ONE HUNDREDTH ISSUE STORIES FROM MARVEL

This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog will look at the stories that Marvel Comics offered up for the 100th issue milestone for its various titles.

AVENGERS Vol 1 #100 (Jun 1972)

Title: Whatever Gods There Be

Avengers Roster: Thor, Wasp, Iron Man, Ant-Man, Hulk, Captain America, the Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, Quicksilver, the Swordsman, Black Widow, Hercules, Black Panther, the Vision, Black Knight and Captain Marvel (Rick Jones) 

Villains: Ares and the Enchantress

Synopsis: This issue picks up where the previous one left off. Ares, the Greco-Roman God of War, has allied himself with the Avengers’ longtime foe the Enchantress. Ares has imprisoned the other gods and taken over Mount Olympus.

He and the Enchantress are about to unleash armies of monsters from Greek myths to conquer the Earth first and then Asgard. Thanks to the former Avenger Hercules our heroes were brought into all this over the previous two issues. 

The Avengers summon every single hero who had ever served as an Avenger to a meeting at the Black Knight’s Garrett Castle home (at right) to plot strategy against Ares and the Enchantress. From the mystic brazier in Garrett Castle, Sir Percy, the ghost of the current day Black Knight’s ancestor (featured in Marvel’s 1950s comic books) addresses all of the Avengers, Force Ghost style.

He explains how Ares took over Mount Olympus. It came about after the present-day Black Knight cast his enchanted sword the Ebony Blade into the Well at the Center of Time on Arkon’s World to be free of the sword’s increasing mental influence.

The Enchantress, who was then defeated by the Avengers along with her then-ally Arkon, eventually plotted to have Ares recover the Ebony Blade from the dangerous Well. Ares did so and the enchanted sword, in the hands of an actual god like Ares, gave him power enough to conquer the other Olympian gods, except for Hercules. 

Sir Percy tells the Avengers that his descendant, the current Black Knight (Dane Whitman), must take back the Ebony Blade despite its dangers, or else Ares and his armies will succeed in taking over the Earth, Asgard and other realms.

With every Avenger on hand – including the volatile Hulk and the traitorous Swordsman – our heroes split into two groups. One group battles the Greco-Roman monsters as they rampage across the world, and the other group attacks Mount Olympus to take on Ares and the Enchantress directly.

After much brutal fighting, the Black Knight manages to retake the Ebony Blade from Ares. This cuts down Ares’ power enough that the Avengers can defeat him and the Enchantress. The other Olympian gods are freed and the army of creatures is recalled from the Earth below as the good guys win.

CAPTAIN AMERICA Vol 1 #100 (Apr 1968)

NOTE: Ever since his 1960s return, Captain America had shared Tales of Suspense with Iron Man. This issue – technically Tales of Suspense #100 – was retitled Captain America and featured ONLY Cap’s stories from then on. Iron Man moved to his separate series under his own name.  

Title: This Monster Unmasked

Villains: Baron Zemo (imposter) and Destructon

Synopsis: Picking up from last issue, Captain America and the Black Panther are in T’Challa’s kingdom of Wakanda fighting an army led by a costumed man claiming to be the late Captain America foe Baron Zemo.

While the fighting goes on, Cap is distracted by memories (as fan service given the 100th issue distinction). Those memories include his World War Two origin, his eventual 1945 battle with Baron Zemo in which Bucky was killed (or so it was thought for decades) and Cap himself was MIA and fell into suspended animation for decades.

Our hero also recalls being found and revived by the Avengers and helping them fight the real Baron Zemo, who emerged from hiding to lead a supervillain team against the Avengers and Cap. Back in the present, the man calling himself Baron Zemo and his troops are about to kill Captain America and the Black Panther.

The two are saved by S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Sharon Carter aka Agent 13, who was impersonating one of Zemo’s female operatives. The infuriated pseudo-Zemo falls back on his main plan to destroy the United States with a solar-powered satellite weapon that he controls from high-tech Wakanda.

