevil tale that closes Marvel Fanfare: Strange Tales. A little boy with blindness loses his seeing-eye dog. I guess Mantlo is trying to make a statement about there are some problems even superheroes can't solve. But it's depressing and just feels "depressing for the sake of being depressing."

Even the Savage Land story has one big problem.  When Sauron's power turns Spider-Man back into his normal self, we see Peter Parker lose consciousness. Did Angel and Ka-Zar somehow not see this? Do they know that Parker and Spider-Man are one and the same? Did Ka-Zar and Angel not think it was a bit odd that Spider-Man was in the Savage Land? This has bugged me since I read this story for the first time back in 1982.

On the whole, the stories are more good than bad.

During its publication, every issue of Marvel Fanfare featured one-page humor strips titled 'Editori-Al', written and drawn by editor Al Milgrom.

They're reprinted here and the provide a nice diversion from the very serious and dramatic stories in this tpb.

Art:
This is where Marvel Fanfare: Strange Tales truly shines. Michael Golden penciled the first two parts of the Savage Land story and also the short Deathlok and Iron Man backups. He's at the top of his game here, lots of cool images of Sauron, dinosaurs, Spider-Man devolved into a giant spider, etc.

Dave Cockrum and Paul Smith took over and penciled the next two chapters, respectively. Those two are a slight step down from Golden's work, but I enjoyed their art as well.

Smith also provided art in the Daredevil Christmas story, his first work at Marvel. Marshall Rogers and P. Craig Russell give us great looking work in Clea and Doctor Strange's fight with Nicodemus. Sandy Plunkett does a good job penciling the Spider-Man/Scarlet Witch portion.

Charles Vess penciled the second Doctor Strange story and Vess does a great job depicting Strange's mystical world.

How Does It Look?:
Here's a scan taken from my old copy of Marvel Fanfare #3:

And here are the same pages scanned from Marvel Fanfare: Strange Tales:

Rating:
Marvel Fanfare: Strange Tales features some great stories penciled by some of my favorite artists and is especially recommended for fans of Golden, Smith and Milgrom's humor strips. But the sometimes mediocre backup stories prevent me from giving it a higher rating.

J.A. Morris' rating:

3 Sals.

Cloak & Dagger: Crime And Punishment

Reprints Spectacular Spider-Man #64, 69-70, 81-82, 94-96, Marvel Team-Up Annual #6, Marvel Fanfare #19.
Written by Bill Mantlo & Al Milgrom.
Penciled by Ed Hannigan, Al Milgrom, Ron Frenz, Tony Salmons, Rick Leonardi, Kerry Gammill, Terry Austin & Kevin Nowlan.

Inked by Al Milgrom, Jim Mooney, Kevin Dzuban, Tony Salmons, Terry Austin, George Freeman.

Variant Cover.

Spider-Man is hot on the trail of a drug dealer named Simon Marshall. Suddenly, Marshall is attacked  by a teenaged duo who call themselves Cloak & Dagger!  

Spider-Man encounters Cloak and Dagger for the first time.

Cloak wears a cloak that envelops people and makes them cold. He also has the power of teleportation. Dagger is extremely agile and shoots light-knives from her fingers. She uses her light-knives to kill Marshall. Spidey is enraged, reminding them that even criminals have rights. He attempts to capture them, but Cloak teleports away with Dagger in tow. 

Spider-Man looks into Marshall's activities and learns he was involved in a drug experiment conducted by the mob. Marshall and his cohorts kidnapped homeless teenagers, including Cloak and Dagger, and housed them in the ruins of Ellis Island. The teens were then injected with an experimental drug. All the other kids were killed, but Cloak and Dagger survived and gained super-powers.    

Spidey checks out Ellis Island and finds Cloak and Dagger holding a trial for the other men involved in their drug experiment. Spider-Man intervenes, but one of the drug dealers gets the drop on Dagger. The dealers are accidentally killed during the ensuing melee. Spider-Man tells the duo that they need to stop acting as judge, jury and executioner, but they flee, telling him they have no choice. Cloak and Dagger then teleport away from Ellis Island.

