MARVEL ISSUES: JANUARY 1968

This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post here at Balladeer’s Blog will examine Marvel Comics’ publications for January of 1968, excluding reprints.

TALES OF SUSPENSE Vol 1 #97 (January 1968)

NOTE: At this time Tales of Suspense featured two series – one for Iron Man and one for Captain America. Beginning with issue #100, Tales of Suspense would be retitled Captain America while Iron Man was moved over to his own new title beginning its issue count at #1. 

Title (Iron Man): The Coming of Whiplash

Villain: Whiplash

Synopsis: Picking up from the previous issue’s cliffhanger, Iron Man lies helplessly on the pavement at Stark Industries’ Long Island headquarters after exhausting himself while defeating Thor’s old supervillain foe the Grey Gargoyle. 

Jasper Sitwell, S.H.I.E.L.D. liaison to Stark Industries, tries to revive the fallen hero while a crowd gathers. Iron Man (believed back then to simply be “Tony Stark’s high-tech bodyguard”) has a sleazy cousin named Morgan Stark. Morgan ran up a huge gambling debt with the Maggia (Marvel Comics’ version of the Mafia) and, to save himself from harm at the hands of their thugs, betrays Iron Man into their clutches by transporting the nearly motionless hero to where he told Sitwell that Tony Stark was waiting to repair the armor.

In reality, Morgan Stark cleared his debt to the Maggia by instead delivering Iron Man into their hands on board a massive, cruise-ship sized casino/ fortress out at sea beyond the 12-mile limit. While assorted Maggia higher-ups in a secured room on the ship watched on a viewscreen, the barely mobile Iron Man was sealed in a room with the supervillain Whiplash (Mark Scarlotti).

This was Whiplash’s very first appearance and as Iron Man struggles to recover, Whiplash prepares to destroy our hero’s armor and kill him for the amusement of his Maggia bosses. For what happened next issue click HERE.    

Title (Captain America): And So It Begins …

Villains: A Baron Zemo impersonator and his troops

Synopsis: Captain America survives an attempt by multiple organized crime hit-men to kill him. Afterward, he heads for Avengers Mansion, where the next day an aircraft from Wakanda lands on the rooftop. Cap checks it out and inside the vessel he watches a video appeal from the Black Panther.

The Panther’s nation of Wakanda is being invaded by troops led by what seems to be Captain America’s late foe Baron Zemo. T’Challa asks for Cap’s assistance against the invaders, and our hero agrees. The Black Panther remotely reactivates the aircraft, now with Captain America as a passenger, and guides it back toward Wakanda.       

SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #56 (January 1968)

Title: Disaster

Villain: Dr. Octopus

Synopsis: Picking up from the previous issue’s cliffhanger, Spider-Man has been stricken with amnesia by his exposure to the radioactive Nullifier which Dr. Octopus stole from the U.S. Army last time around. The villain convinces our confused, off-balance hero that he is really his partner in crime.

Thus fooled, Spider-Man helps Doc Ock and his gang pull off additional thefts in the days ahead, while Peter Parker’s disappearance is noted by all of those close to him. Meanwhile, Dr. Octopus has been trying to convince Spider-Man to take his mask off and relax, but he keeps refusing.

A military task force, including Air Force officer John Jameson (J. Jonah’s son), have been trailing our hero and his archenemy because of their thefts of classified items. They find Doc Ock’s hidden lair just as Spider-Man and the villain are fighting it out, because Spidey has at last seen through Doc’s lies about them being partners, even though he still has amnesia. 

Amid the chaos, John Jameson manages to grab the stolen Nullifier and use it to deactivate Dr. Octopus’ mechanical arms. Doc and his gang are taken into custody. Spider-Man explains to John Jameson that he has amnesia and was tricked into helping Ock, then flees the scene.

NOTE: In the next few issues, Spider-Man gets his memory back, while John Jameson clears Spider-Man for his involvement in Ock’s latest thefts, thus infuriating his father, J. Jonah Jameson. 

AVENGERS Vol 1 #48 (January 1968)

Title: The Black Knight Lives Again

Villain: Magneto

Synopsis: The Avenger Hercules returns to Mount Olympus to plead with Zeus for a shortening of his exile to the world of mortals, but finds the kingdom completely deserted. Back in New York, the other Avengers receive word of Magneto’s abduction of the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver last issue. 

We rejoin Dane Whitman, introduced last issue taking over his late uncle’s Black Knight identity to restore the family honor after that uncle had been a supervillain for years, fighting Giant-Man & the Wasp, Iron Man, and the Avengers as part of the original Baron Zemo’s Masters of Evil.

