JANUARY 1976 MARVEL STORIES

This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post here at Balladeer’s Blog resumes my old January by January look at what stories Marvel had out that month.

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #166 (January 1976)

Title: If It’s Tuesday, It Must be the Hulk

Villain: Hulk

Synopsis: The U.S. Army calls in the Fantastic Four to help them corral the fugitive Hulk now that Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards) has invented a new device which might be able to cure Bruce Banner once and for all.

Through teamwork, the F.F. manage to capture the Hulk. Back at the army facility, Reed’s device works, but the Thing, outraged at the inhumane treatment of the captive Bruce Banner, mucks thing up, causing Bruce to turn back into the Hulk.

For the cliffhanger ending, the Thing joins forces with the Hulk as they prepare to fight the military AND the rest of the Fantastic Four. NOTE: No repercussions came for the Thing from all this. Yellowjacket’s future court martial by the Avengers for a much smaller offense seems pretty pathetic now, doesn’t it?

SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #152 (January 1976)

Title: Shattered by the Shocker

Villain: The Shocker

Synopsis: Picking up from the previous issue, Spider-Man survives the death trap that the Shocker left him in last time around. With his attempt to blackout and loot several neighborhoods thwarted by our hero last issue, the Shocker hides out for the rest of the night.

The next day, Peter Parker tries to make it up to Mary Jane for seemingly abandoning her during the blackout at Betty Brant’s and Ned Leeds’ engagement party the previous night. The Shocker publicly demands extortion money from New York City or else he’ll take out an entire power grid.

Spider-Man manages to track down the Shocker and stop him before he can carry out his threat. 

ASTONISHING TALES Vol 1 #33 (January 1976)

Title: Reflections in a Crimson Eye

Villains: Simon Ryker and the forces of “future” America’s dystopia.

NOTE: This is another sci-fi adventure of the original Deathlok, Luther Manning. Just as Marvel’s Killraven stories were set in the early 21st Century, Deathlok’s were set in the 1990s (LOL), when readers were told a failed corporate coup had caused America to splinter into rival factions, some ruled by the military, some by the C.I.A. and some by other groups.

          The cyborg Deathlok – the resurrected Vietnam War veteran Luther Manning combined with “futuristic” 1990s technology – is an antihero fighting the many forces of evil in the dystopian America of his time period.   

Synopsis: Deathlok repairs the helicopter that he downed last issue but whose pilot he failed to save from New York City’s mutated cannibal hordes. Because the copter was preprogrammed to fly to a specific location the cyborg – having nothing to live for and nothing to lose – rides along.

The chopper takes him to Simon Ryker’s mansion on Long Island, where he fights his way in and encounters a Ryker captive – Hellinger. The two plot to destroy Ryker and then try to transfer Deathlok’s brain into a more human body.  

DAREDEVIL Vol 1 #129 (January 1976)

Title: Man-Bull in a Chinatown

Villains: The Matador and Man-Bull

Synopsis: Daredevil’s old foe the Man-Bull is found guilty in court and escapes in a berserker rage. Lawyer Matt Murdock becomes Daredevil and tries to recapture the supervillain but fails.

The next day, Matt and his current girlfriend Heather Glenn see another over-the-top commercial sabotaging Foggy Nelson’s reelection campaign for District Attorney. (It will turn out down the road that Daredevil’s old foe the Jester is behind the sabotage.)

Elsewhere, another member of Daredevil’s Rogues Gallery, the Matador, has teamed up with the Man-Bull to manipulate him into an attempt to steal the multi-ton gold statue called the Golden Bull of China. (Formerly targeted by the Circus of Crime.) Naturally, Daredevil wins out.  