Captain America, Black Panther and Sharon Carter thwart that plan, then defeat Zemo’s army and his robot Destructon (at right). Cap unmasks “Baron Zemo,” who turns out to really be one of Zemo’s henchmen from when the Baron was killed back in Avengers #15. 

Cap recommends the Black Panther to the Avengers as their newest member and T’Challa joins the team.

FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #100 (Jul 1970)

Title: The Long Journey Home

Villains: The Puppet Master and the Mad Thinker

Synopsis: All five members of the Fantastic Four – Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, the Thing, the 2nd Human Torch and his superheroine love interest Crystal – are flying one of their vessels home from their latest adventure in Attilan, the Himalayan home city of the Inhumans.

NOTE: Crystal, a member of the Inhumans’ Royal Family, joined the Fantastic Four to replace Invisible Woman when she was pregnant with her and Reed’s son Franklin Richards, but is still adventuring with the team. For several more issues, anyway.

The team’s aircraft is shot down by android duplicates of their Rogues Gallery of foes, causing the vessel to crash land in the New Jersey Pines. The android villains are the latest creations of the Fantastic Four’s longtime foe the Mad Thinker, who is once again allied with the villainous Puppet Master to kill our heroes.   

The Fantastic Four fight and destroy their way through over two dozen robot versions of their foes until, at a crucial moment, the Puppet Master has the subject of his latest radioactive clay puppet – the Hulk – enter the fighting to ensure the FF’s deaths.

With the android duplicates of supervillains all destroyed, the FF are nearly overcome by the real Hulk. The Hulk at last manages to break free of the Puppet Master’s mental control and destroys the Mad Thinker and Puppet Master’s HQ.

The Fantastic Four survive, and the two villains later turn out to have escaped their seeming deaths at the Hulk’s hands. 

IRON MAN Vol 1 #100 (Jul 1977)

Title: Ten Rings to Rule the World

Villain: The Mandarin

Synopsis: This anniversary issue picks up right where the previous issue left off – Iron Man is fighting his way through the Mandarin’s high-tech pilots, aircraft and soldiers.

After all the stage-setting in the previous issues, there is an emphasis on action this time around. At length Iron Man fights his way into the Mandarin’s castle where they come face to face once again. Tony still doesn’t know how his archenemy survived being blown up AND cremated during the Black Lama’s War of the Supervillains but he will learn soon.

We readers get another classic battle pitting our hero and his armor against the Mandarin and his alien Makluan Rings of Power. After a lengthy clash the villain encases Iron Man in near Absolute Zero ice.

With Tony unable to do anything but listen, the Mandarin does a Villain Rant, explaining how his plans came together over the past several issues. He also details how his minions – INCLUDING government official Jonathan Rich – framed Tony Stark and got the government to stop installing the new Stark International defense systems.

Without those systems in place the Mandarin can proceed with his plan – he will launch multiple nuclear missiles against the U.S. the Soviet Union and Communist China while his agents convince each government that the nuclear havoc they suffered was a deliberate act of war, provoking a three-way nuclear war among China, America and Russia.

The Mandarin and his armies and followers will safely sit out the war in the comfort of his miles-long castle, then emerge to conquer what is left of the world. Continuing his rant, the villain explains how, during his final moments of life after being mortally wounded in Iron Man #70, with his dying breath he transferred his mind into his ten rings.

When Loc Do, the Yellow Claw’s underling who cremated the Mandarin’s original body, put on his Rings of Power, the Mandarin was able to snuff out Loc Do’s consciousness and use Loc Do’s younger body as his own.

As usual with villains in pulp fiction, the Mandarin has ranted long enough for Iron Man to free himself from the ice and the battle is on again. We get an action orgy once more as the fight takes them throughout the Mandarin’s castle.

At length, Iron Man uses some of the castle’s Makluan technology to rig up a means of temporarily de-powering the Mandarin’s ten rings. He then disables the villain’s fleet of nuclear missiles and destroys their launch mechanisms. The Mandarin counters by turning on a viewscreen to show our hero the Senate hearing back in Washington DC.