Meanwhile, he has genetically engineered a winged, flying white horse named Aragorn to use in lieu of his late uncle’s black, winged flying horse named Elendil. He arrives in New York to tell the Avengers about Magneto’s abduction of Wanda and Pietro, not realizing that they have already heard.   

His costume and flying horse make the Avengers assume he is the villainous Black Knight, who must have somehow survived his seeming death at Iron Man’s hands. (Hey, who can blame them for that, given how many presumed-dead supervillains show up alive later on?) Our heroes attack him.

The Dane Whitman Black Knight is able to use his late uncle’s high-tech weapon the Power-Lance well enough to hold his own against the Avengers, then flees in disgust, returning to England.

NOTE: In the following several issues, the Avengers battle Magneto and free the Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver, and help Hercules defeat Typhon, the villain who drove the Greek gods out of Mt. Olympus, leaving it deserted. The team also reconciles with the new Black Knight down the road when they learn the truth about him as he helps them fight Ultron’s new version of the Masters of Evil.

TALES TO ASTONISH Vol 1 #99 (January 1968)

Title (Hulk): When The Monster Wakes

Villains: Lightning Lord and the Lords of Living Lightning

Synopsis: The Lords of Living Lightning and their leader Lightning Lord have successfully taken over Hulkbuster Base to launch their plan to take over military installations around the world to achieve global conquest. (The members of this international conspiracy are scientists and military officers.)

In battle with the Hulk, the lightning weapons of the villains have the unexpected result of affecting Hulk’s bio-electrical system in a way that makes him turn back into Bruce Banner. Lightning Lord leads his troops back to their own base with their stolen nuclear weapons from Hulkbuster Base, ready to unleash them.

Betty Ross, her father General “Thunderbolt” Ross, and Major Glenn Talbot pressure Bruce Banner, whom they now know is the Hulk, to use one of his old gamma devices to undo the effects of the lightning weapons and turn himself back into the Hulk before the villains use their stolen nukes.

Banner reluctantly does so, becomes the Hulk and takes on the villains in their own lair. This time their weapons don’t turn Hulk back into Bruce because his system has adjusted to them. Hulk defeats the entire organization, whose base blows up during the battle, killing them all while Hulk escapes. 

Title (Sub-Mariner): When Falls the Holocaust

Villain: Warlord Seth

Synopsis: Picking up from the previous issue, Sub-Mariner drove off surface world vessels bombarding Atlantis with depth charges. Meanwhile, Atlantis’ Warlord Seth leads an Atlantean fleet of subs against the nearest U.S. submarine, planning to use Atlantis’ new Hurricane Inducer against the Americans.

Sub-Mariner catches up with the flagship sub and tries to explain to Warlord Seth that, as our hero learned last issue, the Hurricane Inducer is unstable and will backfire, damaging the Atlantean fleet. Because this is one of the many time periods when Namor (Sub-Mariner) has been exiled as King of Atlantis, Seth and his warriors refuse to listen to him.

Subby outfights the Warlord and his men, then steals the Hurricane Inducer, getting it far enough away from the Atlantean fleet that it doesn’t harm the fleet in any way.

Its explosion makes Seth and the others mistakenly believe that Namor died saving their lives and they regret the way their people exiled him. (Not that that will stop them from repeatedly demoting or exiling Sub-Mariner in future stories after they restore him to the throne.)   

NOTE: Marvel was ending any series in which two superheroes shared room, so, like Tales of Suspense, in a few issues the title Tales to Astonish would be changed to The Incredible Hulk while Sub-Mariner was moved to his own eponymous series.

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #70 (January 1968)

Title: When Fall the Mighty

Villains: The Mad Thinker and his androids

Synopsis: Picking up from the previous issue, Mr. Fantastic and the Human Torch (Johnny Storm version) are still leading the authorities in a raid on the secret hideout of their old enemy the Mad Thinker. Mr. Fantastic and the Human Torch destroy the villain’s human-sized androids while searching for the Mad Thinker himself. 

Elsewhere is Invisible Woman, who is pregnant with her first child (Franklin Richards) and is sitting out the action in the company of the Human Torch’s girlfriend Crystal, from the Inhuman Royal Family. Crystal will soon replace Sue in the Fantastic Four through the rest of her pregnancy and first months after Franklin is born.

Back at the Thinker’s lair, Mr. Fantastic battles the villain and his high-tech weaponry while the Torch finishes off the rest of the human-sized androids. Next, Mr. F. and the Torch lure their teammate the Thing, who has been turned against them due to chemical treatments from the Mad Thinker, back to their Baxter Building headquarters.

The Thing tries to kill his two teammates while they try to maneuver him into position for Mr. Fantastic’s electronic treatment to free the Thing from the brainwashing. At a police station, the Mad Thinker, in a temporary holding cell, remotely triggers his ace-in-the-hole – a huge green android which has replaced his old grey, hammer-headed giant android.   