THE INVADERS Vol 1 #4 (January 1976)

Title: U-Man Must Be Stopped

Villains: U-Man and Nazi U-Boats

NOTE: Roy Thomas’ enthusiasm for Golden Age characters from the 1930s and 1940s struck again. In this series he featured newly-written adventures of Marvel Comics (back then Timely Comics) superheroes taking on Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

Synopsis: U-Man, a renegade Atlantean scientist who traitorously joined Atlantis’ foes the Nazis, managed to give himself enough super-strength to take on the Invaders. That team consisted of Sub-Mariner, the Original (android) Human Torch, Captain America, Bucky and Toro.

U-Man had taken Sub-Mariner’s World War Two-era love interest Betty Dean hostage and was leading Nazi U-Boats in an attempt to kill Winston Churchill on his way to a secret meeting in Bermuda. Naturally, the Invaders save Churchill & Betty, and defeat U-Man.

NOTE: To tie the Invaders stories into the 1970s Marvel Universe, some of the U-Boats got whisked into the Bermuda Triangle’s time lost, dinosaur-filled dimension where Skull the Slayer‘s adventures took place.   

IRON MAN Vol 1 #82 (January 1976)

Title: Plunder of the Apes

Villains: The Red Ghost and his Super-Apes

Synopsis: With the Black Lama’s War of the Supervillains having finally wrapped up the previous issue, Tony Stark resumes transitioning Stark International away from weapons production. He also resumes wooing pacifist Roxie Gilbert, sister of his enemy Firebrand.

Tony has his Chief of Security and old friend Happy Hogan wear his Iron Man armor so that Tony and Iron Man can appear at the same time at a public function that day. (This was back when Tony Stark passed Iron Man off as his high-tech bodyguard.)

At the public appearance, the Fantastic Four’s old foes the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes attack. They defeat the less-experienced Happy Hogan in Iron Man’s armor and escape with Tony Stark as their hostage for the cliffhanger ending.

SKULL THE SLAYER Vol 1 #3 (January 1976)

Title: Tumult in the Tower of Time

Villains: Robotic dinosaurs

NOTE: Skull the Slayer was Vietnam War veteran Jim Scully. He and three other passengers from a flight through the Bermuda Triangle got sucked into the time lost dimension of the Triangle, containing dinosaurs and other creatures and people from Earth’s past and future.

Synopsis: Skull is still adjusting to the greater than human strength and healing abilities granted him by the blue belt/ harness he took off a dead alien last issue. He, Ann, Dr. Corey and Jeff enter an alien-made tower they will learn is called the Tower of Time.

Inside, they fight more dinosaurs, but unlike the ones outside in the prehistoric rain forest, the ones inside the tower turn out to be robot dinosaurs. Escaping to another level of the tower, Skull and the others find themselves trapped among robots of ancient Egyptians.

HULK Vol 1 #195 (January 1976)

Title: Warfare in Wonderland

Villain: The Abomination

Synopsis: The Hulk’s old foe, the gamma-ray mutated monster called the Abomination (really Soviet Agent Emil Blonsky) has made a deal with gamma-ray superhero Doc Samson and General “Thunderbolt” Ross. He must capture the Hulk for them in exchange for legal leniency.

The Hulk next surfaces in “Wonderland,” a Disney World pastiche in Florida. The Abomination is pitted against him there, and the resulting battle inflicts a lot of damage to the amusement park. In the end the Abomination betrays Doc Samson and General Ross by joining forces with the Hulk and leaving the park in the cliffhanger ending.

NOTE: Poor scheduling made this tale come out the same month that the Hulk joined forces with the Thing back in the Fantastic Four story above.    

JUNGLE ACTION Vol 2 #19 (January 1976)

Title: Blood and Sacrifices

Villains: The Ku Klux Klan and the Dragon’s Circle

Synopsis: With Panther’s Rage and its epilogue chapter behind him, the Black Panther accompanies his romantic partner Monica Lynne back to the U.S. They go to the grave of Monica’s sister Angela who was murdered recently.

This landed T’Challa and Monica in the middle of a mysterious war between the Ku Klux Klan and the Dragon’s Circle. Angela’s murder was somehow linked to whatever was going on between the two hate groups. This storyline was nowhere near as popular as Panther’s Rage, which featured T’Challa’s first war with Killmonger and the entire series was canceled with Jungle Action #24. 

