JANUARY 1975 MARVEL ISSUES

This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog will take a look at the Marvel publications from January of 1975, excluding reprints.

MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #20 (January 1975)

Title: Batroc and Other Assassins

Villains: Batroc and the Cult of Kara-Kai

Comment: Iron Fist got well and truly integrated into the Marvel Comics universe with this battle against Captain America’s frequent supervillain Batroc the Leaper.     

Synopsis: It’s a day after the previous issue. Iron Fist is involved in another battle against four or five members of the Cult of Kara-Kai who have come to try killing Professor Wing yet again so they can steal The Book of Many Things. That mystic tome includes arcane information about how to destroy the enchanted city of K’un-Lun. Our hero defeats all the cultists.

Iron Fist grows annoyed with the Professor’s flippant attitude toward the murder attempts and informs Colleen about how her father claims the Cult has tried to kill him over 40 times in the years since he started trying to translate The Book of Many Things. Colleen tells her father that she has agreed to guard him alone while her partner Misty Knight runs their business herself for a while longer.

Colleen wants to give Iron Fist time to track down the villain called the Ninja and try to prove that he killed Harold Meachum. Instead, the next morning our hero naively goes to Meachum Tower to talk to Joy again. He uses all his stealth abilities to ascend all 24 floors to reach her in her new office from which she helps run her late father’s empire Meachum Industries.

After another bitter and acrimonious exchange between Joy and Iron Fist, her Uncle Ward enters with their new mercenary hire: Batroc. A clash between Iron Fist’s kung fu and Batroc’s French kickboxing unfolds.

Eventually, Daniel emerges victorious, even breaking Batroc’s arm (or dislocating his shoulder – this issue and next contradict each other on what injury he inflicted on the villain). The Frenchman calls in his subordinate mercenaries, Batroc’s Brigade, to kill Iron Fist.

As the fighting drags on and on, Daniel knocks out several of his dozens of attackers, but at one point he is nearly killed from behind only to have the Ninja appear again and kill that member of Batroc’s Brigade. From that point on in the action the Ninja fights at Iron Fist’s side, slaughtering men as usual and ignoring our hero’s demands that he let him handle the battle himself.

The wounded Batroc enters the fight on behalf of his men and attacks the Ninja, disgusted by the way the figure is butchering the Brigade. Iron Fist takes it upon himself to end the slaughter by swiftly knocking out Batroc and his remaining 11 men.

Once again, Daniel demands answers from the Ninja, but he remains silent as he teleports Iron Fist and himself several streets away. Our hero tries to fight him but the Ninja teleports away again before that can happen.

We readers see that the Ninja has returned to Professor Wing’s study, where The Book of Many Things is laid out. The Ninja’s form dissipates and reenters the book, leaving behind its human host … Professor Wing himself. FOR THE NEXT PART CLICK HERE.

HULK Vol 1 #183 (January 1975)

Title: Fury at 50,000 Volts

Villain: Zzzax

Synopsis: The fugitive Hulk falls asleep in a Chicago alleyway and wakes up as Bruce Banner. Needing to earn money for food, Bruce takes a job as a janitor at a laboratory.

Through a comic book coincidence, the lab is experimenting with contacting alien civilizations, but winds up instead teleporting the electricity monster Zzzax back to Earth.

Following a destructive battle throughout the Windy City, Hulk once again defeats Zzzax and then leaps out of town.

DAREDEVIL Vol 1 #117 (January 1975)

Title: Mind Tap

Villain: The Owl

Synopsis: Daredevil and the Black Widow have been back at their San Francisco locale for a little while. In the previous issue, Daredevil’s frequent foe the Owl and his men successfully captured DD and are threatening to kill him unless the Black Widow carries out a kidnapping for him. The target? Diamond mine heiress Shanna O’Hara.

With Daredevil’s life on the line, the Widow swings over to Dr. O’Hara’s penthouse apartment in San Francisco to abduct her. After a brief battle between the two, they decide to team up against the Owl to free Daredevil since the Owl will likely kill him no matter what, if he hasn’t already.

The Black Widow and Shanna the She-Devil swing along on the Widow’s web-lines to reach the Owl’s HQ.

As they get close to it, Shanna pretends to be unconscious, and Natasha carries her into the Owl’s presence.

The villain reveals he has no intention of freeing Daredevil, so the She-Devil stops playing possum. She frees Daredevil and then joins the Black Widow in mopping the floor with the bad guys.

In the end the Owl is defeated and captured.

THOR Vol 1 #231 (January 1975)

Title: A Spectre from the Past

Villain: Armak

Synopsis: Thor and Hercules have returned to the Earth’s surface in New York City after defeating the Dweller in Darkness last issue. From the police, Thor learns that one of the surviving victims out of the countless people that the Dweller forced to make suicide attempts is Jane Foster, whom he has not seen in years.

Thor flies to the hospital to see Jane and is told by her physician that there is not much hope for her to live. Elsewhere, Loki remotely hijacks a seance to fill an attendee with the mind and power of Armak, a three-million-year-old man-monster.

Thor and Hercules reunite to defeat the villain, whose mortal host body perishes as Armak dies.

IRON MAN Vol 1 #72 (January 1975)

Title: Convention of Fear

Villains: The Black Lama, the Melter, Whiplash & the Man-Bull

NOTE: This story is partially set at the 1974 San Diego Comic-Con, back before that convention became the huge event that it was for a while.

Synopsis: By now Tony Stark has been back in the United States for some time after fighting the Mandarin, the Yellow Claw and the Black Lama in China. In the latest go-round of his massive reorganization of Stark International following his decision to stop doing munitions work, Tony is overseeing the reorganization of the San Diego offices of his company.

The Black Lama, upon learning that Stark is in San Diego for the present, changes up his plans. He was about to pit the Melter, Whiplash and the Man-Bull against each other as the latest battle in his War of the Supervillains. However, he now alters that to having them first kill their mutual foe Iron Man.

First, the Black Lama possesses a group of workers at the Stark International San Diego facilities and has them attack Tony, who defeats them. He puzzles over what villain may have caused this attack while he parties amid the San Diego night-life with an exotic dancer.

Next, as an excuse for assorted comic book industry in-jokes, the writers have Tony Stark attend the San Diego Comic-Con the next day for a break from running his business. He must don his Iron Man armor when Whiplash, Melter and the Man-Bull attack.

The Black Lama possesses the convention-goers like he possessed Stark’s employees the day before, so our hero realizes that the Lama was behind that attack by his own workers.

Amid a destructive battle, Iron Man defeats all four of the supervillains. The Black Lama escapes by teleporting away with his Golden Globe of Power, but the Melter, Whiplash and Man-Bull get arrested, furious at the Black Lama for abandoning them.

Unfortunately for continuity’s sake, not enough is made of the fact that this makes the very first time that Whiplash will actually be going to prison. He didn’t the previous two times he and Iron Man fought. The first time they got separated at sea and the second time Whiplash simply escaped.

