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.

Ghost Rider Team-Up

Reprints Marvel Premiere #91, Ghost Rider #27 and #50, Marvel Team-Up #91, Marvel Two-In-One #80 and Avengers #214
Written by Bill Mantlo, Jim Shooter, Steven Grant, Michael Fleisher and Tom DeFalco.
Penciled by Frank Robbins, Don Perlin, Pat Broderick, Ron Wilson and Bob Hall.
Inked by Steve Gan, Dan Green, Bruce D. Patterson, Don Perlin and Chic Stone.

A six-pack of Bronze Age tales starring the Spirit of Vengeance!

A mountain sprouts up in the middle of Los Angeles and causes an earthquake! It attracts the attention of four of the world's most horrific super-beings: The demonic Ghost Rider, known to the world as Johnny Blaze, famous stunt cyclist! Michael Morbius, the Living Vampire! Werewolf By Night! And the macabre Man-Thing!

They learn that the mountain is the work of Starseed.  He lived on Earth millions of years ago, on the same mountain. He's the sole survivor of a society that dwelt in the mountain, creating advanced technology in the time of the Neanderthals.

Starseed invites them to come with him and live inside the mountain. But Ghost Rider points out that the world has changed and that one cannot just park a mountain on Sunset Boulevard and cause earthquakes. Morbius and the Werewolf are both hungry so they attack Starseed! It's every monster for himself!

Sometime later, Johnny Blaze's personal life is in shambles, so he seeks solace in the Mohave Desert.  Blaze ends up at Cheery-O's Dude Ranch, where he bumps into the Avenger Hawkeye and Matt Hawk, the Two-Gun Kid! Hawk is a hero from the Wild West who recently time-traveled into the 20th century.

Things are going well for the heroes. Blaze is teaching Two-Gun how to ride a motorcycle. But suddenly Hawkeye is attacked by a monster who calls himself Manticore! He tells Hawkeye he has been contracted to kill an Avenger, and Hawkeye was available, but Manticore didn't bet on Ghost Rider being around.

Peter Parker and his friend Glory Grant go to a carnival in Connecticut. They take in a sideshow, where Peter notices a familiar face.The Ghost Rider is performing as The Blazing Skull. Parker points this out and gets thrown out of the carnival.

Later that night, Peter returns to investigate the sideshow as Spider-Man. He learns that Ghost Rider has been hypnotized by Spidey's old foe Moondark the magician. Moondark has torn the soul of Johnny Blaze away from the body of Ghost Rider. Spider-Man ends up going toe-to-toe with Ghost Rider, who is under the control of Moondark!

Subsequently, Johnny Blaze time-travels back into the Wild West! He inadvertently ends up on a sacred Indian burial ground.  Several Indians respond by shooting Blaze full of arrows before he can turn into Ghost Rider. Thankfully, Blaze is rescued by Carter Slade, better known as the ghostly cowboy hero called Night Rider!

Night Rider saves Blaze's life, which is a good thing. Ghost Rider aids Night Rider in a battle with the outlaw who calls himself the Tarantula. And if that's not enough trouble, they're also attacked by the mythical winged serpent called Hobomokko!

Following that adventure, Johnny Blaze goes to New York City for a stunt cycling performance at Shea Stadium. But he's starting to lose control over the Ghost Rider persona. His demonic side is taking over and acting irrationally. Ghost Rider leads the NYPD on a high-speed chase until he turns back to Blaze.

He's spotted by Ben Grimm of the Fantastic Four. The Thing sympathizes with Blaze, since he's also a "monster" like Ghost Rider. Blaze gives Ben two tickets for his stunt show.

At Shea Stadium, Blaze jumps over a row of cars on his motorcycle. But in the middle of the show, two teens in the crowd decide to steal one of the cars. Blaze turns into Ghost Rider and goes crazy and his thirst for vengeance takes over, he wants to kill the teens. It's up to the Thing to save them.

Lastly, Warren Worthington III, better known as the mutant superhero Angel, is driving through the mountains of New Mexico. He spots Ghost Rider, his former teammate with the Champions, cycling on the highway. Angel's girlfriend, Candy Southern, is frightened, but Warren says Ghost Rider is a friend.

Things change when Ghost Rider runs them off the road! Their car is wrecked and Angel is shocked.  Johnny Blaze has lost control over the spirit of vengeance and decides Angel is an enemy, hitting him with a blast of hellfire!

Candy calls Avengers mansion, seeking help from the Beast, Angel's former X-men teammate. Beast has left the Avengers, but Captain America takes the call. The Avengers arrive in New Mexico and try capture Ghost Rider. The Avengers outnumber him, but it won't be easy to subdue the Spirit of Vengeance.