Senator Hawk’s aide Jonathan Rich tries to open Tony Stark’s briefcase, only to unleash the tear-gas booby trap. In the chaos that follows, we are shown that Senator Hawk was secretly cooperating with Tony Stark in a sting operation to reveal which member of his staff was covertly working for a foreign power.

With the feds taking Jonathan Rich off in cuffs for being an agent of the Mandarin, the Mandarin angrily triggers an explosive embedded in Jonathan’s body, killing him.

Iron Man in turn trashes the Mandarin’s rebuilt castle and flies off in triumph, having saved the world from a nuclear holocaust.

SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #100 (Sep 1971)

Title: The Spider or the Man?

Villains: Dr. Octopus, Vulture, Kingpin, Green Goblin and the Lizard

Synopsis: After capturing several armed men in the act of robbing a bank, Spider-Man swings off, wondering if enough people will ever start ignoring J. Jonah Jameson’s fake news about him and recognize him for the hero he is.

Back at home as Peter Parker, he resolves to stop being Spider-Man so he can marry his love interest Gwen Stacy and live a normal life. He concocts a chemical formula which he hopes will take away his superpowers forever and drinks it.

On a rooftop, while waiting to see if the formula works, he hears a familiar voice calling for help. He becomes Spider-Man and swings off to find the person but gets attacked by his recurring villain the Vulture.

After defeating that villain, our hero gets attacked by the Lizard, whom he also beats in single combat. Suddenly, Dr. Octopus attacks and is defeated, followed by the Kingpin, who meets the same fate.

At last, he reaches the person whose voice keeps crying out for help. It is George Stacy, Gwen’s father who had figured out that Peter was Spider-Man but kept it a secret. George was accidentally killed by Dr. Octopus but back then the public thought Spider-Man did it. (He was eventually cleared and Dr. Octopus was charged.)

The late Captain Stacy basically rehashes Peter’s Uncle Ben’s sentiments that Peter was given extraordinary powers and with them comes great responsibility. Our hero realizes it’s all been a dream and wakes up, fully accepting that he doesn’t want to give up his powers.

X-MEN Vol 1 #100 (Aug 1976)

Title: Greater Love Hath No X-Man 

New X-Men Roster: Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Banshee, Nightcrawler and Colossus

Original X-Men Roster: Marvel Girl, Angel, Beast, Iceman, Havok and Polaris 

Villains: Steven Lang and the X-Sentinels

Synopsis: On board the orbiting headquarters of the anti-mutant Project Armageddon and its new Sentinels, this issue picks up where the previous one left off. The new X-Men and the original X-Men fight it out, with all kinds of fan service dialogue through the whole battle.

At length, Wolverine fights his way over to Professor X, demanding answers. He is stunned when Charles STANDS UP and punches him. Marvel Girl then attacks him with her telepathic and telekinetic powers, but at last Wolverine catches enough of a scent from her to realize she’s not really Jean Grey. He slashes her open, revealing that she and the other seemingly enthralled original X-Men are actually robots.

Nearby, Steven Lang is furious at this turn of events. While the viewscreens behind him show the new X-Men now overcoming and trashing the android originals, Lang engages in a Villain Rant to Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Professor X and Peter Corbeau in their Nega-Tubes. Lang reveals that he spent years studying the Vanisher and every other mutant in captivity and came to consider mutants a huge threat to mainline humanity.

He fell in with co-conspirators called the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club, who had big money and big government connections, so they were able to help him start a new Sentinels project. The Hellfire Club wanted to study mutants, hoping to find a way of tampering with unborn children to mass-produce super-powered mutants for their own uses.

Lang double-crossed them, since he wants mutantkind dead in the long run. He used the bulk of the money on “X-Sentinels” – android duplicates of the original X-Men, planning to use them to infiltrate and destroy mutants, Terminator-style. (Though Terminator was still 8 years down the road in 1976.)