At the Baxter Building, the Thing knocks out the Torch and Mr. F. just as they succeed in using the electronic treatment on him to undo the Thinker’s brainwashing. This also causes the Thing to lapse into unconsciousness.

The pregnant Invisible Woman enters the room now that silence reigns. She sees her three teammates lying on the floor just as the Thinker’s giant green android bursts in from outside the building.

NOTE: In the next issue, Invisible Woman fights the Android alone until the Thing regains consciousness, with his mind back to normal. He, Mr. Fantastic and the Human Torch help Sue fight the Mad Thinker’s final creation. The Android is eventually maneuvered into position to be sucked into the Negative Zone through the Baxter Building portal.

         That Android is not seen again until 1977, when it steals the Power Rod of Annihilus, the ruler of the Negative Zone. 

DAREDEVIL Vol 1 #36 (January 1968)

Title: The Name of the Game is Mayhem

Villain: The Trapster

Synopsis: Picking up from the previous issue’s cliffhanger, Daredevil saves himself from the death-trap that the Trapster left him in and starts swinging around New York City to track down the villain. Meanwhile, thinking Daredevil is dead, the Trapster disguises himself as the hero to gain entrance to the Baxter Building headquarters of the Fantastic Four.

Under the pretext of a friendly visit, the Trapster-as-Daredevil surreptitiously plants a bomb to blow up his old enemies the Fantastic Four. Shortly after the disguised Trapster leaves, the real Daredevil arrives at the Baxter Building.

He convinces them he is the real DD by detecting via his Radar Senses that the Trapster left a bomb. The bomb is taken care of in the nick of time. The Human Torch angrily wants to join Daredevil in now tracking down the Trapster for revenge.

Daredevil and the Torch’s teammates talk him into letting Daredevil take on the Trapster alone, since DD considers it personal because the villain impersonated him to plant the bomb. Our hero finds the Trapster flying around NYC and attacks him.

The two fight it out, ending with a crash-landing in part of the city’s subway system. Both are knocked out. Daredevil recovers first, but is horrified to find standing over him and the unconscious Trapster is Dr. Doom himself.     

THOR Vol 1 #148 (January 1968)

Title: The Power of the Wrecker

Villain: The Wrecker

Synopsis: Picking up where the previous issue left off, Thor and Loki were still face to face. Loki had attacked Thor because the thunder god was not up to full strength, since Odin, in another of his periodic snits against his son Thor, had recently stripped Thor’s hammer Mjolnir of all its mystic powers and Thor himself of his ability to produce storms. 

Odin had just interrupted the battle to strip Loki of all his mystic powers, too, leaving the villain basically powerless. With Thor once again having the advantage, Loki flees in a panic.

Thor, who cannot transform back into his secret identity of Donald Blake M.D. since Mjolnir no longer has its magic, simply hangs around at Blake’s place with the visiting Sif and Balder from Asgard. Elsewhere, a brawny masked thief called the Wrecker has been on a spree of breaking in and robbing apartments throughout New York City. 

By a comic book coincidence, the Wrecker breaks into the building where Loki is hiding just as he has made contact with the evil Karnilla the Norn Queen back in Asgard. She owes him a favor, so she casts a spell that should return all of Loki’s mystical powers, then teleports away.

Due to the Wrecker’s intrusion, he, rather than Loki, absorbs the eldritch energies. Those energies grant him Thor-level strength and give his industrial-sized crowbar mystical powers similar to those that Mjolnir used to have.   

With Karnilla already gone, Loki is left still powerless. The amused Wrecker banishes Loki back to Asgard and goes on a rampage around the city, bringing down entire skyscrapers in his power-drunk state of mind.

Thor, Sif and Balder see news reports of the Wrecker’s rampage and reach the villain before any other superhero happens to show up. Because of Thor’s fame, the Wrecker wants the glory of killing the thunder god in combat, but since he’s never heard of Sif or Balder he huffily banishes them back to Asgard like he did with Loki.   

For the cliffhanger ending, Thor faces the Wrecker alone, with the villain’s crowbar possessed of magic energies of a kind Mjolnir no longer possesses. NOTE: The Wrecker was a major villain at Marvel for decades, and even formed the supervillain team called the Wrecking Crew.

STRANGE TALES Vol 1 #164 (January 1968)

Title (Dr. Strange): Nightmare

Villain: Yandroth

Synopsis: In his continuing search for Victoria Bentley, an old family friend, Dr. Strange finds himself teleported by way of advanced science to the far planet Yann. After battling multiple monstrous alien life forms on the planet, Strange confronts a hologram of the lone remaining humanoid male on the planet.

