Captain America and the Falcon: Nomad

Reprints Captain America And The Falcon #177-186

Written by Steve Englehart and John Warner.

Penciled by Sal Buscema, Frank Robbins and Herb Trimpe.

Inked by Vince Colletta, Joe Giella, Frank Giacoia and Mike Esposito.

Note:This is Part 2 in a series of reviews, Part 1 is here if you missed it yesterday.

Captain America is no more!  

 

Steve Rogers has given up the costume. His crime-fighting days are over. His dealings with the Secret Empire have caused him to grow cynical about the American Dream. He is dedicating his time to his private life and his relationship with Sharon Carter. The Falcon keeps trying to get him to re-form their partnership, but Steve tells him no. So Falcon is forced to go it alone, accompanied by Redwing, his trained falcon.  

Lucifer (a villain who previously fought the X-Men and Iron Man) is exiled in another dimension.  When he's able to return to Earth, he arrives in Harlem and teams up with some local gangsters. Lucifer is being transmitted back to his dimension and fuses his essence with a criminal named Rafe Michel.  He later breaks into a prison and frees the Aries from the Zodiac crime cartel and splits his essence between Rafe and Aries. Now Lucifer's power is divided between two "Lucifers". Morgan, a Harlem crime boss, wants the Falcon dead and hires the Lucifers to do the deed. Falcon is nearly killed, but Steve Rogers (in a ski mask) shows up and takes out the Lucifers.

Lucifer merges with Aries; Great art by Buscema & Colletta.

Shortly after Lucifer's defeat, Steve and Sharon are walking down 5th Street. Suddenly, an arrow flies towards them. More arrows follow, pinning Steve to a wall. The arrows are the work of a bowman who calls himself the Golden Archer. The archer flees, saying he will bring death to Steve Rogers. Steve is worried, since it seems like Golden Archer knows that he used to be Captain America.

Steve & Sharon's date is interrupted by the Golden Archer!

Steve tracks down the Golden Archer and easily defeats him. We learn that it was actually Steve's former Avengers teammate Hawkeye in disguise! It was a plan to get Steve back into the crime-fighting business. Hawkeye understands why Steve doesn't want to be Cap, but why not adopt a new alias?  Steve thinks it's a great idea, but Sharon isn't happy this development. She was enjoying the fact that Steve didn't run off in the middle of dinner to fight supervillains.  

A new superhero is born when Steve makes a new costume. His loss of faith in America has made him "a man without a country", so he takes the name Nomad.  

Nomad is born!

He's barely broken in his new threads when he stumbles on his old foes Viper (who previously battled Cap as Madame Hydra) Cobra, Eel and Princess Python, AKA the Serpent Squad! Nomad makes quick work of the Serpent Squad, but they get away when Nomad trips over his own cape.

The Serpent Squad gets away when Nomad steps on his own cape!

The Serpent Squad regroups and teams up with Warlord Krang of Atlantis. Krang has found the fabled Serpent Crown of Lemuria. Whoever controls the crown will rule the world. Nomad is able to defeat the Serpent Squad, but the Serpent Crown disappears.

Viper battles Nomad & shoots Cobra when he tries to escape.

At the same time, others are stepping forward to claim the identity of Captain America. The first two wind up with serious injuries on their first attempt at playing superhero. But a young man named Roscoe Simons steps up to become the new Cap. Roscoe knows Steve because they train at the same gym. The Falcon agrees to train and help Roscoe.

But disaster strikes. On Roscoe's first patrol, he and Falcon are attacked by the Red Skull! Roscoe is brutally murdered by the Skull and left as warning to Nomad. Steve feels somewhat responsible for this and realizes what it means. He must become Captain America once more. Steve dismisses his disillusionment with the United States as naivety and suits up. 

Cap and Falcon set out to find the Red Skull's hideout. They arrive and make easy work of Red Skull's minions, and Cap has Skull on the ropes. Suddenly, Captain America is jumped from behind and knocked out by...The Falcon! He's being mind-controlled by the Red Skull!  

Can Captain America escape? Or will his partner the Falcon kill Cap under the command of the Red Skull?

Review:
(Contains lots of major SPOILERS)

Captain America and the Falcon: Nomad starts out good.

It's interesting to watch Falcon patrolling the city on his own. Bringing back a fairly obscure villain like Lucifer was a nice touch. Steve Englehart writes some nice scenes of Steve and Sharon enjoying Cap-free romantic life. And I appreciated Sharon's reaction when Steve said he going back into the superhero game. It was understandable and realistic for her to be disappointed.

And I'm glad Englehart paired Peggy Carter off with Gabe Jones. The Cap/Sharon/Peggy love triangle was always awkward at best, and interracial romances were rare in comic books at the time.    

