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.

Marvel Masterworks: Uncanny X-Men Vol. 3

Reprints X-Men #111-121
Written by Chris Claremont.
Penciled by John Byrne.
Inked by Terry Austin and Ricardo Villamonte. 

Summary:
The X-Men have been turned into sideshow freaks and are performing at a travelling circus! It's up to former X-Man-turned-Avenger Hank McCoy, AKA the Beast, to investigate how this occurred.

Beast learns that it's the work of the X-Men's old enemy Mesmero. The villain has hypnotized them into believing they're part of the circus.

Once the trance is broken, the X-Men have a much bigger problem. Magneto, their deadliest foe, arrives on the scene. The master of magnetism transports them to his headquarters, which is buried beneath a volcano in Anarctica.

When they arrive, the X-Men attack Magneto. However, the battle is brief and the heroes are defeated with relative ease. Cyclops is frustrated to watch his team still fight as individuals, instead of confronting Magneto as a cohesive unit.

Magneto has been recently restored to adulthood after being turned into an infant. He wants the X-Men to feel the same humiliation, so he imprisons them in chairs that neutralize their powers, prevent them from speaking, and reduce their physical abilities to those of six-month old infants. Magneto intends to torture the X-Men indefinitely in this manner.

After several days, the X-Men are able to escape and battle Magneto once again. This time, they're finally able to fight him using teamwork. The X-Men hit Magneto from all sides, keeping him off-balance. The duel results in the destruction of Magneto's base and the volcano that surrounds it.

Rocks cave in, which splits the team into two groups. On one side of the fallen rocks stand Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Banshee, Colossus and Nightcrawler. Beast and Phoenix are on the opposite side of the cave-in. Each group believes the other to be dead.

When Cyclops and the others crawl out of the rocks, they find themselves in the Savage Land. It's a hidden prehistorical tropical preserve where dinosaurs still exist.

Beast and Jean have returned to the X-Mansion in Westchester, NY. Jean tells Prof. Xavier that her teammates have died. The professor is heartbroken and they all grieve over the loss of their friends.

Back in the Savage Land, Storm goes swimming in a lake. She's ambushed and her life forces are drained, which knocks out Storm. It's the work of Sauron, a half-man/half-pterodactyl who once battled the original X-Men. Wolverine attacks Sauron, but is hypnotized by the villain. Under Sauron's control, Wolverine sees the X-Men as monsters and attacks them!

How can the X-Men defeat an opponent who can drain their energies and turn them against each other?

While pursuing Sauron, the X-Men encounter Ka-Zar, lord of the Savage Land. He tells the heroes that he needs their help in combating Garokk the sun god, who has skin like stone and shoots heat rays from his eyes.

The sun god is assisted by high priestess Zaladane, who brought Garokk back to life. Garokk is powerful enough to destroy an entire village and construct cities. He plans to use his supernatural abilities to destroy the Savage Land and all the life it contains. Can the X-Men and Ka-Zar thwart Garokk's plans and save the Savage Land?

The X-Men flee the Savage Land by boat and eventually arrive in Japan. They discover that the island is being besieged by earthquakes. The X-Men assist local officials with relief efforts.

Cyclops reminds the team that they have no passports, identification or money. He decides they will visit Sunfire, who lives in Japan, so they may contact Prof. Xavier.

When they arrive at Sunfire's compound, the X-Men are surprised to find their friend (and Jean's roomate) Misty Knight and her partner Colleen Wing. Sunfire has hired them to do some detective work in Japan.

Sunfire's cousin Mariko Yashida also lives at the compound. Wolverine meets her and is immediately taken with Mariko. When another earthquake hits, Wolverine saves her life.

Shortly after that, Sunfire and the X-Men are attacked by Mandroids. They wear weaponized armor that enables them to go toe-to-toe with superheroes. The battle is short and Cyclops commends the X-Men for fighting the Mandroids with teamwork.

But their glory is short-lived, when they learn that the Mandroids were sent by Moses Magnum. He possesses the power to cause earthquakes and is responsible for the recent seismic activity. Magnum gives Japan an ultimatum: if the island nation does not surrender to him and declare him its leader, he will sink Japan. The X-Men and Sunfire are the only hope for Japan. The battle with Magnum will cause long term damage to Banshee's sonic scream.

Subsequently, the X-Men are flying home when their plane is diverted due to a winter storm. They are forced to land in Calgary, Alberta. When they hit the runway, Vindicator, who once battle the X-Men as Weapon Alpha, calls out Wolverine and tells him to surrender. Canada's government invested lots of time and money training Wolverine to be their agent and they want him back.

This time, Vindicator has brought along the rest of his Alpha Flight team. His teammate Sasquatch wrecks their plane and the X-Men flee the scene, breaking up into smaller groups to hide in Calgary.

Members of Alpha Flight have also split up and are hunting down the X-Men. Wolverine is apprehended by Sasquatch while North Star and Aurora take out Nightcrawler. They take their captives to the world famous Calgary Stampede, where the Alpha Flight and X-Men will face off in a final showdown.

Can the X-Men defeat Alpha Flight and return home with Wolverine?