CAPTAIN MARVEL Vol 1 #36 (January 1975)

Title: Watching and Waiting 

Villain: Uatu the Watcher

Synopsis: In this figurative “Captain Marvel clip show”, Uatu the Watcher plays back the Kree Captain Mar-Vell’s entire history on Earth, from his arrival as part of the enemy Kree space fleet, through his adventures protecting us Earth schlubs from his own people’s plans for conquest, through him and the Avengers getting caught up in the Kree-Skrull War.

The Watcher ends with a recap of the Thanos War, in which the cosmic entity Eon, acting on orders from Chaos and Order, granted Captain Marvel increased powers and named him Protector of the Universe Entire.

Because this is during the storyline in which Uatu has gone insane, the Watcher considers himself “protector of the universe entire” and resolves to kill Mar-Vell in the cliffhanger ending.      

AVENGERS Vol 1 Number 131 (January 1975)

Title: A Quiet Half-Hour in Saigon 

Avengers Roster: Thor (Donald Blake, MD), Iron Man (Tony Stark), Scarlet Witch (Wanda Frank), Hawkeye (Clint Barton), Vision (Not applicable) and Mantis (Mantis Brandt)

Villains: Kang the Conqueror and his Legion of the Unliving

Synopsis: It’s over to Vietnam as The Celestial Madonna Saga continues. We rejoin our heroes the day after their battle with the Titanic Three (plus Slasher) in the capital city of Vietnam where they were investigating Mantis’ past. Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, the Vision and Mantis still do not understand her coming role as the Celestial Madonna.

Nor do they understand exactly WHAT this Celestial Madonna will do, let alone who her mate will be or why their offspring will somehow control all time and space. The Scarlet Witch, meanwhile, is still back in New York at Avengers Mansion, being tutored by the sorceress Agatha Harkness.  

There has been no response yet to the repeating radio summons to the Kree superhero Captain Marvel, who Iron Man hopes will be able to shed light on Mantis’ ties to the ancient Kree sect of the Priests of Pama.

No one still alive in the criminal empire of Mantis’ late uncle has been able to provide useful information, either. The Madonna Star continues to shine above Avengers Mansion, drawing throngs from around the world and inspiring rumors that the star presages the end of the world.

CUT TO: The time-stream itself, where Kang the Conqueror remains locked in battle with his future self, Rama Tut II. Through time-travel technology that is superior even to Kang’s own the pair are plucked from Kang’s drifting time-sphere in which they were fighting. 

The two combatants (think of it like two of Doctor Who’s regenerations fighting each other) have been teleported to the throne-room of the green and purple-clad supervillain called Immortus. Rama Tut II has been rendered unconscious during the teleportation process – an accident, says Immortus.

Immortus, calling himself the Master of Time, welcomes Kang to his domain: Limbo, a realm that exists outside of the time-stream. Kang and Immortus have mutual enemies – the Avengers. Immortus obligingly imprisons Kang’s apparent enemy Rama Tut II in a transparent prison that negates his technological weaponry.

In return Immortus is offering an alliance with Kang the Conqueror against the Avengers. Long ago – back in Avengers Vol 1 #10 (November, 1964) Immortus plucked a half-dozen figures like Attila the Hun, Paul Bunyan and Merlin the Magician from the time-stream to battle the Avengers.

Needless to say the Avengers won, but Immortus says that was just the trial run for his device that lets him draw people from precise moments in time. Now he is ready to attack the Avengers in earnest.

NOTE: More “timey-wimey” fun here. To Immortus just a few minutes have passed since the events of Avengers #10 but for our heroes it’s been over 120 issues. Anyway, Rama Tut has regained consciousness by now and rails at Kang about how he must not possess the Celestial Madonna.

Back with the Avengers, Hawkeye checks in with the butler Jarvis back at the mansion. Jarvis tells Hawkeye that there has been no response from Captain Marvel back there, either. Hawkeye asks to speak to Wanda but Jarvis tells him that the Scarlet Witch is still locked away with Agatha Harkness in the room which Miss Harkness has mystically sealed off from the rest of the world.

Mantis, meanwhile, talks with the Vision and apologizes for her efforts to steal him away from the Scarlet Witch. The Vision is conciliatory about it all and Mantis confides in him how frightened she is about the incomprehensible role she seems destined for.  

Out of sight of the Avengers the mysterious Hooded One, dressed in the robes of the supposedly extinct Priests of Pama, watches Mantis just like he was doing in our last installment.

Back to Limbo, where Immortus has been showing Kang all his technology. The Conqueror decides to improve upon Immortus’ original plan of attack against the Avengers. Instead of plucking confused beings from the time-stream, beings who have no real motive to fight the Avengers he will INSTEAD pluck several of Earth’s slain supervillains out of the time-stream.

The choice Kang will give those beings will be clear: they can help him destroy the Avengers and obtain Mantis for his bride or he will simply transport them back to the precise instant of their painful deaths. If they succeed in killing the Avengers for him he will promise to let them live by NOT sending them back to face their deaths.

Kang can then simply double-cross the members of this Legion he is assembling and send them back anyway, OR he can keep them at his side to fight Earth’s other superteams and rely on the mastery of time and space – that his and Mantis’ offspring will provide him – to negate any paradoxes caused by snatching them from their deaths. 

Kang now puts his obsessive study of the 20th Century’s various super-beings to excellent use. Operating Immortus’ device he plucks specific super-villains one at a time to serve him:

WONDER MAN – Simon Williams, possessed of strength to equal Thor, plus super-speed and invulnerability. He is plucked from the time-stream just as he begins to feel the fatal effects of the serum that killed him way back in Avengers # 9.

Since Ultron used the mental patterns from the living Wonder Man as the basis for the Vision’s own artificial intelligence, Wonder Man’s mere presence should unnerve the Vision – enough, Kang hopes, to help destroy the Vision, whom he considers his greatest rival for Mantis.

THE ORIGINAL HUMAN TORCH – Despite the word “human” in his name, this super-being was the android creation of Professor Horton around the time of World War Two. As an android he survived to recent decades, just like the Sub-Mariner and Captain America had, but the Mad Thinker reprogrammed him to be a super-villain.

The Mad Thinker used the android Human Torch to try to kill the Fantastic Four’s Human Torch, and destroyed the android Torch when that plan failed. Kang plucks him from the time-stream right before the fatal energy blast can “kill” him. 

MIDNIGHT – M’Nai, the half-brother of Marvel’s Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu. Midnight is a black-clad master of martial arts who died in his battle against Shang-Chi.

Kang wants Midnight to use his martial arts skill to bring Mantis in alive and with no permanent damage. Midnight was plucked from the time-stream an instant before his death in battle with Shang Chi.

THE GHOST – Actually Captain Vanderdekken of the Flying Dutchman, here called simply the Ghost. I would have at least made it the Ghost Mariner. Anyway, the Ghost was granted enormous powers and then temporarily released from Hell by Mephisto, who wanted him to use those vast powers to destroy the Silver Surfer himself.