Cloak & Dagger break up a drug deal.

Sometime later, Cloak and Dagger investigate another drug ring. It turns out the dealers are working for the gangster known as Silvermane, leader of the Maggia crime syndicate. Cloak & Dagger are determined to kill Silvermane for his crimes.

Spider-Man tries to discourage Cloak & Dagger from going after Silvermane

But Silvermane is barely alive. He's recuperating from a long fall and his mob doctors are helping him cheat death. Dagger attacks the bedridden Slivermane and appears to kill him.

We later learn that Silvermane's doctors turn him into a super-strong cyborg in order to save his life.  His new "body" will act as a life support system. He goes on a rampage around New York, seeking to kill Cloak and Dagger. Eventually, he encounters Spider-Man. Dagger succeeds in killing Silvermane with her light knives, much to the disgust of Spider-Man.

Silvermane gives his new "body" a workout.

Shortly thereafter, the New Mutants visit New York City to take in a performance of Cats on Broadway. But team members Sunspot and Wolfsbane are captured by gangsters who are trying to recreate the drug that brought about Cloak & Dagger's powers.

It will take the combined forces of Spider-Man, the New Mutants, and Cloak & Dagger to save the day.

Subsequently, Cloak and Dagger defeat a small-time drug pusher. They learn that his source is none other than Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime! Spider-Man learns of this is worried more than ever before about the teenaged duo. He tries to stop them from going after the Kingpin.  

To complicate matters, the Punisher has escaped prison and arrived in New York. He's continuing his one-man war on crime, gunning for every criminal, no matter how minor their offenses. Punisher is determined to kill the Kingpin, but he'll have go through Spider-Man, Cloak, and Dagger first.    

After that adventure, Kingpin hatches a plan to kill Cloak & Dagger. He has revived the cyborg body of Silvermane and will use it as his personal killing machine. Kingpin appreciates the irony of using one of his rivals to take care of the young duo.

Spider-Man does his best to protect Cloak & Dagger, but he's having problems of his own. His girlfriend and crime-fighting partner, the Black Cat, has been acting distant. She recently went to the Kingpin to get super powers and hasn't told Spidey about that for obvious reasons. This creates tension in the relationship.
 

Plus:
Spider-Man gets a new villain in the form of the Answer! He works for the Kingpin and has the "answer" to every problem!

Also, Dagger wants to feel like a normal teenager again, so she goes out to dance club. But she runs into an infamous drug dealer.


Review:

This is a great introduction to Cloak and Dagger. I'd read most of these tales, but their first appearance was a story I never owned. Bill Mantlo created the duo and writes most of the stories contained here.  I get the impression that Cloak and Dagger mean a lot to Mantlo.

Story:
The first story in this book is a great debut for Cloak & Dagger. They make an exciting first impression. We see them in action, killing a drug dealer and we get an origin story as well. Mantlo also makes nice use of New York landmarks: Spider-Man discovers the drug dealers hideout is on Ellis Island. This story took place when the famous immigration center was abandoned and in disrepair. I found this especially interesting, since, like Mantlo, I had family that arrived in America through Ellis Island.

I also enjoyed the Marvel Team-Up Annual story that featured the New Mutants. I can't recall any other stories where Cloak & Dagger interacted with their peers.

I enjoyed Mantlo's portrayal of the Punisher. He's depicted as a total madman here, sentencing passersby to death for littering.

If there's any problem with Crime And Punishment, it's that some of the stories seem a bit too similar to one another. Several stories center on generic drug dealing gangsters. It doesn't ruin the book, but it's something that's more effective when it's spread across several months (which was the case when these issues were published).  

The Answer captures Dagger & flies away.

Art:
The early parts of this book are penciled by Ed Hannigan. This represents some of Hannigan's best work. To my eyes, the covers and splash pages look like homages to comics legend Will Eisner.