That humanoid is Yandroth, the Scientist Supreme, whose science is so advanced that it lives up to the old adage about how sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic. Yandroth does a Villain Rant to Dr. Strange about how his technology is the greatest imaginable.

With himself reigning over science, Yandroth says he abducted Victoria Bentley because of her latent potential for mastering mysticism. He plans to force Victoria to become his bride, following which with his mastery of science and Victoria’s eventual mastery of sorcery they will take over the universe.

Yandroth closes by warning Strange to abandon his quest for Victoria or be destroyed. Naturally, our hero defies Yandroth and searches on.

NOTE: After eventually losing to Dr. Strange in this first battle between them, Yandroth returned a few years later after having mastered sorcery himself, eliminating the need for a bride. On his deathbed he created the Earth-destroying Omegatron, an android with scientific and mystical powers, who was the first menace faced by the original Defenders (Sub-Mariner, Dr. Strange and Hulk).

Title (Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.): The Black Noon

Villain: The Yellow Claw

Synopsis: Marvel’s Fu Manchu pastiche the Yellow Claw (later called the Golden Claw) gets introduced into the Marvel Universe’s current continuity after having his own series in the 1950s, when Marvel was called Atlas Comics. 

Picking up from the previous issue, the Claw’s grand-niece Suwan helps Nick Fury escape the villain’s death trap. Soon, the Yellow Claw uses his latest invention to shoot down a satellite.

Fury foolishly tries to trail some of the Claw’s underlings but winds up abducted and taken to the villain’s airborne vessel the Sky Dragon.

Since no “sharks with frickin’ laser beams on their heads” are available, the Yellow Claw instead straps Nick before the mouth of his Black Noon invention so that our hero will be killed simultaneously with the Claw opening fire on New York City.   

NOTE: Like the other shared series, Strange Tales became just plain Dr. Strange with issue #169, while Nick Fury got his own separate series. 

X-MEN Vol 1 #40 (January 1968)

Title: Mark of the Monster

Villain: Unidentified aliens and their robot Frankenstein Monster

Synopsis: At Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, the secret headquarters of the mutant superteam called the X-Men, Angel, Cyclops, Beast and Iceman are resentful over the secretive behavior of Professor X and Marvel Woman lately.

NOTE: The pair are secretly working on Xavier’s preparations for the invasion by the Z’Noxx aliens years later. That won’t be revealed until X-Men #65 (February 1970).

The X-Men’s curiosity is interrupted when the Professor telepathically detects that one of his old colleagues at the City Museum of New York is about to thaw out the museum’s latest find in the Arctic – a replica of the Frankenstein Monster from literature. As the thawed-out item begins to regain consciousness, Charles psychically detects that it is a form of artificial intelligence from outer space.    

Not knowing if the robot poses any danger, Professor X sends the X-Men to the museum to be on hand if anything goes wrong. When the android creature goes berserk and breaks out of the museum, the X-Men fight it. 

The robot’s incredible strength and powerful eye-blasts make it too tough for the team to handle. It reaches a ship in New York Harbor where the X-Men once again clash with it. Charles Xavier telepathically probes the android further and learns it was dropped off on Earth by unidentified aliens hundreds of years ago.

Professor X tells Iceman to try refreezing the robot, but it resists so frantically that it blows up, and we’re all left wondering why the hell the android resembled the Frankenstein Monster in the first place. Really cheap, nonsensical gimmick.

BONUS: A backup story in this issue featured a flashback tale set during a time when Cyclops was still the first and only X-Man that Professor X had recruited so far.

The pair battled a criminal mutant called Jack of Diamonds aka the Living Diamond and defeated him. 

CAPTAIN SAVAGE AND HIS LEATHERNECK RAIDERS Vol 1 #1 (January 1968)

Title: The Last Banzai

Villains: Imperial Japan

NOTE: Due to the popularity of Marvel’s series Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, this spinoff series was launched. Captain Simon Savage was a U.S. Marine. He and his subordinate Seaman Roy “Blarney” Stone had made guest appearances in the Sgt. Fury series.

           Now the duo were joined by four other Marines in a Special Forces Unit like the Howling Commandos. The other four, introduced in this issue, were Sgt. Sam Yates, Cpl. Jacques LaRocque, Pvt. Jay Little Bear and Pvt. Lee Baker. Like the HCs, their adventures were set during World War Two.

Synopsis: The Leatherneck Raiders attack a Japanese Base on a Pacific Island and, amid much shooting and punching, manage to blow up the entire base before returning to sea. 

FOR MARVEL’S JANUARY 1969 PUBLICATIONS CLICK HERE.

FOR MARVEL’S JANUARY 1970 PUBLICATIONS CLICK HERE.

FOR MARVEL’S JANUARY 1971 PUBLICATIONS CLICK HERE.