Ironically, in Silver Surfer # 8 the Ghost was instead FREED from damnation when the Silver Surfer compassionately shed a tear over Vanderdekken’s plight, breaking his curse and letting his soul at last pass on to Heaven. Kang uses the opposite motivation on the Ghost that he uses on the others – if the Ghost doesn’t serve him he WON’T send him back to meet his death and ascension to Heaven. 

BARON ZEMO – The original Baron Zemo, a World War Two foe of Captain America and Bucky. Zemo blamed Captain America for the way Zemo’s super-glue Adhesive X caused his (Zemo’s) mask to wind up sticking to his face permanently.

Zemo, armed with scientific weapons like the electronic ray blaster in the palm of one of his gloves and a gun that fires Adhesive X, was plucked from the time-stream just before dying in an avalanche in Avengers number 15.

THE FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER – A choice so silly it almost ruins the whole story – to me, anyway. Marvel had begun publishing a comic book about the Frankenstein Monster’s adventures so he was included just to promote his own comic book here in the much more widely-read Avengers comic book.

Just the monster wouldn’t bother me, but they have him fighting Thor next time around, when his strength would be nowhere near Thor’s level. Annoying.

I would have used one of Hulk’s dead foes like the Glob or a similar super-villain, one that would match Thor’s strength according to Marvel’s own in-universe rules. In any event Kang christens this sextet his Legion of the Unliving.

Kang is planning on traveling with his Legion of the Unliving to Vietnam to attack the Avengers but Immortus recommends that they instead teleport the Avengers to Limbo.

Immortus tells Kang about the endless miles of labyrinthine catacombs beneath his castle, catacombs the Avengers can be teleported to in scattered fashion, separated from each other and lost in the confusing maze of tunnels.

Kang likes the idea of fighting on terrain much more suited to himself and his Legion than to his foes and agrees. Immortus expresses resentment over the way Kang is practically stealing control of the entire plan so Kang overpowers Immortus and imprisons him in a transparent cell right next to Rama Tut II.

Rama Tut II (at right) screams at his younger self (Kang) that he will destroy the natural order of the universe if he possesses the Celestial Madonna. Kang scoffs at him and relishes the thought that, here in Limbo, no other superheroes can come to the aid of the Avengers. Plus, since Limbo is outside of the very time-stream itself Kang can possibly escape the fate of failing to seize Mantis and eventually becoming Rama Tut II in the first place.

Back in Saigon the Avengers are standing around at nightfall pondering their next move when they are suddenly teleported to Immortus’ dark, labyrinthine catacombs, each Avenger alone and far from the others. 

Mantis’ mutant empathic powers immediately warn her that it’s Kang, striking again as Rama Tut II predicted. The Vision, for his part, erroneously wonders if they’ve all been summoned by a Higher Being to witness the final stage in Mantis’ transformation into the Celestial Madonna.

Kang uses Immortus’ radio system to broadcast a sinister greeting to his hated foes:

KANG: Hear me, Avengers! You have defied my will for the final time! Here, lost and alone in the Labyrinth of Limbo, you will die at my direction and at the hands of the most relentless terrors you have ever faced!

And with that deliciously operatic announcement Kang leads his Legion of the Unliving into the Labyrinth to find Mantis and kill the other Avengers. FOR THE NEXT PART CLICK HERE.

DEFENDERS Vol 1 #19 (January 1975)

Title: Doomball

Villains: The Wrecking Crew (Wrecker, Piledriver, Thunderball and Bulldozer)

Synopsis: Picking up from the previous issue, the Defenders continue their battle with the Wrecking Crew. Our heroes are short-handed with Valkyrie off looking for her host body Barbara Denton-Norris’ family to let them know Barbara’s fate.

Dr. Strange, Hulk, Nighthawk and the newest Defender, Power Man, defeat the villains and recover the deadly gamma radiation bomb they planned to use to blackmail billions from New York City. As always, the Defenders disband at the end of the mission.

MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE Vol 1 #7 (January 1975)

Title: Name that Doom

Villains: The Enchantress (Amora) and the Executioner (Skurge)

Synopsis: In the previous issue, the Thing became part of the latest ad hoc assemblage of Defenders alongside Dr. Strange, Clea and Valkyrie. The heroes are fighting the Enchantress and the Executioner for possession of the Harmonica of Destiny, yet ANOTHER Marvel Comics relic which can grant the user control over reality. 

The Enchantress, who implanted Valkyrie’s powers in Barbara Denton-Norris’ body in Defenders #4, now strips away the Valkyrie’s powers, leaving her a normal human. Enchantress and the Executioner begin wielding the Harmonica to rearrange existence the way they want it.

Barbara Norris’ father Alvin Denton, whom Valkyrie was reunited with during this multi-part story, sacrifices his life to gain an opportunity for the Thing to defeat the two villains and undo everything they just did with the Harmonica.

Valkyrie, with more and more of Barbara’s memories surfacing of late, mourns the passing of her host body’s father.

GIANT-SIZE DEFENDERS Vol 1 #3 (January 1975)

Title: Games Godlings Play

Villains: The Grandmaster and the Prime Mover

NOTE: These Giant-Sized issues were quarterly publications that Marvel briefly experimented with in the 1970s, but only the Avengers rotated them into their ongoing storylines effectively.

Synopsis: The Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum in the movies), one of the Elders of the Universe like the Collector, has returned to Earth to play another game for ownership of our planet. He originally sought to recruit his former creations the Squadron Sinister but got no further than their member Nighthawk.

The Grandmaster learned that Nighthawk had since gone straight and joined the Defenders, so the Elder adjusted his plans and abducted other Defenders to play for his side. With Nighthawk, Dr. Strange, Sub-Mariner, Hulk and Valkyrie assembled, one more “player” was needed to match the six being used by the Grandmaster’s opponent – the Prime Mover, Dr. Doom’s former Artificial Intelligence opponent at chess games.

Nighthawk was sent to find a sixth player and recruited Daredevil, one of the heroes he had fought during his years as a villain. Daredevil thus became a Defender and competed with the rest of the team against the Prime Mover’s “players”, including villains like Korvac (his FIRST EVER appearance) and others.

The Defenders won, but as the Grandmaster prepared to assume possession of the Earth, Daredevil improvised a new strategy that thwarted the villain’s plans. The Grandmaster returned the Defenders, the Prime Mover and all the other figures to their proper times and places, then departed the Earth.

FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER Vol 1 #14 (January 1975)

Title: Fury of the Night-Creature

Villains: I.C.O.N. and the Night-Creature

Synopsis: Picking up from the previous issue, the Frankenstein Monster battles the Night-Creature created by mad scientist Steven Caccone. The beast had already slain Steven and his wife and our title hero is protecting their young son Ralph from the Night-Creature.

The Fr. Monster succeeds, but then he and Ralph are taken captive by the villainous outfit called I.C.O.N. (International Crime Organization Nexus). A private investigator named Eric Prawn frees them from that facility and turns them over to his client – Veronica Frankenstein, the last living member of the Frankenstein family.

CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON Vol 1 #181 (January 1975)

Title: The Mark of Madness

Villains: The Serpent Squad (The new, female Viper, the Eel, Cobra and Princess Python) and Warlord Krang

Synopsis: We pick up the following night from last issue. Nomad (Steve Rogers, formerly Captain America) spent the rest of the previous night and all of today scouring the Washington DC area for any trace of the Serpent Squad and their VIP hostage, Hugh Jones of Roxxon Oil.

As he often used to do when he was Captain America, Nomad has come to the Lincoln Memorial to contemplate the late president. He reflects on Abe’s career and many of his words.

Among those words that he calls to mind are Lincoln’s remarks on how dangerous it is for free people to become accustomed to other free people being denied their rights. That doing so inures them all to such outrages and makes them fit subjects for the first cunning tyrant who arises among them. (And how appropriate is THAT Lincoln saying to 2023 America?)

Suddenly, Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, lands near the Lincoln Memorial and addresses Nomad. They are still talking when Warlord Krang uses Atlantean technology to take over all surface world broadcasts. Our two heroes hear Krang’s voice coming from a nearby car radio.

The Warlord tells the world that their hostage Hugh Jones will now address his employees around the world. Jones does so, numbly saying that the Squad has assured him they will free him unharmed as long as any and all of his employees who are contacted by the villains in the coming days do exactly as they say.

Sub-Mariner uses Atlantean technology of his own to determine that the Serpent Squad and Krang are holding Hugh Jones on one of Roxxon’s Pacific Ocean oil rigs. On that oil rig the following afternoon, Krang and the Serpent Squad try to use the oil rig and Atlantean technology to raise the sunken continent of Lemuria.

Its rise will cause massive tidal waves that will kill millions along the coasts of every nation which has a shoreline along the Pacific. After that, Krang and the Serpent Squad will use Lemuria’s long-lost secrets to take over the entire world.

Nomad fights the Serpent Squad and captures the Eel and Princess Python while Namor snares his old foe Krang. Viper and Cobra escape but Lemuria is not brought to the surface.

WEREWOLF BY NIGHT Vol 1 #25 (January 1975)

Title: The Dark Side of Evil

Villain: DePrayve

Synopsis: Picking up where the previous issue ended, the Jack Russell werewolf is still involved in bloody combat with the brutish hulk called DePrayve with the Los Angeles Police arriving on the scene and surrounding them.

DePrayve is a Mr. Hyde to Dr. Winston Redditch’s Dr. Jekyll, and Redditch’s transformations into DePrayve have been caused by his serums intended to separate humanity from their bestial, primate selves. Jack had come to Redditch hoping that his serums could cure him of becoming a werewolf on the nights of the full moon.

Instead, his serums failed and when the doctor had undergone one of his transformations into DePrayve, Jack transformed into his werewolf form and the pair have been fighting throughout the night. At length, the werewolf slashes up DePrayve so badly that when the serum wears off this time, he reverts to the much weaker Dr. Redditch and collapses, in danger of dying from the wounds his/ DePrayve’s body received.

Authorities get Redditch to a hospital, while the werewolf disappears into the night. The next morning, Jack, back to normal, reads about Dr. Redditch’s condition in the newspapers. The doctor isn’t in any condition to speak until – by a comic book coincidence – the following month’s first night of the full moon.

Jack visits Redditch in the hospital during the day to make sure he’s okay. That night when our hero becomes a werewolf again, he is captured in the cliffhanger ending by his old foe the Hangman, a crazed vigilante/ slasher who uses his coiled ropes to hang – and uses a scythe to slash up – “evildoers” as he defines them.  FOR MORE WEREWOLF BY NIGHT CLICK HERE. 

MASTER OF KUNG FU #24 (January 1975)

Title: Massacre Along the Amazon

Villains: Wilhelm Bucher and Fu Manchu

Synopsis: Picking up from last issue, while Sir Denis and Black Jack Tarr struggle to get the abandoned Si-Fan boat in operable condition, Shang-Chi is revealed to have survived, after all, though wounded. He detects a large number of Fu Manchu’s troops moving through the South American jungle in the general direction of Bucher’s Nazi fortress and silently follows them.

Wilhelm Bucher himself arrives back at that fortress along the Amazon River. He leaves his ship and tells his men that Fu Manchu was not on the boat after all and to prepare for a possible attack from another direction. Nearby, Fu has his helicopter pilot land for a rendezvous in the jungle with his own forces.

Those forces arrive, with Shang-Chi still secretly shadowing them. Fu Manchu orders one battalion of his men to launch a frontal attack on Bucher’s fortress while the other battalion moves around in the jungle to attack the fort from the rear. Shang-Chi follows the troops moving to attack from behind.

Soon the frontal assault has begun and the Fu Manchu men in the rear of the fort await the signal from their supreme leader to begin their own attack. With machine guns blazing, Bucher and his Nazis battle Fu’s men amid a frenzy of bullets and falling bodies.

At length Fu Manchu shoots off a flare gun, giving the other battalion of his men the signal to launch their assault from the rear. Bucher rallies his men to handle this new threat and reminds his troops that they can’t allow “inferior races” to defeat “proud Aryans” like themselves.

Presently, Shang-Chi’s presence is detected and he winds up caught in the middle of the battle, fighting both his father’s men AND Bucher’s neo-Nazis. At one point he seeks shelter in what looks like a normal Quonset hut but is shocked to see that it is really a cover for a missile silo already dug into the ground long ago.

Bucher doesn’t just have “plans” for one of Hitler’s alleged “Wonder Weapons” but has constructed one – an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile with a nuclear warhead. While such a missile was certainly far ahead of anything the Allied Armies had in 1945, plenty of nations had them by 1975. His father has been wasting his time unknowingly pursuing a secret “Wonder Weapon” which is really anything BUT. 

That still doesn’t make this one any less deadly, and Shang-Chi, from the advanced education his father gave him in weapons technology, sees that it is aimed at an American city in Florida. While the firefight outside continues, Bucher arrives in the Quonset hut now and seeing our hero messing with his missile he attacks him.

While Shang and Wilhelm fight it out, Bucher’s men at last kill off the rest of Fu Manchu’s troops. In turn, those Nazis are shot to death by machine-gun fire from Sir Denis Nayland-Smith and Black Jack Tarr, who had gotten the damaged boat working and have arrived just in time.

Back to the Shang-Chi vs Wilhelm Bucher fight, Bucher succeeds in wounding our hero with a knife, then tries to launch his missile to keep it out of Nayland-Smith’s hands. It won’t fire and Shang informs him that he had already sabotaged it to prevent it from working.

In his renewed fury, Bucher accidentally falls down a second missile silo which was being built in the ground and splats to his death far below. Shang-Chi, Sir Denis and Black Jack are reunited, but hear the sound of Fu Manchu and his helicopter pilot taking off, meaning their old adversary has once again escaped. FOR THE NEXT PART CLICK HERE.