THE AVENGERS Vol 1 #143 (January 1976)

Title: Right Between the Eons

Villains: Kang the Conqueror and the Squadron Supreme

Synopsis: In the 1870s, the time traveling Avengers Thor, Hawkeye and Moon Dragon (Heather Douglas) remain allied with some of Marvel’s wild west heroes, like the Two-Gun Kid, the Ringo Kid, Kid Colt, the Rawhide Kid and the original Ghost Rider (here called Night Rider).

NOTE: They are still fighting against Kang’s latest plan, which is to conquer the 19th Century and make the 20th Century play out completely differently, no matter the chaos it causes in the time stream. It’s a total scorched-earth play since the Avengers recently prevented Kang from obtaining the Celestial Madonna (Mantis) for himself.

Back in the “present day”, the other Avengers (Iron Man, Captain America, the Scarlet Witch, the Vision and the Beast) use teamwork to escape the covert Roxxon-Brand prison they were held in after losing to the Squadron Supreme last issue. That superteam from a parallel Earth is comprised of heroic versions of the villains in our Earth’s Squadron Sinister, but now they’re in service to Roxxon-Brand.

Returning to the 1870s, Thor, Hawkeye, Moon Dragon (above right) and the wild west heroes attack Kang’s headquarters. Kang is defeated and both he and Immortus (“He who remains”) seem to die, but naturally they return years down the road. The other Avengers’ battle with the Squadron Supreme and their employers in Roxxon-Brand Corporation continues in the next issue. (Roxxon and Brand were Marvel’s version of Exxon and the Rand Corporation.)

SHANG-CHI, MASTER OF KUNG FU Vol 1 #36 (January 1976)

Title: Cages of Myth, Menagerie of Mirrors

Villains: The Warriors of the Web

Synopsis: In New York City, Shang-Chi is approached by a very old Chinese wizard calling himself Moon Sun.

This man wants protection from Shang-Chi for himself and his daughter Tiko Sun for enigmatic reasons.

Black-clad CHINESE assassins called the Warriors of the Web (NOT Ninjas) attack and try to kill Moon Sun, but Shang-Chi’s martial arts skill defeats them. Intrigued by the mystery, our hero agrees to protect the wizard and his daughter. 

Moon Sun and his daughter introduce Shang-Chi to others who need protection – the members of their weird traveling circus/ menagerie. These part humanoid, part monstroid creatures inspire our hero’s sympathy, so he agrees. The Warriors of the Web attack the train carrying the menagerie for the cliffhanger ending.   

THE DEFENDERS Vol 1 #31 (January 1976)

Title: Nighthawk’s Brain

Villains: The Headmen (Ruby, Nagan, Chondu and Morgan)

Synopsis: The brilliant but insane oligarchs called the Headmen strike once again against the Defenders. For part one of their plan for world conquest they ambush and abduct the Defender called Nighthawk. They indicate they plan to remove his brain and replace it with the brain of their sorcerer Chondu the Mystic.

In Nighthawk’s body, Chondu gains access to the other Defenders – Dr. Strange, Hulk and Valkyrie. At the right moment he attacks them with his powerful magic, counting on them holding back from fear of hurting (they think) their teammate Nighthawk.

Dr. Strange eventually defeats the man in Nighthawk’s body. He and the others unmask the figure and are shocked to see that it really is him under the mask. Concluding that possession may be the problem, Strange and the others decide to call in their fellow Defender the Son of Satan.

WEREWOLF BY NIGHT Vol 1 #36 (January 1976)

Title: Marcosa in Death

Villain: Belaric Marcosa and his vile Marcosa House

NOTE: Jack Russell (really Russoff) suffered from the family curse of lycanthropy. Like Paul Naschy’s films about the tormented werewolf Waldemar Daninsky seeking a cure for the curse while encountering a slew of other horrors, so went this Marvel series.