Review:
Ghost Rider Team-Up is not a very good book. What makes it frustrating is that I can think of several other stories featuring Ghost Rider and another hero that would've been better choices for this tpb. Why wasn't the ridiculous-but-fun Christmas story from Marvel Two-In-One #8 used instead of the one from MTIO #80? Ghost Rider teamed with Daredevil in a crossover against Death Stalker that featured some early art of John Byrne. This book contains pin-ups that mention Son Of Satan's guest appearances in Ghost Rider. Why not include one of those, instead of Avengers #214, where Ghost Rider is basically written as a villain, albeit a reluctant one. Moving on to what's in the book:

Story:
A mixed bag that has a couple good stories and some clunkers. I'll start with the positives

The Hawkeye/Two-Gun/Manticore story isn't great, but it's a decent "villain of the month" story.  Manticore looks pretty cool, though he's not much of a match for the Ghost Rider.

I thought the Spider-Man team-up was the high point of this book. Placing a battle on a rollercoaster makes for a great action sequence. And it was interesting to see Peter Parker go on a date with his friend Glory Grant, something that rarely happened to my recollection.
  
The team-up with Night Rider is a solid western story, with plenty of action. Of course, in the early days, Night Rider was known as Ghost Rider. This is never mentioned in the story, but I presume this was meant to be an inside joke for the readers.

Johnny Blaze is surprised to find himself in the 19th century.

Johnny Blaze's meeting with Ben Grimm is okay, even if it's not as good as their aforementioned Christmas team-up. But it's hardly essential Bronze Age material.

The first tale promises the teaming of "The Legion Of Monsters." But the "monsters" spend most of the story listening to Starseed tell his backstory or fighting with each other. Some "legion" they turned out to be. Starseed isn't very interesting either. A pointless story, Starseed has never been seen since this issue and the Legion Of Monsters doesn't appear again until 2010 (without Ghost Rider).

The Avengers story is an odd inclusion. It takes place in the middle of a long storyline built around the mental breakdown of Yellowjacket. Ghost Rider doesn't appear until the 7th page of the tale. He's the bad guy here, since Blaze is losing control of his demonic side at this time. It hardly constitutes a team-up, and Angel's appearance feels very random.

Art:
Ghost Rider Team-Up contains art that's generally better than the stories.

The best art here comes from Pat Broderick and Bruce D. Patterson, from the Spider-Man portion.

Their art looks influenced by Michael Golden (a star penciler at the time) with a little bit of Steve Ditko thrown in.  Nice work.

Johnny Blaze performs stunts at Shea Stadium

Don Perlin and Ron Wilson were always reliable for good, enjoyable "Marvel house style" pencils. Chic Stone's inks overpower Wilson's art a bit, but it's still okay. Perlin and Dan Green make Manticore look pretty cool in their story.

The Legion of Monsters story wouldn't be good under any circumstances. But the art of Frank Robbins and Steve Gan makes it even worse. Bob Hall and Dan Green are okay in the Avengers story.

Starseed promises to turn the "monsters" back to their human forms.

How Does It Look?:

Here's the splash page of Marvel Premiere #28, borrowed from Diversions of the Groovy Kind:

And here's how it appears in Ghost Rider Team-Up:

It's a pretty good facsimile. 

Extras:

Ghost Rider #50 contained a checklist of Ghost Rider's appearances and several pin-ups. Those are represented in this tpb as well. 

Ghost Rider Team-Up isn't great, but if you're a fan of the artists featured inside, or a Ghost Rider completist, you might enjoy it more than I did. The art from Broderick, Perlin and Wilson earns it an extra half-Sal.

J.A. Morris' rating.

.5



2 and a half Sals.

Fantastic Four: In Search Of Galactus

Reprints Fantastic Four #204-214
Written by Marv Wolfman.
Penciled by Keith Pollard, Sal Buscema, John Byrne and Diverse Hands.
Inked by Joe Sinnott and Diverse Hands.

Variant cover.

Summary:

The Fantastic Four are in the Baxter Building, relaxing after a recent battle, but Reed Richards is worried because he has discovered someone is siphoning power from the FF's computer into space.

Suddenly, a woman beams into the building, followed by a skrull! This skrull calls himself Skrull X. He has super powers and is a handful for the FF. Reed zaps him with a stasis ray, ending the fight. 

They learn that the woman is Queen Adora of the planet Xandar. She fled her homeworld when it was attacked by the skrulls. Adora came to Earth seeking the aid of the Fantastic Four. Without assistance, Xandar and its people will be destroyed by the Skrulls. The team meets and decides to help free Xandar.  

But Johnny Storm, the Human Torch declines. He says he needs to return to college and take a leave of absence from the FF. Coincidentally, Johnny receives a recruitment letter from Security University, a college designed to provide privacy for the "wealthy and famous." But strange things are happening at the university. We learn that, behind the scenes, Security U. is run by the Fantastic Four's old foe, the Monocle. He's working with a mysterious criminal organization called the Enclave and Security is a front that will help them take revenge on the Torch and his teammates.  

Peter Parker shows up on campus, doing undercover reporting for the Daily Globe. Parker observes Security's students, including Johnny, attack a military base. He goes into action as Spider-Man and is attacked by the Torch. If Spider-Man wants to bring the Monocle to justice, he'll have to free the Human Torch from hypnosis, or go through him.