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #154 (January 1975)

Title: The Man in the Mystery Mask

Villain: The Mystery Man

Synopsis: When the Thing mentions his girlfriend, the blind sculptress Alicia Masters, Thundra, who has become attracted to the Thing, storms off in anger. Medusa and Invisible Woman go after her to keep her out of trouble and calm her down.

Soon, Mr. Fantastic, the Thing and the Johnny Storm Human Torch are attacked by a villain costumed like the Mystery Man. The last time the team fought the Mystery Man he turned out to be Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic himself) secretly putting the others through a training exercise.

That can’t be the case this time, and after our heroes defeat the costumed villain they unmask him to find out it is Nick Fury. Fury says he repeated Reed’s old trick with the Mystery Man costume, testing out new S.H.I.E.L.D. weaponry on the team. 

SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #140 (January 1975)

Title: And One Will Fall

Villains: The Jackal and the Grizzly

Synopsis: We pick up where the previous issue left off. Peter Parker has ended up in the clutches of his mysterious foe the Jackal and his newest ally – a supervillain called the Grizzly.

The Jackal informs Peter Parker how he was keeping his and Harry Osborn’s apartment under surveillance for a long time and saw him toss out the sack of Spider-Man costumes, web shooters and web cartridges on the day the apartment bomb went off. He recovered the items and realized Peter’s relationship with Spider-Man must be much closer than just getting occasional phone tip-offs since he was keeping some of web-head’s gear in his apartment for him, thus making him an accomplice to the outlaw hero.

NOTE: I agree, it is VERY far-fetched that the Jackal wouldn’t have immediately jumped to the conclusion that Peter IS Spider-Man rather than this convoluted theory, but you know comic book writing. 

Next the Jackal has the Grizzly carry Peter Parker to a room down the hall which winds up being a portable laboratory. Peter has to pretend he can’t break free of the Grizzly’s clutches because he doesn’t want to give away his secret identity.

In the lab, Peter is knocked out by the Grizzly and strapped to an operating table. NOTE: After this issue, in a future letters page Gerry Conway explained that the reason the Jackal and his ally didn’t find Peter’s costume when they took off his shirt for the operation was because Peter had feared a trap so he left his costume in the Washington Square alley where he changed clothes last issue.

NOTE: Yep, it’s a pretty lame excuse that Peter would, this one time out of a zillion, NOT have his costume on under his street clothes.   

Anyway, the next morning, Peter comes to dressed back in his civilian clothes and finds Crime Reporter Ned Leeds and his fiancé Betty Brant standing over him, worried about him. He was dumped in the lobby of the Daily Bugle building and that’s where Ned and Betty have found him as they arrived for work.     

They take Peter to a coffee shop across the street to take care of him. He gets some coffee while trying to convince Ned and Betty that he must have been knocked out amid the rampage of the Grizzly. He can tell something is wrong with his right arm and takes the first chance he has to get away from Ned and Betty and into the Men’s Room.

Inside, he rolls up his sleeve and sees a high-tech harness around his arm. He says he’s got to get it off but the Jackal, obviously having bugged the harness and listening in, taunts Peter that he doesn’t dare do that. He tells him that if he tries to force the harness off or unlock it or remove it or tamper with it in any other way it will vibrate itself to powder automatically, destroying both itself and Peter’s right arm.

The Jackal says that now, able to listen in on Peter’s every conversation and able to trace his location at all times via the harness, Peter will eventually lead him to Spider-Man so he can kill him. Peter is horrified as the depth of the danger sinks in to him. 

Peter spends a nerve-wracking rest of the day contemplating his plight. In the evening he takes a cab to Empire State University, where he has a key that gives him access to some of his student laboratory equipment there.

He has decided he has no choice. He can’t leave the Grizzly and Jackal at large, and can’t live with this device on his arm. He MUST hope the Jackal was bluffing about the harness being able to vibrate itself to powder and just remove it. Using some of his lab equipment, he burns out the audio and tracing equipment in the device, clips it off with special scissors and breathes a HUGE sigh of relief when nothing happens. The Jackal WAS bluffing.

Now ready for action, he dons his Spider-Man costume which he brought with him in a gym bag and swings off with the harness. After tossing it into the Hudson River he swings over to the Daily Bugle building. As J Jonah Jameson does so often, he is sleeping on the couch in his office since he is such a control freak about the Bugle’s operations, so our hero wakes him up and questions him about the Grizzly.

Jameson goes on to answer in flashback why the Grizzly tried to kill him the previous day. Long years ago (so before Peter worked for the Daily Bugle in comic book time) the Grizzly was a pro wrestler who used particularly brutal methods in the ring. Jonah started a crusade against him, obviously unaware of the staged nature of wrestling matches.

The negative publicity ended Grizzly’s career. A disgusted Spider-Man swings off to track down the Grizzly. He finds him at an old gym of his and defeats him by tearing apart the interior harness the Jackal built into his bear costume to increase his strength. 

The defeated Grizzly turns out to know nothing helpful about the Jackal, but our hero promises the Grizzly he’ll catch that villain, too, some day.

CONAN THE BARBARIAN Vol 1 #46 (January 1975)

Title: The Curse of the Conjurer

Villain: Shokkoth of the Many Stones

NOTE: First part of a multi-part 1970s Marvel Conan story that was adapted from the Gardner Fox novel Kothar and the Conjurer’s Curse.

Synopsis: While riding through the Border Kingdoms, Conan meets a wizard named Merdoramon. This figure, knowing that a Cimmerian’s word is their bond, pays Conan a pouch of gold to deliver a mystic amulet to Themas Herklar, the Regent of the kingdom called Phalkar. The enchanted item is called the Amulet of Blue Fire.

Conan accepts the gold and gives his word to deliver the amulet to Themas Herklar. Putting the amulet around his own neck for the journey, the barbarian rides west toward Phalkar.

Before long he passes through the village of Sfanol, where he sees the inhabitants about to burn at the stake a beautiful young woman named Stefanya. She cries out to Conan for help, and he decides it is time for him to take action. 

Our hero saves Stefanya from this fate and learns she was being burned for her service to the late sorcerer Zoqquanor now that he is no longer alive to protect her. The panicked woman tells Conan that they must retrieve Zoqquanor’s body from the ruins of his castle, which was leveled by the same superstitious villagers who tried to burn her alive.

Stefanya insists that a spell cast by the sorcerer when he was alive binds her fate to his, and if his body is destroyed so will she be. In the ruins of Zoqquanor’s castle, Conan and Stefanya find the premises now being guarded by Shokkoth of the Many Stones, a monstrous creation of the late wizard.

Naturally, Conan is able to destroy Shokkoth after a lengthy battle. Stefanya insists that Zoqquanor can still be saved and that she will find a way to bring him back to life.

SAVAGE TALES Vol 1 #8 (January 1975)

Title: The Billion-Year War

Villain: Grond

NOTE: The same month Shanna was depicted helping the Black Widow and Daredevil against the Owl, she began a multi-issue run in Savage Tales, one of Marvel’s more “adult” black & white magazines of the 1970s.