Cyclops blasts free from his Nega-Tube, then frees Jean, Charles and Corbeau. Lang reaches his hovering attack craft and rains energy blasts down on the mutants below him. Eventually, Marvel Girl uses her telekinetic powers to cause Lang to crash into the viewscreen and he dies in the subsequent explosion. The other X-Men find Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Peter Corbeau and the still-unconscious Professor X and they all assess their situation.

The Sentinels and X-Sentinels are all destroyed, all the surviving personnel of Project Armageddon evacuated to the Earth below in escape pods while the X-Men fought the X-Sentinels, and no escape pods are left. The orbiting space station has multiple fires burning throughout it, meaning it’s only a matter of time before it blows up or shatters.

Furthermore, the damage to multiple parts of the hull is so extensive that even if they risked staying on board the space station until the solar flare passes, they would not have sufficient protection against the flare’s solar radiation.

Their space-suits were all destroyed in the fight with the Sentinels. The Starcore shuttle is flight-worthy but the onboard computer was destroyed when they rammed the space-station AND there’s a big hole in the shuttle’s hull from when the Sentinels attacked the shuttle as it approached the orbiting station.

Peter Corbeau could pilot the shuttle, but he’d never survive the solar flare, due any minute now. None of the other X-Men know how to pilot the shuttle, even if one or two of them might be powerful enough to survive the flair.

Jean Grey grimly points out that, actually, SHE can pilot the craft by telepathically accessing Peter Corbeau’s knowledge of how to fly the shuttle. With her telekinetic powers she will block the hole in the shuttle’s hull long enough to hopefully survive against the massive dose of solar radiation from the flare. The others can all be safe and sound in the heavily insulated passenger section.

Cyclops objects, because the odds are AGAINST Jean being able to survive against the solar flare with all the damage to the hull. Jean knocks him out with a psychic blast and has Banshee carry him to the passenger section. Wolverine brusquely tries to talk Jean out of doing this, but she furiously hollers at him to knock it off and join the others in the passenger section.

When Ororo approaches her, Jean begs her not to join the line of people trying to talk her out of this and Storm complies. They hug, crying, and Jean asks Storm to tell Scott she loved him if she doesn’t survive.

With the X-Men, professor and Corbeau in the passenger section, Jean pilots the shuttle craft away from the space station. She reflects that she won’t make a very good pilot, but the knowledge she drained from Peter Corbeau will be good enough to get them to a safe landing … maybe.

As the time goes on during the shuttle’s descent, the flare hits the vessel. Marvel Girl has a harder and harder time trying to keep the hull together enough to keep out the radiation from the massive solar flare.

Back in the passenger section a grief-crazed Scott has come to and desperately tries to go to Jean. Nightcrawler restrains him, reminding him that if he opens the door he’ll let in the flare, killing them all. Scott and Kurt lapse into tears like most of the others, including the now-conscious Xavier.

Soon, it reaches the point where an overwhelming amount of solar radiation begins penetrating the cockpit of the shuttle and Jean frantically thinks about Scott as she feels her death nearing. NOTE: For non-fans I’ll mention that Jean survives but the radiation triggered a secondary mutation in her, changing her into Phoenix and later Dark Phoenix.

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY Vol 1 #100 (Jan 1964)

NOTE: This was Thor’s solo title in the 1960s. It would later be retitled in his name.

Title:  The Master Plan of Mister Hyde

Villain: Mister Hyde (Calvin Zabo)

Synopsis: With Odin having refused to let Thor confide in and marry the mortal Jane Foster, the thunder god asks him to instead transform Jane into an immortal so that they can marry. Odin will take it under consideration while observing Jane’s conduct to see if she is “worthy” of being canonized.

While traveling around New York City on his way back from Asgard, Thor sees citizens flee from him in terror and is attacked by the police since everyone thinks he robbed the bank that the disguised Mr. Hyde robbed last issue.

Not wanting to have to harm the police, Thor slips away and turns into Donald Blake. He then goes on to have a dinner date with Jane Foster that night. Calvin Zabo has secretly followed Dr. Blake and Nurse Foster to the restaurant and now drinks more of his serum, changing into Mr. Hyde.