Synopsis: This was the 3rd part of 4 in one of the best stories from this horror series. Jack, his sister Lissa, girlfriend Topaz and their friend Buck’s girlfriend Elaine are still trapped in the hellishly haunted house of the late Belaric Marcosa.

Think Hell House meets Lucio Fulci movies like The Beyond and House by the Cemetery as our characters face unspeakable horrors at every turn. They think the cops have arrived to save them at the end of this part, but it turns out to be dead cops reanimated as zombies by Belaric Marcosa’s dark powers. Those zombies close in for the kill in the cliffhanger ending.

MARVEL TEAM-UP Vol 1 #41 (January 1976)

Title: A Witch in Time

Villain: Witchslayer (Cotton Mather)

Synopsis: The Scarlet Witch has been bewitched by THE Cotton Mather (but Marvel will stick with Witchslayer after this storyline). She slips away from her new husband the Vision and faces Witchslayer, who is armed with a powered cross that shoots energy beams.

Spider-Man arrives in the middle of their encounter and helps the Scarlet Witch. Mather uses Dr. Doom’s time machine, which he stole from Doom, and transports himself and Wanda back to Salem in 1692.

Witchslayer wants the Scarlet Witch to die in the Salem Witch Trials at the command of his mysterious master called the Dark Rider. Spider-Man and the Vision arrive from the future via Doom’s machine and try to save Wanda. The battle is joined.

CONAN THE BARBARIAN Vol 1 #58 (January 1976)

Title: Queen of the Black Coast

Villains: Pirates

NOTE: Marvel Comics’ adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s Conan short stories from the days of pulp magazines at last introduced Belit (Bay-LEET), the Queen of the Black Coast. She was the captain of a crew of black pirates and was THE love of Conan’s life.

Synopsis: Fleeing the authorities in the port city of Messantia, Conan hurriedly signs on to a merchant vessel. Off the coast of Africa, that craft is attacked by Belit and her Black Corsairs. Conan fights back, but the crew is all killed, following which Belit tells Conan he can either join her crew or be killed. He decides to join up.

For the rest of the Belit story click HERE.

THOR Vol 1 #243 (January 1976)

Title: Turmoil in the Time Stream

Villains: The Time Twisters, Zarrko the Tomorrow Man, and the Servitor

Synopsis: This picks up from the previous issue’s cliffhanger. Thor’s old recurring foe Zarrko the Tomorrow Man and his gigantic robot the Servitor explain to Thor, Jane Foster, Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg that he needs their help, despite the battle they waged against each other last time around.

Zarrko tells them all about the Time Twisters, a trio of beings from the end of time who have been traveling backward in the timestream, manifesting on Earth every so many centuries. They wipe out all life on the planet, but continue traveling backward in time, so there are always billions of Earth victims for them.

Thor, Jane, and the Warriors Three accompany the Tomorrow Man and his Servitor back to his 23rd Century home, battling futuristic armies plus Mongols and dinosaurs due to the disruption in the time stream caused by the Time Twisters.

Zarrko pampers his guests in that time period until the Time Twisters materialize for the cliffhanger ending. NOTE: Decades later, Marvel would retcon the Time Twisters into the figures behind the Time Variance Authority who figured in the Loki tv series. 

CAPTAIN AMERICA Vol 1 #193 (January 1976)

Title: Screamer in the Brain

Villains: The Elite aka the Royalist Forces of America

Synopsis: Captain America and the Falcon are casually hanging out at the apartment of Leila Taylor, the Falcon’s romantic partner. Suddenly, a radiation that feels like screaming in one’s brain induces madness in everyone within a couple block radius including Cap and Falc. 

They are eventually able to resist it and fight the destructive mob of other victims until Cap finds and destroys the device responsible. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents arrive on the scene and take our heroes to a briefing by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Increasingly large versions of these “Madbombs” have unleashed chaos in multiple locations across the U.S.