Synopsis: Dr. Shanna O’Hara was merely a guest star in this story. She traveled to the Savage Land with a S.H.I.E.L.D. expedition headed by scientist/ agent Barbara “Bobbi” Morse, who had shared adventures with Ka-Zar years earlier. They had even had a fling at the end of one such escapade.

NOTE: Bobbi Morse later went on to become the superheroine called Mockingbird and married Hawkeye.

In this story, Shanna the She-Devil fights beside Ka-Zar as he guides Bobbi Morse’s expedition to a “temple” that is really a billion-year-old spaceship. Shanna bickers with Ka-Zar about his casual slaying of animals and dinosaurs who attack them, while she tries to simply disable them temporarily. (Yes, dinosaurs are still alive in the rainforest called the Savage Land in the middle of Antarctica.)

Ka-Zar becomes attracted to the fiery Shanna, making Bobbi a bit jealous given her past fling with the blonde jungle-lord. At length the group fights their way past a hostile Savage Land tribe to reach their goal.

The expedition’s study of the ancient space vessel winds up freeing Grond, the alien warrior in suspended animation inside it. Due to its malfunctioning, he has been in that state for roughly a billion years.

Grond lashes out violently, believing he is battling enemies from whatever life-forms his alien race was at war with on Earth a billion years ago. The fight ends with Grond dying in quicksand. Shanna and Bobbi soon head back to the outside world.   

AMAZING ADVENTURES Vol 2 #28 (January 1975)

Title: The Death Merchant of Chicago

Synopsis: This issue starts off with a splash page featuring narration which nicely captures the charisma and warrior majesty of Killraven, leader of a group of Freemen rebelling against Earth’s alien conquerors (Martians in the original War of the Worlds comic book but Zetans in my revisions).

We get a reference to his years as a gladiator in the arena circuit set up in a bread and circuses manner by the Martians/ Zetans and the ruling class of human quislings who help them subjugate humanity. We also get a reminder that he is the focal point of the ongoing war, a reference to Killraven’s possession of The Power (a pre-Star Wars variation of The Force) which he is still struggling to master.

The story picks up in early April of 2019 (lol) but you can just picture it as 44 years in the future, as it would have been to readers in 1975. The Freemen and their new member Volcana Ash have traveled from last issue’s Milwaukee battleground with the Death Breeders to the ruins of Meig’s Airfield outside Chicago.

Killraven and his Freemen have been using the place as an observation post to prepare for their assault on the futuristic, skyscraper-tall alien fortress called Death-Birth. Last time around we learned that it is a Martian/ Zetan stronghold built by human slave labor as a combined military post and breeding station for human beings, since the aliens feed on humans like cattle.  

It is still very cold outside Chicago and M’Shulla, the African-American member of the Freemen, is ice-fishing through a hole in the frozen surface of Lake Michigan. He asks Killraven why he is still reluctant to trust Carmilla Frost, the scientist of the group and M’Shulla’s romantic partner.

M’Shulla presses the issue, since Carmilla is even guiding the Freemen toward Yellowstone National Park (“the place of Yellow Stones” as K.R. and company call it), where the High Overlord told Killraven his older brother Joshua is being held. Killraven points out that it is because Carmilla worked for years as a human quisling for the aliens PLUS she still refuses to tell them the truth about her creation Grok (Deathlok in my revisions).

The former Jonathan Raven also dismisses M’Shulla’s accusations that the flirty Volcana Ash lures him on like a Siren of Seventh Avenue (from Part Two). Killraven reminds M’Shulla, his closest friend on the team, that he wants to destroy Death-Birth and free the human captives, and Volcana DID find them this observation post.

Old Skull, the big, bald, brawny but mentally challenged member of the Freemen, is having trouble lighting a fire to cook the fish M’Shulla has caught. Volcana shoots flames from her hand, starting the fire for him, then once again vamps Killraven by saying “Let me light your fire, red. And anything ELSE you’ve got in mind.”

M’Shulla wryly notes “Yeah, HER you trust, right K.R.” and returns to his fishing only to be attacked by a walrus-sized salmon bursting up through the ice. The fish has been mutated by pollution and residue of the biological warfare agents unleashed during the war against the aliens 18 years earlier.

The mutated creature chomps down on M’Shulla’s arm while Killraven attacks it with an ionic knife. This is the first mention we’ve gotten of this weapon, which not only penetrates the fish’s scales and flesh but whose ionic energy causes ruptures throughout the creature’s internal organs.

Volcana shoots flames from both hands this time, helping to destroy the fish-creature. 

Meanwhile, we rejoin Adam 3031 and Eve 3031 inside the breeding pens of Death-Birth. They know her child is close to being delivered but that it will be delivered purely as a delicacy for the alien overlords of Death-Birth. As Atalon, the hideous, fastidious, white-clad human quisling who oversees the breeding pens approaches, Eve 3031 considers fighting him, preferring to lose their child that way rather than the horrific way that is intended.

Atalon arrives, full of taunts as always. Despite the leash around his neck Adam 3031 manages to kick Atalon in the stomach. The quisling is more outraged that Adam’s foot has gotten mud on his pristine white uniform than he is at the pain. (Atalon’s obsession with cleanliness is a clear reference to Doctor Mengele from the Nazi Death Camps.)

As punishment for the offense Atalon orders two nearby Death Breeders to take Adam 3031 off to be executed. The Death Breeders fly off on their hoverboards, carrying Adam between them while Eve 3031 screams and cries. Atalon taunts her that after her baby is extracted and served up as the piece de resistance at the alien dinner table another Adam will be assigned to her to replace the slain Adam 3031.

Atalon escorts the terrified Eve 3031 from the breeding pens to the interior of Death-Birth. They ride the pneumatic displacer (a futuristic version of an elevator) up to the dining hall. Out of pure sadism Atalon shows Eve the party of tentacled alien overlords who will be dining on her newborn baby as the crowning touch to their feast of human flesh.

Back with our heroes: Carmilla Frost and the injured M’Shulla have been left behind at Meig’s Airfield to guard the helpless Grok/Deathlok. Killraven, Hawk (Native American), Old Skull and Volcana Ash are creeping up on the gates of Death-Birth. The group banters and Hawk at one point tells Killraven that even though M’Shulla isn’t along for K.R. to play straight-man to, Volcana Ash’s tongue matches his.

The Freemen come upon the two Death Breeders who have brought Adam 3031 with them to kill him. Killraven attacks, defeats and slays the pair by tossing them to their deaths.

The spared Adam 3031 expresses his astonishment that it really IS the legendary rebel Killraven. He tells the Freemen that when you’ve lived the degraded, captive life that the Adams and Eves lead you stop believing in hope and rescues.

Killraven recognizes Adam 3031 from his “Vision” last issue, courtesy of The Power. Through the eyes of one of the alien overlords of Death-Birth K.R. saw Atalon force the chained Adam 3031 to lick mud from his boots. Killraven compassionately greets Adam, comforting him and eloquently restoring his crushed dignity.