The rest of this story isn't very good.

I've always been a fan of the Serpent Squad, in its various incarnations. But the story built around the Serpent Crown contains tons of buildup with little payoff. Nomad beats up Krang and defeats the Squad with relative ease. He doesn't even call Namor for help. I'm not sure why Namor was even written into this story.

Gamecock is a silly villain (I'm not sure if that was intentional or not). He's just a bad guy in a rooster suit. Check out the image below: it's hard to buy the hype balloon that declares the story, "Another Classic!", when Gamecock is right next to the balloon.

Englehart at times seems determined to show that the Falcon is nothing without Captain America.  Falcon battles Lucifer for two issues and is about to be killed. Then Cap shows up and defeats Lucifer in a few panels.

And there's a weird line from Nomad when he's searching for the missing Falcon. He thinks Luke Cage might know where Falcon is, Nomad says "Cage's color is a very slim lead, but it's all I can come up with right now!" What's up with that? Does Steve Rogers think all African-Americans know each other? Why would Englehart write something like that?  

But the worst comes in the book's final chapter.

Through an extended flashback, we learn that Falcon has never been anything but a pawn of the Red Skull. His partnership with Cap (which had existed for 54 issues at this point) was set up by Red Skull as a scheme to kill his greatest enemy. He wiped Sam's mind and created a new personalty using the Cosmic Cube. It doesn't make sense and it pretty much ruined the Falcon for the next decade. The final insult comes when we learn Falcon was once a petty criminal who answered to the nickname "Snap".  Sam is depicted wearing a stereotypical 1970s "pimp" outfit .

 This is the worst thing Englehart ever wrote during the Bronze Age.   

Art:
Sal Buscema and Vince Colletta, the same art team from the previous tpb, pencil & ink the first 5 issues reprinted here. Their art looks good, giving us more great fight scenes, and some very nice full-page drawings.

But Frank Robbins takes over the penciling after that. It's a shocking contrast from the Buscema/Colletta portion.  Here's the last page penciled by Buscema:

When you turn the page of the tpb, you see this:

To my eyes, most of the characters look like crazed zombies. It's almost painful to look at some of it. Robbins had a long, great career in both comic books and comic strips. I don't like to speak ill of the dead, but Robbins' art doesn't work here.  

On a positive note, Robbins' pages are interrupted for one issue by Herb Trimpe's pencils, inked by Frank Giacoia and Mike Esposito. Trimpe always delivered good, solid art and does that here.
The beginning of Captain America and the Falcon: Nomad is a solid follow-up to the "Secret Empire" story, but what follows isn't very good. They say it's hard to follow a legend and the stories contained in this are a testament to that statement. The art from Buscema, Colletta and Trimpe saves it from getting a lower rating.

J.A. Morris' rating:

    
.5




2 and a half Sals.

The Thing: The Serpent Crown Affair

Reprints Marvel Two-In-One #64-67 & Marvel Team-Up Annual #5.
Written by Mark Gruenwald, Ralph Macchio & Steven Grant.
Pencils/Breakdowns by George Perez, Jerry Bingham, Ron Wilson & Mark Gruenwald.
Inks/Finishes by Gene Day, Jim Mooney & Friends.

The Thing and Stingray (AKA oceanographer Dr. Walter Newall) are on their way to meet the Inhuman Triton on the West Coast. Stingray's friend, Dr. Henry Croft, has been turned into an amphibian and they believe Triton can cure him.

Alternate Cover

The heroes happen to fly by a Roxxon oil rig that's collapsing into the Pacific Ocean. After securing the rig, Thing & Stingray are attacked by the rig workers. Suddenly, a brand new Serpent Squad arrives and joins the attack on the heroes. It turns out the rig wasn't set up to drill for oil, but to find the Serpent Crown!

The dramatic debut of the new Serpent Squad!

The Thing tangles with the Serpent Squad underwater. Anaconda nearly chokes him out and Black Mamba (a shape-shifter) takes the form of Ben's girlfriend Alicia Masters to mess with his mind.  

Death Adder threatens to kill Stingray

Triton finally shows up and evens the odds a bit. They're able to defeat the Serpent Squad, but the leader, Sidewinder, escapes with the Serpent Crown. 

Sidewinder delivers the Crown to Hugh Jones, the President of Roxxon Oil. He's wearing not one, but two Serpent Crowns! He has the Crown from our Earth and an alternate Earth (read this book for how the 2nd Crown got here). Jones says the crowns will make him "the master of reality!". Even Sidewinder is spooked by this, so he takes off.  