Hyde attacks Donald and Jane at the restaurant, abducts them and ties Blake to a bomb while he heads off with his hostage, Jane, who has caught his eye. Wanting to show Foster how the supervillain half lives, he drags her along as he attacks a Naval Base and hijacks a Polaris Submarine.

Elsewhere, the struggling Doctor Blake has managed to reach his utility belt cane and uses it to turn into Thor. He smothers the bomb and flies off to battle Mr. Hyde aboard the Polaris Sub.

The battle quickly turns against Hyde, so Jane Foster, not knowing that Thor IS Donald Blake, helps Mr. Hyde escape because she’s worried that if Thor beats him he’ll detonate the bomb Dr. Blake is tied to.

Thor must play along and, rather than pursue Hyde, flies off to “save” Donald Blake at Jane’s urging. In true Soap Opera fashion, Odin happened to observe Jane helping Thor’s foe to escape and doesn’t know the reason. He angrily tells Thor he will NOT allow her to become an immortal.

With Mr. Hyde still at large and his future with Jane Foster doomed, Thor again indulges in Peter Parker levels of self-pity as this issue comes to a close.

DAREDEVIL & THE BLACK WIDOW Vol 1 #100 (Jun 1973)

Title: Mindstorm

Villain: Angar the Screamer

Synopsis: While the Black Widow is in New York City fighting supervillainy as an Avenger, her love interest Matt Murdock has been boiling with impatience back in San Francisco. He becomes Daredevil and starts swinging around the city, looking for some action to blow off steam. 

He finds such release by taking on a bunch of armed robbers who are raiding the Rolling Stone offices in San Francisco in broad daylight. Daredevil foils the robbery and the famed head of Rolling Stone – Jann Wenner – thanks the hero and invites him to stay for an interview conducted by Jann himself. 

To preserve his secret identity, Daredevil verbally gives Jann only bare essentials while his thoughts reveal to readers the full extent of his origin and superhero career. The recap of his origin alone would have helped make this 100th issue anniversary special to readers of the 1970s.

Back then periodic recaps of heroes’ origin stories were necessary because that long ago readers couldn’t just go on the internet to look up the origin of their new favorite characters. As the issue goes on, Daredevil summarizes the highlights of several of his best story arcs.

Presently, Daredevil, Jann and the Rolling Stone staff fall victim to the titular Mindstorm. In our hero’s case it takes the form of him fighting illusions of many of the supervillains he was just discussing, like the Owl, Gladiator, Purple Man, the Matador, Mr. Fear and the Jester. Clearing his mind, Daredevil races to the source of the screams which induced the Mindstorms and, in the cliffhanger ending, comes face to face with the villain responsible for them – he calls himself Angar the Screamer, and he figures into the ongoing Thanos War.

TALES TO ASTONISH Vol 1 #100 (Feb 1968)

NOTE: Just like Captain America and Iron Man had been splitting Tales of Suspense, the Hulk and Sub-Mariner had been splitting Tales to Astonish. For this 100th issue the pair crossed over to fight each other. After this, Tales to Astonish was retitled The Incredible Hulk and Sub-Mariner moved to his own separate 1960s-1970s series.

Title: Let There Be Battle

Villain: Puppet Master

Synopsis: With the Hulk in the news for just having defeated the Lords of Living Lightning, the Sub-Mariner is inspired to once again seek out the Hulk as an ally against the surface world since their previous team-up was defeated by the Avengers.

The Puppet Master, a foe of Sub-Mariner (and the Fantastic Four) gets the idea to make a radioactive clay doll of the Hulk and use him to kill first the Sub-Mariner and if that works, the Fantastic Four. Sub-Mariner is puzzled when he finds the Hulk and the brute attacks him for no reason. 

The fight between the pair leaves kaiju-sized damage to Miami, FL and then carries into the Atlantic Ocean. Sub-Mariner is able to form the seawater into an enormous tidal wave that carries away the Hulk and Namor mistakenly believes he’s dead. The Puppet Master is beaten again.