Hawk, Old Skull and Volcana Ash watch as Killraven goes into another trance-vision. This time he is seeing through the eyes of one of the alien overlords as Eve 3031 is given pain-killers – but is NOT rendered unconscious, so that she must bear witness to her child being carved out of her womb by a new quisling called the Sacrificer and served up to the aliens.

When this Vision breaks, Killraven knows where Eve 3031 is. The Freemen plus Adam 3031 fight their way through Death-Birth against legions of the Death Breeders in a race against time before the Sacrificer can slice out her unborn baby. 

At the banquet hall, a Death Breeder announces the arrival of the Sacrificer to the handful of alien diners. Suddenly that Death Breeder is killed from behind by one of Killraven’s throwing stars worn on a bandolier across his chest.

The Sacrificer is at last glimpsed. He is dressed in various shades of green and gold, has a face as malformed as Atalon’s and wears an array of razor-sharp bladed cybernetic equipment on his amputated right arm.

With savage satisfaction Hawk slaughters the alien diners with his photonuclear rifle while Old Skull and Volcana fight more Death Breeders. When Killraven sinks his sword into a tentacled alien overlord who gets the jump on him, he feels the being’s “death” through its own eyes.

At long last K.R. realizes that his “Visions” happen when The Power enables him to enter the minds of random Martians/ Zetans. This is the first time this has been explained in the actual stories but I explained it properly earlier just to avoid confusion. Our main character also realizes that is why he got no “visions” at Battle Creek: there were no aliens around so there were no minds for him to enter.

Next Killraven sword-fights with the Sacrificer who, since this is pulp-fiction, is able to use his long bionic blades as weapons as well as surgical instruments. Volcana, Hawk and Old Skull wipe out more Death Breeders.

Presently Killraven outfights the Sacrificer and knocks him far away from Eve 3031 on the operating table. She and Adam 3031 embrace and cry with happiness, their discarded shackles lying at their feet while the Freemen appreciate the pleasant tableau.

Volcana Ash again flirts with K.R. who asks “Tell me, Volcana, when you’re … uh … amorous … can you control that heat of yours?” “That would be telling” she slyly replies.

That ends this particular issue but obviously our heroes are still deep in the heart of Death-Birth and still determined to free the Adams and Eves.  FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER CLICK HERE   

MARVEL TEAM-UP Vol 1 #29 (January 1975)

Title: The Coming of Infinitus

Villain: Infinitus the Reincarnated Man

Synopsis: After Stark International is attacked several times by a new supervillain calling himself Infinitus, Iron Man proves unable to stop him and an employee was killed in the most recent attack. Iron Man reaches out to the Fantastic Four but only the Human Torch is on hand.

The Human Torch and Iron Man work together against the villain, who claims to be the reincarnation of an ancient ruler. Our heroes defeat and capture him, then learn the “reincarnation” bit was a lie. Infinitus is really the brother of the Stark International employee killed recently.

The villain reveals he had long hated his brother and killed him under the guise of random attacks on Stark’s Long Island headquarters while simultaneously plundering Stark tech to use as his weapons.

TOMB OF DRACULA Vol 1 #28 (January 1975)

Title: Madness in the Mind

Villain: Dr. Sun

Synopsis: Dracula and his latest female thrall Shiela Whittier regain consciousness as captives in the headquarters of the mad Chinese scientist Dr. Sun. The doctor has at last regained every fragment of the shattered Chimera sculpture and has reconstructed it in its entirety.

Using the Chimera (one of the countless relics in Marvel Comics which grant their owner superpowers), Dr. Sun creates illusions to torment Dracula and Shiela. In Shiela’s illusions she at last comprehends that she is enthralled by an undead, conscienceless creature.

In Dracula’s illusions he battles images of some of his foes, like Blade the Vampire Slayer, Rachel Van Helsing, Quincy Harker, Frank Drake, Taj Nital, and his own daughter Lilith. Drac breaks free of the illusions and kills Dr. Sun’s underlings.

He hopes to wield the Chimera against Dr. Sun and his other enemies now, but Shiela shatters the sculpture to pieces again, not wanting a monster like Dracula to possess such power. She then storms out, leaving him behind calling desperately for her. 

TALES OF THE ZOMBIE Vol 1 #9 (January 1975)

NOTE: This is the last issue of Simon Garth’s 1970s adventures and wraps up all loose ends in three serialized tales.

Titles: Simon Garth Lives Again, A Day in the Life of a Dead Man, The Second Death Around

Comment: Simon carries Mamba Layla, who was mortally wounded last issue, back to Papa Doc. He informs them both that he is unable to save her and she will die within roughly 24 hours. Garth learns that Papa Doc created the gris-gris mixture that will let him die and finally be free of his hellish current existence.

Layla offers up herself so that Papa Doc can use her fading life-force to restore Simon Garth to human form for one day, after which he will revert to his zombie form. Simon and Layla sadly say goodbye. Then, temporarily restored to normal per the Voodoo ceremony, our protagonist sets about tying up loose ends in the single day left to him. He plans to use the gris-gris and be released into death when that day is through.

Simon anonymously sics the police on the original VooDoo cultists who made him a zombie and they get arrested for the various murders they committed in their rituals. Next he returns to his mansion, where his old butler is shocked to see him alive. He still works at the mansion for Simon’s daughter Donna … who is getting married that day!

Simon explains his plight to Anton Cartier, a guest at the wedding, and he informs only Donna and her intended husband Bruce Mason, whose wife the Simon Garth zombie mercy-killed several chapters back. Simon gets to attend his daughter’s wedding and reconcile with his ex-wife.

Next, he visits his former business partner Brian Stockwood and tells him to sell off his half of the business and split the profits among his ex-wife, his daughter and the unfortunate Teddy Masterson, the monstrous figure imprisoned in the bayou by his parents all his life, and who Simon fought in zombie form in an earlier issue. From there, Garth goes to personally shoot to death the zombie-master Mister Six (see pic below), another of his foes from earlier adventures.

In the commotion that that causes at Six’s nightclub, the police get involved. From the fingerprints and such from the mass slayings the Simon Garth zombie was involved in during previous chapters, they come to believe that Garth is actually still alive and they close in on his mansion.

Simon gets there first, where he explains to Anton Cartier and the others why he killed Mister Six. With his day of humanity expired, he becomes the zombie again. In that zombified form he is able to fight his way past the police cordon around his mansion.

Simon reaches Papa Doc’s place, where he uses the gris-gris to at last grant him the sweet release of death. Anton Cartier and Garth’s other allies bury their late friend and cover for Simon to keep his name clean with the police, who are left thinking that Simon really did die years earlier.

NOTE: Despite this tidy wrap-up, Marvel brought back the Simon Garth zombie years later for further torment and terrors, just like they had Johnny Blaze get turned back into the Ghost Rider after years of being cured. You know comic books!   