 
 Scarlet Witch locates the Serpent Crown in DC

With the help of Agatha Harkness and Scarlet Witch, Thing & Stingray track down the Crown in Washington, DC. They meet up with Wanda and track down Hugh Jones. He welcomes them to the "Congress Of The Crowns": he has created ghosts (he calls them "ethereal manifestations") of everyone who has ever worn the Crown (including Sub-Mariner, Krang & the Living Laser). It takes the combined power of Scarlet Witch, Stingray and the Thing to stop Jones and capture the Serpent Crown. Eventually Jones is defeated and Ben takes the Crown to Project Pegasus for safe storage.  

But there's more to this story than the Serpent Crown. 

Ben has broken up with his long-time girlfriend Alicia. He believes she will be safer if she isn't connected to the Fantastic Four and all their foes. But he quickly regrets dumping her and tries to reconcile. When he believes there's no hope, he decides to seek out Thundra, the Femizon from an Alternate Earth. Thundra has been in love with Ben for years, but he was never available.  

Thundra and Hyperion are both trying to get back to the worlds from which they each came and realize that they can help one another. Hyperion has also developed romantic feelings for Thundra.  Unfortunately for him, so has the Thing. This leads to a punch-up between them, when both Ben and Hyperion think the other is attacking Thundra.

Months later, the Serpent Crown has called security guards at Project Pegasus into its service. They attack Quasar (who was serving as Chief of Security at Project Pegasus) and force the Crown on to his head! He attempts to contact the Thing, but the Crown takes over his will before he can tell Ben what's happened. Ben is worried, and hightails it up to Project Pegasus to investigate.  


At the same time, Spider-Man sees an image of a giant snake slithering through New York and consults Doctor Strange for help in the matter. Strange determines that the Serpent Crown is back and they chase after it. Scarlet Witch also senses that the Crown is active and heads Upstate.  


When they arrive they're shocked to find not one, not two, but hundreds of Serpent Crowns from hundreds of universes!  

Review:

I'll start by saying I'm a bit biased here. I remember getting MTIO #64 as an Easter present when it was brand new back in 1980.  
One thing that's interesting here is appearances of Kull and Conan (one panel a piece, via flashback).  Marvel hasn't had the rights to the characters in years and I wonder if the lawyers for Robert E. Howard's estate caught this? 
Story:
Ralph Macchio and Mark Gruenwald (with a "plot assist" from Steven Grant) give us a great story here. The Serpent Squad is a great new villain team (Gruenwald later expanded them into the Serpent Society, so they must have meant a lot to him). The last part (from Marvel Team-Up Annual #5), written by Gruenwald without Macchio, is the weakest, but it doesn't detract from what comes before. It contains a great history of the Serpent Crown (Gruenwald was "Mr. Continuity", after all) that traces its origins back to the beginning of time.  

And before I started this blog, I didn't realize how big the Serpent Crown was during the Bronze Age.  This is the 3rd book I've reviewed that features the Crown!
Art:
George Perez does some great work here, truly at the top of his game. Gene Day also does a nice job inking Perez' pencils. The underwater fight scenes look gorgeous. 

The last two stories from the Marvel Two-In-One issues are drawn by Jerry Bingham & Ron Wilson, with Gene Day (and "friends") still inking. They're not Perez, but they both do a fine job here. 

The final part of the book is drawn by Mark Gruenwald and inked by Jim Mooney. Since Mooney was more of a penciler than inker, we see a lot of him here, but that's okay.  


How does it look?
Fantastic. Here's another page of underwater scenery:

The Serpent Crown Affair is a great book. This was my introduction to the Thing as a "solo" character and the story is still fun years later. The aforementioned art makes it worth picking up for all Bronze Age fans. Highly recommended to fans of Ben Grimm, Marvel Two-In-One and George Perez.  

 

4 Sals.

Avengers: The Private War Of Doctor Doom

Reprints Avengers #150-156, Avengers Annual #6 and Super-Villain Team-Up #9

Written by Steve Englehart,Gerry Conway,Bill Mantlo & Scott Edelman.
Penciled by George Perez, John Buscema, Jim Shooter, Sal Buscema, Herb Trimpe & Jack Kirby.
Inked by John Tartaglione, Joe Sinnott, Pablo Marcos, Sal Trapani, Duffy Vohland, Mike Esposito, Herb Trimpe & Dick Ayers.

The time has come, once again, for the Avengers to select a new roster. Iron Man will be the new chair, with Captain America, Beast, Scarlet Witch,Vision, Wasp and Yellowjacket filling out the ranks.

The Avengers meet the press to announce their new line-up, when Wonder Man suddenly shows up. But he's dead?! Wonder Man is walking and talking like a brain-dead zuvembie (see below for an explanation about zuvembies). He accuses the Vision of stealing his mind before passing out. Vision is upset since this is somewhat true: his android brain is patterned after Wonder Man's dead brain.