POWER MAN AND IRON FIST Vol 1 #100 (Dec 1983)

Title: Soul Games

Villains: Master Khan, Fera (female), Shades, Comanche and Ward Meachum

Synopsis: The mutant superhero El Aguila helps Power Man, Iron Fist, Misty Knight, Colleen Wing and Bob Diamond (formerly of the Sons of the Tiger) against the villains.

Continuing from the previous issue, Master Khan plans to use the Gem of Quon to drain Iron Fist’s powers in order to further his plans to conquer both Earth and the mystical city K’un L’un. Ward Meachum, meanwhile, has been in the ongoing conflict just to kill Iron Fist and Power Man to prevent his own criminal prosecution.

The good guys defeat Master Khan (at right), Fera, Shades, Comanche and Master Khan’s army. They also get the evidence needed to finally expose Ward Meachum’s many misdeeds over the years and send him to prison. Joy Meachum promises to end the feud between herself and Iron Fist.

That at last closes a subplot that has been running since the earliest years of Iron Fist, just like our Heroes for Hire’s 50th issue wrapped up storylines from Power Man’s earliest years.

DEFENDERS Vol 1 #100 (Oct 1981)

Title: Hell on Earth

Defenders Roster: Dr. Strange, Sub-Mariner, Hulk, Clea, Silver Surfer, Valkyrie, Nighthawk, Son of Satan, Hellcat, Devil-Slayer and Gargoyle 

Villains: Satan, Mephisto, Thog and Satannish

Synopsis: Picking up from the previous issue, the Defenders have just defeated the Cabal of Demons called the Six-Fingered Hand, whom they had been fighting the past several issues. They were then shocked to learn that the half-dozen demons in that group were merely pawns of the Silver Surfer’s archenemy Mephisto, Man-Thing’s archenemy Thog the Netherspawn, the old Defenders foe Satannish and of Satan himself, their ruler.

Just as the Six-Fingered Hand had transformed Citrusville, FL into their own hellish domain, Satan, seated in a throne with Mephisto, Thog and Satannish standing beside him, has transformed all of New York City into literal Hell on Earth.

Amid the screams of all the suffering souls of New York, Satan makes it clear that this Earthly Hell is expanding by the minute and will soon fill the entire world. In a Villain Rant, Satan reveals that when the powerful being Eternity was nearly destroyed in Defenders #92 it opened the way for Satan and his three lackeys to erode the walls between dimensions and spread Hell.

While Satan continues to pull the strings, the Defenders battle Mephisto, Thog and Satannish. Ultimately, the heroes defeat them but Satan will accept no one but his son, Daimon Hellstrom, as being worthy of fighting him.

Satan begins defeating the Son of Satan so easily that it infuriates that son and unleashes Daimon’s Dark Soul, the vile side of himself that has periodically shown itself during Son of Satan’s adventures over the years. However, not even the unrestrained Dark Soul is a match for Satan.

Dr. Strange leads the other Defenders in channeling some of their spiritual energies through him so he can feed it to the Dark Soul and increase its chances against Satan. When the combined energies of those Defenders on hand proves insufficient, Dr. Strange calls upon energies from past members of the Defenders around the world.

Those figures include Professor X, Power Man, Daredevil, Yellowjacket, the Wasp, the Red Guardian (Tanya Belinsky), Namorita, Moon Knight, Hawkeye, the Thing, Moon Dragon and the Human Torch.

As it turns out, the supercharged Dark Soul (controlling Daimon’s body) uses all of that power to pursue his own agenda with his father Satan. In exchange for Satan ending Hell on Earth he will at last honor Satan’s long-standing desire for his son to rule Hell beside him.

The Earth is restored to normal and the Defenders find themselves among the awestruck people of New York City, who barely comprehend what just happened. It’s a bittersweet ending, because though the world was saved, Daimon Hellstrom now stands allied with his hated father down in Hell.

NOTE: Eventually, Daimon, the Son of Satan, threw off his father’s influence and was ultimately exorcised of his Dark Soul in the pages of the Defenders, leaving him a mere human being. For a few years, anyway. You know how comic book writing goes.