Meanwhile, in outer space, the Fantastic Four arrive on Xandar and find it under attack by the skrulls.  The FF join the battle, they seem to be gaining the upper hand, when they're zapped by the skrull's stun ray. They are captured and skrull emperor Dorrek says they will be tried for treason against the Skrull Empire.

 

During the trial, Reed tries to reason with the judge and is gunned down. Ben and Sue get the same treatment. But they're not dead and they escape from their jail cell and escape to Xandar. Dorrek lets them escape, saying the FF will be dead in a few days. They were shot with a ray that will make them die of old age. Plus, their ship is set to explode.  

When it explodes, they are rescued by the Champions of Xandar, led by Nova. They are traveling with the Sphinx (who previously battled the FF), who suddenly disappears.  

Sphinx reaches the computers of Xandar, which make him a virtual god. The universe will not be safe until the Sphinx is defeated. Sphinx is angry at Earth for the way its people treated him, so he vows to destroy the planet. 

The Sphinx attains near godhood.

So Reed gets an idea. He will recruit Galactus, devourer of worlds, to stop the Sphinx. Galactus agrees, but only if the FF can find a new herald for him.

The FF try to get Galactus' attention;
Nice artwork from John Byrne & Joe Sinnott.

The heroes find Tyros the Terrible and bring him before Galactus. The Big G turns Tyros into Terrax The Tamer. As Galactus' herald, Terrax has the power to fly through space and create earthquakes with his cosmic battleaxe. Galactus follows through on his agreement and goes to Egypt to battle the Sphinx.

Can Galactus save Earth from the Sphinx? If so, will Galactus then devour Earth? Will the Fantastic Four die of old age? 

Plus, Reed creates a new "ally" for the FF: Herbie the robot!

Review:

This is a very good, epic-length story that could have been an all-time great saga, if not for...well, see below. But it still contains a good story and even better art.  

Story:

Marv Wolfman wrote every issue reprinted here, and it's good from cover-to-cover. You're never in doubt that the FF will survive the aging ray, but it's always entertaining. The battle between Galactus and Sphinx is the high point of this book. 

The Human Torch/Spider-Man vs. Monocle portion has nothing to do with the main storyline, other than serving as an excuse for the Torch to be absent, but it's a fun side story. Spidey and the Torch were always a good duo. It feels more like a Marvel Team-Up story than an FF tale, but that's okay.

The FF challenge Tyros the Terrible.

The Sphinx's flashback was good, and his battle with Galactus was a good fight, even if it was one-sided. The Fantastic Four interacted nicely with Nova and the Champions of Xandar. That makes sense, since Wolfman was writing both series at the time.

Sphinx looks back on life & origin.

Speaking of Galactus, it seems like every Fantastic Four scribe took a shot a writing a story that featured "The Big G", as the Torch calls him. Wolfman does a good job with Galactus, reminding us that he's not a "villain", but an entity that is above simple good and evil. Terrax/Tyros is a Wolfman creation and he went on to menace the FF for years after this story.  

Galactus gets a new herald, transforming Tyros into Terrax.

Wolfman found a clever way to introduce Herbie the robot.  For those too young to recall, Herbie took the Torch's place in the FF when the Fantastic Four cartoon aired in 1978-79. Another company owned the rights to the Human Torch, which is why Herbie was created. In the panel below, Wolfman provides  a sly explanation for why Johnny Storm didn't appear in the cartoon:

Reed creates Herbie.

But In Search Of Galactus has some problems.  

First off, I've never been crazy about the skrulls as primary villains. The skrulls rarely use their shape-shifting powers here, which makes them just generic aliens with guns.  

Skrull X is the only skrull who uses shape-shifting abilities. He has other powers and even mimics the Human Torch's power. He tells Johnny, "like the Super-Skrull, I have been given the ability to dulplicate the powers of the Fantastic Four." So why didn't Wolfman just bring back Super-Skrull?  Skrull X has an unimaginative name and he just feels like a "poor man's Super-Skrull."

Skrull X attacks the Torch.

The Skrull-Xandar conflict is dominant for the first 160 pages of the book. Then Wolfman drops it in favor of the Galactus/Terrax/Sphinx story. We get a few token mentions about Xandar after that, but we never learn how/if they survive the Skrull's attack. 

And there's a bit of a continuity error. At the end of one issue, Sphinx disappears from his ship. But when the story resumes, Sphinx is still present.  

It's still a good story, but it could have been even better if Wolfman had tied up some of the plots and subplots.

Art:

The art here is excellent, with one exception. The portion reprinted from Fantastic Four #208 is credited to "D.Hands", meaning "diverse hands" served as inkers.  

Other than that, we get gorgeous pencils from Keith Pollard, Sal Buscema and John Byrne, all inked by Joe Sinnott. Here's a great two-page spread from Byrne and Sinnott:

How does it look?:

  Here's a scan from Fantastic Four #205:

And here's how it looks in the book:

Fantastic Four: In Search Of Galactus is a fun romp through space with art from some of the Bronze Age's finest pencilers and inkers. It's recommended, but the unfinished plot threads keep me from giving it my highest rating.

J.A. Morris' rating:

.5

3 and a half Sals.