In fact, you can even see a sign for a business named "Eisner Industries" in the background of one panel (see image below) . Al Milgrom does a fine job inking Hannigan.

Milgrom takes over as penciler for the later stories, so there's not a drastic stylistic change. The portion that reprints Marvel Team-Up Annual #6 features pencils by Ron Frenz inked by Kevin Dhuzban. Their art isn't flashy, but it's solid.

The final story of the book features 3 different art teams, each getting 10 pages a piece. The best of these are penciled by Rick Leonardi and inked by Terry Austin.

Dagger wants to go out dancing & feel like a normal teenager for just one night.

How Does it look?:It looks great. Here's another scan from the book:

Extras:
We get several full-page pinups of Cloak & Dagger, plus some covers that feature the duo.

Rating:
Cloak & Dagger: Crime And Punishment features action-packed stories from start to finish, with plenty of 80s grittiness thrown in for good measure.

 

4 Sals

Kitty Pryde & Wolverine

Reprints Kitty Pryde & Wolverine #1-6
Written by Chris Claremont.
Penciled & inked by Al Milgrom.

Variant cover.

 

Kitty Pryde has gone home to visit her father Carmen in Deerfield, IL. She stops by his bank to visit and observes him being slapped and threatened by a group of businessmen. Carmen tells Kitty that these men work for a Japanese businessman named Shigematsu who has purchased the bank. One of the men threatening her father is named Ogun and he creeps out Kitty more than the rest. Kitty quickly realizes that these men have ties to the Yakuza.  

Kitty enjoys a day of ice skating in her hometown of Deerfield, Illinois.

Kitty is angered by this, believing Carmen has been forced to sell under duress. Her father says he must leave for Japan to meet Shigematsu. Kitty wants to accompany him to Japan, but Carmen orders her to fly back to the X-Mansion.  

But upon arriving at the airport, Kitty decides to stow away on a plane headed for Tokyo.   

She realizes she's in over her head. Kitty is far from home and has no money. She phases into an ATM and steals some money. The local police are notified immediately and Kitty becomes a fugitive. She calls the X-Men, but hangs up when Wolverine answers. Logan knows Kitty must be in trouble and heads to Tokyo to find her.

Kitty locates the offices of Shigematsu's company. She overhears her father agreeing to use his bank to launder illegal funds. This devastates Kitty, as she hears this and believes Carmen is "a crook". Shigematsu orders his sumo bodyguard Shumai to attack Kitty, but she throws a chair at them and escapes.

Ogun reappears at this point and asks Shigematsu to allow him to take control of Kitty. When Carmen protests, Ogun tells him his daughter is "as one dead". He captures Kitty, mentally possesses her, trains her to be a ninja and brainwashes her to be his assassin. Ogun directs Kitty to kill Wolverine, and she says her teammate is "as good as dead."

Ogun ritualistically humiliates Kitty.

Wolverine arrives in Tokyo and searches for Kitty. He runs into his old friend Yukio, who agrees to help locate Kitty.

Shortly thereafter, Logan is attacked by a ninja in a red mask. Wolverine fights back and they battle all over the city. Their duel takes them to a railyard, and the mask falls off the ninja.  Wolverine is shocked to see that it was Kitty all along. Kitty runs him through with her sword!

Yukio knocks out Kitty and Wolverine is saved. When Kitty wakes up, her and Logan talk about what happened and what Ogun did to her. Wolverine tells her that Ogun was his martial arts teacher. Ogun is rumored to be thousands of years old and perhaps a demon.    

Kitty is convinced that the only way to purge Ogun from her mind & body is to get Professor X to perform a mind-wipe. Wolverine says that won't work and says that only mental and physical strength can help her defeat Ogun. He puts Kitty through her own personal boot camp. Wolverine gives her a sword and tells her she must hold the sword up as long as she can. Kitty's training goes on for several days and she feels stronger all the time. Finally, she stays up all night holding the sword and feels she is now strong enough to face Ogun. Kitty sneaks out alone and goes back to Tokyo to face Ogun one on one.