They figure out that Wonder Man was in Louisiana before he showed up, so the Avengers fly their Quinjet to New Orleans. They learn that Wonder Man was sent to their mansion by the Black Talon, an evil fake voodoo priest who directs Wonder Man and a gang of zuvembies to attack the Avengers.

But it turns out that the real culprit behind Wonder Man's reappearance is the Living Laser. He's found the Serpent Crown and is more powerful than ever! Living Laser has a company of U.S. Army soldiers under his control and he's revived the nuclear-powered mutant man-child called Nuklo! Luckily for the Avengers, Wonder Man recovers his memory and he's able to help the Avengers in battle. Nuklo's father, the Golden Age Whizzer also plays a vital role in this conflict.

Alternate Cover

The Avengers are able to defeat Living Laser and confiscate the Serpent Crown (dumping the crown in the Pacific Ocean), but as soon as that battle is over, Vision is captured by Attuma, the barbarian warlord from Atlantis. He sends his super-powered henchman Tyrak to capture the rest of the Avengers.  But the Beast and Wonder Man get away. It turns out Tyrak's strength has been medically enhanced by Atlantean science.

The Whizzer lashes out at the Vision

Attuma places control collars on the Avengers and forces them to go after the Sub-Mariner. However, when they look for Namor at his Hydrobase, they are instead met by Doctor Doom! The collars make them a bit sluggish, so Doom easily defeats the Avengers.

Captain America stands up to Tyrak!

Beast, Wonder Man and Whizzer head off to rescue the Avengers. Unfortunately, Namor and Attuma arrive at the same time.  

Iron Man falls against Doctor Doom!

The Avengers learn that Attuma plans to make an army of super-powered Atlanteans in the mold of Tyrak. They ask Doom to join them (and Namor) in an alliance against Attuma. Will he join them? Can their combined might stop Attuma and Tyrak?

And if that isn't enough, we also get a solo story starring the Vision. The Whirlwind, an old foe of the Avengers has returned, and it's up to Vizh to stop him!

Review:

Some notes and background info on the issues reprinted in Avengers: The Private War Of Doctor Doom:
-Doctor Doom doesn't actually show up until page 141. That doesn't bother me, but the title might give you the impression that it features all Doom all the time.
-When these stories were published, Namor had recently sworn an oath of loyalty to Doom. In exchange, Doom promised to revive the population of Atlantis from a toxin-induced coma. That's why Doom was on the Hydrobase when the Avengers arrived.

-The reason why Wonder Man is a "zuvembie" rather than a zombie is because zombies were considered taboo in comics at this time and Marvel didn't want to risk offending the Comics Code Authority.  

Also, I should mention that the first issue that's reprinted here (Avengers #150) was running behind schedule when it was originally published, so 12 pages of  the story are reprinted from Avengers #16, which was published during the Silver Age (so it doesn't get reviewed here!).

Story:
There's a lot going on in this hardcover, but the multiple stories all lead into one another very smoothly. The formation of the new team leads right into the story about Wonder Man, which leads to the Serpent Crown, which leads to Attuma and Doom.  

Gerry Conway writes the bulk of Private War, with the last two parts being written by Bill Mantlo and Jim Shooter. 

I like the portrayal of Doom here (by Conway and Mantlo).  Just the right amount of arrogance, dignity, and evil, but not without a twisted moral code.  

 Attuma is also well-written here. He's not an A-list villain, but here, Attuma is enough of a threat that Doom considers teaming up with the Avengers. If there's anything wrong with this story it's Tyrak. He defeats all the Avengers (except Beast, who flees) in a few pages. I guess Conway was trying to build up Tyrak as a monster-level threat, but it seemed to easy.  

And this is an interesting team of Avengers. With Scarlet Witch, Vision, Wasp & Yellowjacket, we have two married couples on the roster.    

Art:
The art here is outstanding. George Perez is still developing his style, but his pencils look great here. John Buscema and his brother Sal are just as good. Jim Shooter penciled 17 pages too. He's not in the same league as the other artists, but his work here is okay. There's also a short Vision solo story penciled by Herb Trimpe that also looks fine. Most of the inking is done by Pablo Marcos and Joe Sinnott. Their work nicely compliments the pencils here.

How does it look?:
As good as the original issues, only better. Check out this great fight scene, scanned from the book:

Extras:
We get a reprint of the letters column from Avengers #151. This column explains why half of issue # 150 was a reprint.

My rating:
The story isn't the best ever, but the pencils of Perez & the Buscema Brothers (three of the definitive Bronze Age artists in one book!) make it worth purchasing. Here's another great page from the book, in case you need any more convincing:

.5

3 and half Sals.