Plus, Professor X flashes back to his meeting with Amahl Farouk, the first evil mutant Xavier ever encountered!

Review:
This volume contains what became known as the X-Men's "World Tour," as the team travels from Antarctica to the Savage Land to Japan to Calgary and finally back to their mansion in Westchester County. It's another triumph for one of the all-time great comic book creative teams.

Story:
Chris Claremont and John Byrne are credited as co-plotters for most of Marvel Masterworks: Uncanny X-Men Vol. 3. The book opens with the Mesmero story and it's somewhat offbeat. It drops the readers into the middle of the tale, when the X-Men have already been turned into circus attractions.

The Magneto story is one of the best depictions of the master of magnetism that you'll ever read. I should mention that at this point, Magneto's backstory as a Holocaust survivor had not been retconned yet. Magneto's use of prison chairs and the Nanny robot are still legitimately disturbing today. 

There's lots of great fight scenes and worthy adversaries here. In addition to Magneto, we get another "classic" X-Villain in the form of Sauron. X-Men #115 was one of the first X-Men back issues I ever purchased, so I'll always have a sentimental attachment to the Sauron/Savage Land story.

The battle with Moses Magnum in Japan is one of the few X-Men adventures where Banshee gets to save the day. It's also the last time he gets to use his sonic scream for a decade, pushing it to the limit in order to save Japan.

The book closes on a high note with the Alpha Flight battle at the Calgary Stampede. It's an entertaining fight that leaves the door open for another chapter. 

Claremont and Byrne also give us some more character development and some good "quiet" moments. During the Christmas celebration, Storm talks about how the team has the team has grown closer and become a family. Wolverine displays a softer side when he meets Mariko, who will become a very important character in Logan's life.

On more than one occasion, Cyclops shows why he was Marvel's best team leader of the Bronze Age. After being highly critical of the team, Scott tells them (after beating the Mandroids) that "you did good tonight. There's hope for the X-Men yet."

The weakest story here is the battle with Garokk in the Savage Land. Garokk isn't a very interesting adversary. But it's not bad, it just isn't in the same league with the rest of the book. And Cyclop's eye-beam fight with Garokk is pretty good.

I also enjoy Claremont's "travelogue" narrations that show up whenever the X-Men visit a new location. For an example, check out his description of Calgary in the scanned pages below:

And now the negative portion of this review:

I've always found the "X-Men are dead" part of this era to be silly. When Jean and Beast are separated, it makes sense for them to think the other X-Men are dead and vice versa. After that, we get a scene where Jean runs into Misty Knight at the airport. When Misty tells Jean to "give my love to Scott," Jean says nothing, which is somewhat understandable, since they're both catching planes.

But later, Cyclops and Misty run into each other in Japan. You would think Scott would tell Misty that her roommate is dead. Or that Misty would mention that she saw Jean at the airport. We see Misty's friend Colleen Wing get romantic with Cyclops on the flight from Japan to Calgary, but we never see Misty react to this in any way. Why wouldn't she confront Cyclops for "cheating" on Jean? For that matter, why wouldn't Banshee attempt to call Moira MacTaggert in Scotland? Beast was an Avenger, why didn't anyone call the Avengers' mansion and tell them Hank McCoy was dead? It's an "idiot plot" device and it's unnecessary.

Having said all that, these stories are still very good, in spite of the "death" of the X-Men.

Art:
John Byrne and Terry Austin continue to provide outstanding art in Marvel Masterworks: Uncanny X-Men Vol. 3. I love this depiction of Xavier's flashback.

In the same story, Byrne and Austin's art for Xavier and Amahl Farok's psi-war looks fantastic. The "psychic" gladiator armor is a nice touch:

And this two-page of Wolverine attacking Sauron is one of my all-time favorite comic book images:

It's not surprising that this drawing of Wolverine had a second life on various Marvel merchandise. Byrne and Austin also give us a great looking Sauron in that story. He was one of my favorite villains when I was a kid and that's largely because Austin and Byrne made him look so cool.

And Byrne himself makes an appearance in the Alpha Flight tale, dining in Calgary Tower.

It's a shame that this book contains the only time this art team worked on a Magneto story. The X-Men's oldest and greatest foe looked never looked more menacing.

For the first part of the Japan two-parter, Austin is replaced as inker by Ricardo Villamonte. His embellishment of Byrne's pencils isn't bad, but Villamonte's work is a step down from Austin.

How Does It Look?:
The image below, was taken from a copy of X-Men #118:

The same pages look like this in Marvel Masterworks:Uncanny X-Men Vol. 3:

Extras:
Stan Lee's introduction to the 1993 edition of this book is included here. It's fun and full of the sort of hype that only Stan Lee can write.

Rating:
Marvel Masterworks: Uncanny X-Men Vol. 3 features features great battles with X-Men foes old and new, it's got tons of action, drama and (most importantly) character development. Claremont, Byrne and Austin are great and getting better. The fake death of the X-Men is silly, but the art and the other stories make this another highly recommended book. 

J.A. Morris' rating:

4 Sals!