For the cliffhanger ending, Kissinger shows our heroes a photo smuggled out by an agent – a photo depicting “Big Daddy,”a Madbomb so enormous that it will be capable of afflicting the entire United States. The conspirators and their thousands-strong army will then be able to take over the country by mopping up all the crazed and disabled people and superbeings rendered helpless by the Madbomb.

AMAZING ADVENTURES Vol 2 #34 (January 1976)

Title: A Death in the Family

Villain: Skar

NOTE: These Killraven stories were set in the early 21st Century, since that was still the future in 1976.

Synopsis: It is now July 2019. Killraven and his Freemen, guerillas who fight to free Earth of its alien conquerors, are in the abandoned wasteland that used to be Chattanooga, TN. The Overlord, leader of the aliens, has had his superpowered agent Skar (see cover) hunting the rebels for several issues now.

Skar at last catches up with them and launches a sneak attack. He fights Killraven (long-haired leader), M’Shulla (black rebel), Old Skull (brawny bald guy), Hawk (Native American rebel), Carmilla Frost (female scientist of the group) and Grok, Carmilla’s monstrous creation. Despite the story’s title, Skar kills TWO Freemen before being dealt with himself. For the full story click HERE.

CAPTAIN MARVEL Vol 1 #42 (January 1976)

Title: Shoot-Out at the O.K. Space Station

Villain: The Stranger

Synopsis: Picking up from the previous issue, the A.I. Kree Supreme Intelligence used his built-in Omni-Wave Projector to teleport Kree Captain Mar-Vell and his human sidekick Rick Jones from the Kree home planet Hala to a far distant asteroid being mined by various alien races.

Captain Marvel and Rick (former sidekick of the Hulk and Captain America) use their Nega-Bands to make themselves able to understand the languages on this mining colony. Soon they see that some outside entity has intentionally crafted Deneb IV’s culture to resemble the American West from Earth.

After Mar-Vell and Rick survive a few deadly clashes with the blaster-wielding locals in a “saloon” the entity who controls Deneb IV shows himself – it is the powerful cosmic being the Stranger. NOTE: The Stranger was originally a foe of the X-Men but over time clashed with Thor, Hulk, the Silver Surfer and others. He sowed chaos around the universe via his perverse experiments.

Eventually, the Stranger grows bored with his play-acting “gunfight” with Captain Marvel and leaves for another star system. Mar-Vell and Rick plan to make their way back to Hala to confront the Supreme Intelligence.  

TOMB OF DRACULA Vol 1 #40 (January 1976)

Title: Nightmares of a Living Dead Man

Villain: Dr. Sun

NOTE: This was another of Marvel’s horror titles from the 1970s. It presented the actual Dracula from Bram Stoker’s novel at large in the present day. He was hunted by descendants of other people from the novel – Quincy Harker (in the wheelchair) was descended from Jonathan and Mina Harker but named after Quincy Morris from the novel, and Rachel Van Helsing was the blonde vampire slayer and latest member of the Van Helsing line.

        Frank Drake was a purely Marvel character – a descendant of Dracula himself whose family had long since Americanized their name to Drake to hide their shame. The nerdy guy in glasses was Harold H. Harold, the comic relief member of the team.   

Synopsis: With Dracula dead at the hands of his recurring foe Dr. Sun, a Chinese scientist who combined science with the supernatural, Boston and then the world seem helpless before Sun. Rachel, Frank and Harold raid Dr. Sun’s headquarters to retrieve Dracula’s ashes.

They outfight Sun’s troops – U.S. soldiers enthralled by the villain – and return to Quincy’s side with the urn full of ashes. Now they contemplate the unthinkable: is the only way to stop Dr. Sun by restoring Dracula to life since he managed to defeat Sun in the past?