JUNGLE ACTION Vol 2 #13 (January 1975)

Title: The God Killer

Villains: Sombre and a White Gorilla 

Synopsis: After surviving the frigid night following his battle with an entire pack of Devil Wolves, the Black Panther set out at daybreak, trekking through the ice and snow of the Land of the Chilling Mist. At length T’Challa made his way back to Resurrection Altar, where Erik Killmonger/ N’Jadaka has been periodically transforming some of his rebel soldiers into super-powered beings like King Cadaver, Malice and Sombre. 

This issue’s main action begins as the Black Panther jumps a pair of Killmonger’s soldiers who guard the outer perimeter of Resurrection Altar: Wenzori and Jakak. The duo are clad in heavy winter wear because of the perpetually freezing temperatures in the Land of the Chilling Mist.

One of them wields a traditional automatic rifle while the other employs a handgun AND a double-chained and double-headed mace, both heads of which sport spikes to enhance their deadly nature. Needless to say T’Challa overcomes both men, while bitterly reflecting on the way Killmonger’s followers never seem to have any identity outside of their powers or specialized weaponry.

Our hero’s interrogation of the sentries has revealed that Killmonger, King Cadaver, Tayette and Kazibe have departed for Serpent Valley. Sombre, meanwhile, has headed further inland from the Chasm of Chilling Mist, toward the Domain of the White Gorillas.

Sombre, the High Priest of Resurrection Altar, took the horribly misshapen remains of those followers of Killmonger who died agonizing deaths upon exposure to the cosmic radiation of the fallen meteor/ asteroid in the pit of the Altar. As usual, that is the fate of most of those human guinea pigs exposed to the unearthly rays.

For every Sombre or Malice or King Cadaver who gain superhuman powers from the radiation infesting Resurrection Altar, there are many more who suffer and die. Killmonger has long been content with those odds. The callous revolutionary accepts the deaths of so many of his men in return for the few super-powered minions he gains to help him in his uprising against T’Challa.

This latest batch of sacrificial victims did spawn one new supra-normal soldier for Killmonger and we’ll meet him two issues down the road.

The Black Panther continues trailing Sombre, who is transporting the misshapen corpses of Resurrection Altar’s most recent victims. His intent is to feed the bodily remains to the White Gorillas as he does after every ritual he performs for Killmonger.

The artwork for T’Challa’s adventures in Wakanda’s Hidden Realms (The Land of the Chilling Mist, the Domain of the White Gorillas, Serpent Valley and the Forest of Thorns) is exceptional. Readers can’t help but feel – well, chilled by the artist’s renderings of the snowy, icy Land of the Chilling Mist and by the way the mist is so thick and so powerful that even the sun can barely be made out in the sky. And what CAN be made out looks like a cold, pale white circle, hardly a blazing star.

As T’Challa follows Sombre’s trail through the falling sleet the scene cuts to Killmonger, Tayette and Kazibe as they lead Erik’s accompanying troops in the perilous descent down the Grand Canyonesque Chasm of Chilling Mist. The massive body of men has nearly arrived at the bottom of the chasm, where lies Serpent Valley. 

Killmonger – typical of his blatant contempt for T’Challa – is just now finally getting around to chewing out Tayette and Kazibe for leading the Black Panther to Resurrection Altar. Unfastening his bandolier of spikes to use as a weapon Erik begins lashing Kazibe around and drawing blood from him by way of punishment.

Tayette sheepishly tries to intervene to help protect his friend from Killmonger’s wrath but accomplishes nothing but inviting the same type of bloody lashing at the end of Erik’s spike-barbed bandolier. Thoroughly enjoying himself, Killmonger gives Tayette a chance to spare himself further suffering.

He has but to ask Erik to turn his violent attentions back to the whimpering Kazibe. In a nice character bit for Tayette the still-terrified man refuses to gutlessly spare himself by asking Killmonger to resume punishing Kazibe. Instead he meekly mentions that he won’t let him continue tormenting Kazibe and begs Erik to please just talk with him about the situation.

Erik/ N’Jadaka laughs even more heartily at that. In grand villain manner he tells Tayette that he has surprised and impressed him. He (Killmonger) did not believe his comic-relief lieutenant capable of such selfless loyalty to a friend.

As a mock “reward” for his display of devotion to Kazibe, Erik promises Tayette he’ll give him the first shot at trying to corral and tame one of Serpent Valley’s dinosaurs. Killmonger plans on using an army of those dinosaurs as a mounted horde with which he will attack Wakanda City. (And this was YEARS before either Jurassic Park OR Dino-Riders.) 

Back with the Black Panther, another night has fallen in the Land of the Chilling Mist. He has finally caught up with Sombre, however, and he peeks tentatively from the top of a cliff beneath which Sombre dances among the White Gorillas.

T’Challa is awestruck at the sight of the enormous White Gorillas, creatures which he thought long extinct IF they ever existed in the first place. The White Gorillas were the totem animals of Wakanda’s other main religion. Our hero wears the sacred garb of the Black Panther faith. The monstrous gorillas below are the objects of worship for the religion practiced by T’Challa’s old foe the Man-Ape and others. 

We are told that because our protagonist has had a lifetime of exposure to real-life black panthers, he has come to take them for granted. Seeing the mammoth, shrieking and seemingly “dancing” White Gorillas below has made T’Challa feel as vulnerable and superstitious as he felt when he was a child around the campfire, hearing tales of the dreaded White Gorilla gods … and their treatment of any black panther worshippers who fell into their clutches. 

Sombre now calms the wild cavorting of the White Gorillas amid sacrificial stakes for occasional living victims and amid the bones of many of their slain meals from over the centuries. Sombre taunts T’Challa by telling him he’s been aware that he was following him for quite awhile and he dispatched one of the White Gorillas to creep up on the Black Panther from behind. The dancing and shrieking served to distract T’Challa from its approach.

Our hero turns to see one of the huge male White Gorillas right behind him, cutting off his escape and leaving him cornered there at the edge of the cliff, at the base of which – far below – lie Sombre and the rest of the White Gorillas. With no choice the Black Panther begins his futile battle with the enormous simian.

The Black Panther has been getting the crap beaten out of him in his battle with the White Gorilla. The pain and fury of the battle has forced him to see the White Gorillas in something of a concrete, non-divine manner.  

“The campfires have been extinguished” is a line that the author Don McGregor uses to help convey the way this real-world encounter with these mythic beasts has caused T’Challa to lose his religious regard for both them AND by extension the black panthers his people worship.

As usual for adventure fiction, at literally the last possible moment our hero turns the tables on the White Gorilla attacking him and causes it to fall over the cliff. The beast falls below, and dies impaled on one of the sacrificial stakes intended for living sacrifices that Sombre sometimes feeds the creatures.  

Wrapping up this chapter, the sun rises (as well as it can in the Land of the Chilling Mist, anyway) as the Black Panther looks down at the frantic, mourning White Gorillas and at Sombre who stares angrily back up at him.  FOR THE NEXT PART CLICK HERE.

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