At the same time, Ogun is also heading to Tokyo where he plans to kill Mariko Yashida, the love of Wolverine's life. Will Kitty stop this from happening? Can Kitty and Wolverine defeat Ogun?


Review:

I'll just cut to the chase and say that I found this miniseries disappointing back in 1984 and it hasn't gotten much better with age. Kitty and Wolverine were two of my favorite characters when I was growing up and they deserve better than this. But it doesn't completely suck, either.

Story:
The first half of this story is okay. I sympathized with Kitty. First, she learns her father is not the man she thought he was. Then she winds up a wanted criminal in Tokyo, corrupted by Ogun. It's nice to see her overcome her victimization and take on Ogun by herself. Kitty's transformation into "Shadowcat" is believable.   

Yukio helps Carmen escape the clutches of Shumai.

And I'll give Chris Claremont credit for tying this story into other events that were happening in the Marvel Universe. The readers deserved to see Wolverine's reaction to the death of his good friend and mentor, Guardian. It was also a nice touch to include the freak snow storm that was happening in Thor at this time.

Wolverine is crushed when Prof. X tells him that Guardian has been killed.

But it sort of drags on about 40 pages longer than it should. Claremont's Wolverine miniseries told its story in 4 issues, which should have been enough time to tell this tale. I felt like there was too much exposition going on here (overcrowding panels with word balloons). Claremont decides to "tell" rather than "show", which is a cardinal sin in a visual medium.

Ogun trains Kitty to be his assassin.

I don't really like Wolverine in this story. He knows Yukio loves him, but he loves Mariko. But it's strongly implied here that he sleeping with Yukio anyways. He's sort of a jerk to both Yukio and Mariko in this scenario.

Carmen Pryde's "criminal" turn also feels a bit contrived. He agrees to launder Yakuza money because he's scared of Shigematsu and Ogun. I'm guessing most of us could be compelled to cut a few corners if ninjas, gangsters and sumo wrestlers were threatening us to do so.

This story led to major, lasting changes in Kitty Pryde that still reverberate today, which makes it an "important" story. Kitty is more interesting after this. That's the main reason I can think of to read Kitty Pryde & Wolverine. 

Art:
Not very good. I was a big fan of Al Milgrom's work in the 70s & 80s. I liked his cartoonish, humorous "Editor-Al" strips in Marvel Fanfare, and his more "normal" pencils in comics like Spectacular Spider-Man, but this is not one of Milgrom's better penciling jobs. In an introduction, Milgrom says he "chose to experiment with a bolder, more graphic style". I wish he hadn't. Without knowing any backstory, it looks like Milgrom was brought in at the last minute and performed a rush job.

Kitty phases out of Shigematsu's desk, frightening the dickens out of him!

Perhaps the worst part of Kitty Pryde & Wolverine is Kitty's attempt to "pass for Japanese". At least that seems to be what's going on in this page:

Kitty tries to look like "just another local teenager".

How Does It Look?:

It looks fine, as you can tell by the page below and all other scanned pages shown in this review.

Wolverine tangles with Ogun, while Yukio tells Mariko what's going on.

Extras:
We get a new "Editori-Al" comic strip written and drawn by Milgrom. It's a nice throwback to the series of strips he drew in Marvel Fanfare, and his art in the strip is actually better than his art in the story.  There's also one page showing the cover in progress for issue #6, plus a 1984 cover from Marvel Age Magazine promoting the miniseries.

Kitty Pryde & Wolverine features a story that starts out good but ultimately disappoints and has art that just isn't anything to write home about. The first couple chapters and the fact that Kitty is never the same after this tale make it good enough to read once, but there are plenty of other Bronze Age reprint books that are better than this one.

My rating:

2 Sals.