MARVEL PREVIEW Vol 1 #4 (January 1976)

Title: Starlord – First House: Earth

Villains: Ariguans

NOTE: This FIRST appearance of Star-Lord presented Peter Quill in a much different way than 2024 audiences are used to. This Peter grew up feeling tormented by his secret half-alien parentage after his mother was killed in an attack by aliens called Ariguans. 

Peter trained to become an astronaut and ultimately wound up serving on a space station, where an entity called the Master of the Sun granted Quill his powers, weapons and sentient vessel called Ship to become an intergalactic adventurer called Star-Lord. The figure let Star-Lord avenge himself on his mother’s killers first so he could start his duties unencumbered by a personal vendetta. 

DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU Vol 1 #20 (January 1976)

NOTE: This, like Marvel Preview above, was one of Marvel’s black & white magazines, like their much later Max publications. 

Interview: A text interview with Chuck Norris, who was not yet nearly as famous as he soon would be.

Iron Fist Story: Soul Slayer

Villains: Dhasha Khan, Silver Dragon and the Soul Slayer.

Synopsis: Picking up from the previous issue, Iron Fist battles the martial arts warriors of the villain named Dhasha Khan, a vile figure whose sorcery has let him conquer Feng-Tu, where the dead souls of people from the enchanted city of K’un-Lun go when they die.

Dhasha Khan wants Jade the Firebird, the beautiful woman being protected by Iron Fist because if Dhasha Khan takes her he can use her incredibly vague powers to draw the souls of everyone on Earth who dies to Feng-Tu to be his slaves.

Next, the villain forces Iron Fist to fight his masked female warrior Silver Dragon (at right). She turns out to be Iron Fist’s late mother, who died close enough to K’un-Lun for her soul to be drawn to Feng-Tu. For most of her years in this Afterlife, she existed happily, and trained her soul-form to master kung fu.

When Dhasha Khan conquered Feng-Tu, she was enslaved along with all the other souls. For every part of this detailed story click HERE. 

White Tiger Story: The Beginning

Villains: The Nomads and the Black Tigress

Synopsis: Marvel’s kung fu heroes the Sons of the Tiger had failed as a series. They were a white man, a black man and a Chinese man who drew power from their mystical tiger amulets. Puerto Rican Hector Ayala wound up coming into possession of all three amulets thanks to the machinations of the villainous Black Tigress (Brillalae).   

Wearing all three at once magically gave Hector the strength of three men and enhanced his kung fu skills. It also let him change back and forth from his street clothes to his costumed form – the White Tiger. He battled the street gang called the Nomads in this origin story.

MARVEL SUPER ACTION Vol 1 #1 (January 1976)

NOTE: This, like Marvel Preview and Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, was one of Marvel’s black & white magazines.

Punisher Story: Accounts Settled … Accounts Due

Villains: The Maggia (Marvel’s pastiche of the Mafia)

Synopsis: The Punisher covertly meets with a seeming prostitute named Audrey. He recalls his family’s execution at the command of a Maggia leader named Bruno Costa. In his earliest War Journal entries he covered his revenge quest in New York City, upstate New York and all the way down to Florida.

In the years since, he had killed a lot of criminals but not yet Bruno Costa. He reveals that he knows Audrey is really a Maggia assassin sent to kill him, but he kills her first.

Huntress Story: Red-Eyed Jack is Wild

Villains: Traitors within S.H.I.E.L.D.

Synopsis: A costumed woman calling herself Huntress has been warring on S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and support people. It turns out she is really Bobbi Morse, a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who learned about some deep corruption in the organization and was targeted for death because of it.

She let the conspirators think they had successfully killed her but took on the costumed identity Huntress to continue investigating how high up the corruption at S.H.I.E.L.D. reached. In this story Huntress eliminates some more crooked operatives and Nick Fury, unaware of what’s really going on, puts a price on Huntress’ head.

NOTE: S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Bobbi Morse was originally a supporting character in the adventures of Marvel’s character Ka-Zar. After briefly being Huntress, she switched costumes and weapons and became Mockingbird, who eventually married Hawkeye.