From these an empire was made?

Texts for today - Fantastic Four 1-5, Incredible Hulk #1-2

Well, that's not an entirely fair description, since issue 4 of FF features the return of Namor, the Sub-mariner and issue 5 introduces Doctor Doom - but still...

For anyone who doesn't know the origin stories, the Fantastic Four gained their powers during a risky, unauthorized space trip - the shielding of their vessel wasn't up to standards, and they were bathed in cosmic rays. Naturally, these cosmic rays were attuned to ancient elements, as powers related to fire, earth, air, and water are bestowed upon them.

Unfortunately, they aren't granted a complete team mythos. Well, maybe that's unfair, but I expected a fully outfitted team from the get-go, or else a crash-landing that leads to their encounter with the Mole Man. (Yeah, I read the 1990s reboot.) Naturally, it takes them a little time to outfit their operation - but it just flashes into existence between issues 2 and 3. They go from having little more than signal flare guns to possession of the Baxter Building and a passenger ICBM. (So far, not used.)

And it's a little odd that they've not been held by the US government after their space escapades, or at least pursued - after all, they went joyriding in space on the taxpayer's dime!

Anyhow, issue one features nuclear hijinks, as the Mole Man has some subterranean behemoth steal nuclear plants. It's all resolved in a few pages, and little more is useful from that issue. The second issue features the debut of the shape-shifting aliens known as the Skrulls, who impersonate the FF in hopes of discrediting them so that an intergalactic invasion can ensue. (It concludes with the defeated Skrulls changing into cows and being hypnotized so that they forget what they are. I'll have to check wikipedia later to see if anything happened to the children that drank that milk...)

Issue three features the Miracle Man (not the British superhero who has caused such trouble for Todd MacFarlane), but other than the presence of the military during the "rampage" of Miracle Man's "creatures," there's little to discuss from this issue. Well, there's the Invisible Girl's fashion designs for the team, the introduction of the Baxter Building (more on it in a later post once they've used it), and the first use of the Fantasticar (a flying car that splits into four sections).

Namor was a golden age superhero who'd been lost since the end of the war. After the Human Torch and the Thing have a spat in issue three, the Torch leaves and encounters a powerful derelict in a flophouse in the Bowery. (Luckily, the Torch was reading a 1940s comic book while relaxing in the flophouse. Of course, old comics didn't quite have the same collectible value then that they have now, but it seems like a bit of a stretch that a 20-year-old comic would be waiting for him there. Yes, I'm aware that I'm taking issue with the presence of an old comic book in a building that houses a man who can burst into flame and coincidentally runs into a half-man, half-Atlantean amnesiac king of an undersea kingdom. And?)

Anyhow, Namor regains his memory thanks to the Torch, finds that his kingdom's been destroyed by H-bomb testing, and declares war on the surface world. New York is evacuated, a gigantic undersea creature goes on a rampage, and the Thing totes an atomic bomb down the creature's gullet (and escapes in the nick of time). (Is there anything that nuclear weapons can't solve?) Oh, and Namor falls in love with the Invisible Girl.

Doctor Doom - who proves to be the FF's nemesis - first appears in the next issue when he forces the men of the team to go back in time to steal Blackbeard's treasure. (Yep, I laughed, too. It even turns out that the Thing proves to be Blackbeard, since his disguise and his fighting prowess makes him out to be the captain of the captured pirates. He plans to stay behind and live with the pirates who've accepted him as a man, but a storm gets in the way.) Fortunately, Doom's not just about the bling, but interested in the magical properties of some of the jewels which had previously been the property of Merlin. Mr. Fantastic had left the jewels behind, though, and the FF manage to escape from the trap that Doom had prepared for them. (Doom also employs a doppelganger robot, which entirely fools the FF.) Doom, therefore, is set up from the beginning as the natural antithesis of Mr. Fantastic, as Doom's scientific abilities (shown in his origin story, his robot-making, and his powered armor) are matched only by his interest in mystic powers (which are not employed here).

Issue five also features the Human Torch reading issue one of The Incredible Hulk, and quipping that the Hulk looks a lot like the Thing. (Not even close, of course, given the grey skin of the early Hulk and the lumpy, rocky hide of the early Thing... but the Torch is just interested in teasing.) The Hulk is immediately laid out as a nuclear age Jekyll and Hyde, with the mild-mannered but aloof and arrogant Bruce Banner transformed into the angry, powerful Hulk by a mishap during the testing of the "Gamma Bomb." (A rebel-without-a-cause teenager, Rick Jones, drives out onto the testing ground to prove his courage, and Banner shoves Jones down into a protective ditch but is caught in the blast. Banner becomes a part-time superhuman, and Jones is completely safe. Totally safe - and all because he was shoved to cover! I smell sequel to "Duck and Cover..." - so long as they can re-sign the monkey with the firecracker from the instructional film.) Early on, the Hulk only comes into being when it's nighttime, not when he's angry.

Anyhow, the villains of the story are the "Red spy"/scientist Igor - who conveniently forgot to stop the test of the gamma bomb, and tried to steal its plans - and he alerts his superior, the Gargoyle, to what has transpired through the "sub-minature transistor shortwave sending set" on his thumbnail. (The first texter?) The Gargoyle immediately travels by "experimental man-carrying rocket" - launched by a Soviet missile sub - so that he can capture the Hulk and take him back to the USSR. The Gargoyle arrives safely in the passenger capsule, but "America's mighty defense structure unleashes its fantastic arsenal" and the body of the rocket is destroyed by "hunter missiles." (I know this isn't the first example of SDI, since Frances FitzGerald discusses this in Way Out There in the Blue.)

Anyhow, the misshapen Gargoyle's helped by Banner - not to become the Hulk, but to become normal. Banner knows how to use radiation to heal the Gargoyle, even though it'll destroy the Gargoyle's superintelligence. He readily accepts, and once transformed into a normal human he shakes his fist at a portrait of Khrushchev and denounces the work he'd been forced to do on secret bomb tests. But since an American cured him and he is "no longer a Gargoyle, [he] can defy you, and all you stand for like a man!" He promptly aids Banner and Jones, sending them back to the United States in his escape rocket although he does not escape. Instead, he glories in the fact that he is a man and has finished his work by setting off a self-destruct sequence so that he can "die as a man!" As Banner and Jones fly away, Jones notes that Banner not only made him "normal again" but also "turned him against the Reds!" As the destruction of the base sounds, Banner notes that "It's the end of the Gargoyle! And perhaps... the beginning of the end of the Red Tyranny, too!" (Yep, it was one spy named Igor and a mutated superintelligence which made the Soviets such a challenge. Meh, I shouldn't be so hard on the final panel of a comic...)

The less said about the threat of the Toad Men in issue two, the better. (No, I'm serious abou that threat.) Anyhow, Banner is kidnapped by the Toad Men, who've hunted down "the most brilliant scientific mind on Earth." I suppose they value weapons of mass destruction design over experimental spaceflight design (Mr. Fantastic), robotics (Doctor Doom), or miniaturized weaponry (Tony Stark, the Iron Man - who admittedly hadn't been created yet). So Banner is captured, it turns to night, Hulk smash (and muses about the power he has at his fingertips with the magnetic weaponry of the Toad Men - which would allow him to be the hunter instead of the hunted), and the US missile corps shoots down the UFO. (General "Thunderbolt" Ross: "If your radar shows an unidentified flying object above us, shoot it down, man! What do you think we're here for?" The rules of engagement for Ross are such fun.)

The UFO falls to the daylight side of earth, and Banner is arrested as a traitor. With the Hulk out of the way, the Toad Men signal the invasion fleet. (I guess when you've come all that way, a green-skinned behemoth won't faze you. Yeah, he's green now. I don't think he's grey again until the late 80s when he became a Vegas legbreaker. No, I'm not kidding.) Anyway, Hulk escapes while the magnetic technology of the Toad Men plays havoc with tides and they call for surrender. Once he reverts to Banner again, he turns to the gamma ray gun he invented and uses it against the Toad Men. Only thing is, he doesn't know what it'll do: "No one can predict what their effect would be on a field of magnetic energy!" But he goes with it anyway, and somehow it reverses the magnetism and sends the fleet off into space. Banner is cleared, but Ross remains suspicious of a connection between Banner "and that ding-blasted Hulk!" My thoughts exactly.

Bounties of Media, Models of Major-Generals

So, at long, long last, almost all of the DVDs I need have arrived - Invincible Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Mighty Avengers, Fantastic Four and Silver Surfer, and Captain America. Naturally, the last was the first that I examined, particularly since it featured the assassination issue and the whole Winter Soldier storyline.

I've not read a lot of the Civil War, so the particulars of that story arc may have made Steve Roger's death even more poignant, but it was still powerfully affecting. Yeah, it's a comic, and yeah, it's all made up, but... it was still surprising to see something like that done well, let alone done at all. The good news is that I've got 40 years of issues to read now (and I can always start picking up the alternative reboot of Ultimates, too).

Reading the Winter Soldier storyline prior to the assassination issue certainly provided an interesting counterpoint to things. For anyone who didn't hear, Captain America's original sidekick, Bucky Barnes, was brought back from the shadowy depths of presumed death as a former Soviet super-assassin. (Naturally, this demolishes the tryptch of "No one stays dead in comics except for Jason Todd, Bucky Barnes, and Uncle Ben." Only Spidey's uncle remains in the realms of the undead, but I'm hoping that he'll end up as a herald of Galactus before long.) It was a good storyline - compelling reading, emotionally charged, and centred more on the story than on bang-slam action scenes.

As for the last two weeks - my plans for this weekend's library trip were dashed when I was signed up as a substitute Drama teacher at a local school after a family tragedy. It's been a lot of fun working with the students on their performance of "Pirates of Penzance," but it's also been pretty time-consuming. Heck, it's even taking up some evenings and weekend time - such as today. Speaking of which, I'd better get ready - time to get moving and help with some tech before the rehearsal begins this afternoon.

Library trip, though? Well, we'll see when it can be planned. If the library's open after Christmas, I might have to travel down there and spend a few days in the glorious quiet of a university library during the holidays...

[Edit - And now that I've been accepted for the CHA this year, I'll certainly have to be ready and set with whatever I proposed...]