MARVEL PREMIERE (1972-1981)

This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at Marvel Premiere. Like Marvel Spotlight and Marvel Preview, this series served to introduce new characters and see if they proved popular enough for their own separate series.

MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #1 (Apr 1972)

Title: A Man-God Reborn

Villains: Man-Beast and his Animal Men

Synopsis: The long-time Marvel character the High Evolutionary, a sometime hero and sometime villain, used the almost God-level powers he possessed in his hyper-evolved state to create Counter-Earth. Traveling in time, the High Evolutionary created that twin of planet Earth 5,000 years in the past and guided its history into a near-perfect rerun of Earth’s own.

The main difference was that the High Evolutionary intervened to prevent super-powered beings from ever coming into existence on Counter-Earth. This allowed him to observe how the “real” Earth might have developed without super-powered interference.

The High Evolutionary studied his creation from an orbiting headquarters, kept company by the remaining New-Men of Wundagore Mountain, animals he had evolved into intelligent humanoid form. Those New-Men had clashed with Hulk and Thor up to this point in Marvel Comics prior to his creation of Counter-Earth.

His orbiting lair one day snagged the space-faring cocoon of the super-powered Him, a golden-skinned superbeing created by the Fantastic Four’s old foes the Enclave (aka the Hive). As Him had previously done when he clashed with the F.F. and then Thor, he emerged from his cocoon.

The High Evolutionary renamed Him Adam Warlock and explained that his evil wolf-like New Man called the Man-Beast had rebelled against him. The Man-Beast had recruited his own evil version of the High Evolutionary’s Knights of Wundagore – all of them New Men like himself.

The villain then disrupted the formerly superbeing-free Counter-Earth and had empowered evil forces as well as causing the origins of several super-villains in defiance of the High Evolutionary’s wishes. That creator was pondering destroying all life on Counter-Earth given how Man-Beast had perverted the world into the opposite of everything he had wanted for it.

The High Evolutionary gave Warlock some of his own animal-men Knights of Wundagore to help him oppose the Man-Beast and his forces. If Warlock could “win back” Counter-Earth from the Man-Beast, the High Evolutionary would spare it. And so, Warlock’s mission began.

MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #2 (Jul 1972)

Title: The Hounds of Helios

Villains: Man-Beast, Rhodan and the Hounds of Helios

Synopsis: Adam Warlock’s mission on Counter-Earth moves into high gear as he gathers some human followers around him to help him and the “Good” New-Men from Wundagore Mountain oppose the Man-Beast’s villainy.

In a bit that the resulting Warlock series would further delve into, Counter-Earth’s population includes several equivalents of the people of “real” Earth, but in non-powered form at this point. Reed Richards, Bruce Banner and Victor Von Doom are just some of them, and Counter-Earth’s Victor Von Doom is a hero, not a villain.

Warlock defeats Man-Beast and his lackeys Rhodan and the Hounds of Helios in this issue, before moving on to his own series with Warlock Vol 1 #1.   

MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #3 (Jul 1972)

Title: This World Gone Mad

Villain: Nightmare

NOTE: Dr. Strange’s long-running series from the 1960s had gotten canceled but the character’s popularity was rising again thanks to his appearances in The Defenders as that group’s leader. Marvel decided to try him out with a several-issue run to see if he was ready to regain his own series.

Synopsis: When a very preoccupied Stephen Strange gets hit by a vehicle, he winds up in the hospital being operated on to save his life.

His old recurring villain Nightmare preys on the unconscious Dr. Strange in his Dream Realm. Naturally, the doctor manages to defeat Nightmare again and his physical body survives the surgery being performed on him. He uses his magic to hasten his recovery and checks himself out of the hospital. 

NOTE: Dr. Strange’s run in Marvel Premiere ran through issue #14, after which he moved on to his own revived series in Dr. Strange Vol 2 #1.

MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #15 (May 1974)

Title: The Fury of Iron Fist

Villains: Shu-Hu the One and Harold Meachum

Synopsis: This was the origin story of Marvel’s brand-new character Iron Fist (Danny Rand). Danny’s parents die as his father leads him and his mother to the Himalayan mountains to enter the mystical city of K’un-Lun, which materializes on Earth for only one day every 10 years.

The 9-year-old Danny Rand was adopted by the people of K’un-Lun and grew up in their Martial Arts oriented culture. Longing for revenge on Harold Meachum for causing the deaths of his parents, Danny excels at the Martial Arts and even faces the dragon Shou-Lao to win K’un-Lun’s greatest force – the power of the Iron Fist.

Overcoming Shu-Hu the One and several other opponents, Iron Fist/ Danny Rand wins the right to leave K’un-Lun on its freshly arrived rematerialization on Earth. Our now 19-year-old hero sets out to find and kill Harold Meachum.

NOTE: I reviewed this issue in depth along with Iron Fist’s other 1970s stories HERE. After issue #25 he moved on to his own series in Iron Fist Vol 1 #1.

MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #23 (Aug 1975)

Title: The Name is Warhawk

Villain: Warhawk

Note: This is the very first appearance of future X-Men villain Warhawk. 

Synopsis: Danny Rand and his friend Colleen Wing are walking through Central Park discussing his ongoing adjustment to life outside K’un-Lun and his love interest Misty Knight. When a supervillain calling himself Warhawk attacks the crowd at the park Danny slips away to become Iron Fist.

In a running battle from Central Park to the New York docks, our hero learns Warhawk was a Top Secret Vietnam War attempt to transform a soldier into a super-powered operative. Warhawk seems to die in the final battle but turned up alive and was hired by the Hellfire Club to plant a bug in the X-Men’s Cerebro computer system.  

MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 # 26 (Nov 1975)

Title: The Games of Raging Gods

Villain: Typhon

Synopsis: The former (and future) Avenger Hercules is back to living in 1975 California, now that his shared adventures with Thor (over at his own series) have come to an end.

Typhon, the evil Titan from Greco-Roman mythology who once clashed with the Avengers when Hercules was a member, is freed from exile in Hades by Cylla, a former priestess of the Oracle at Delphi.

Typhon attacks Hercules, intent on killing him for revenge. After a monumental battle, Hercules defeats him solo this time and Typhon once again winds up in exile in Hades.

NOTE: Hercules would also serve in the short-lived superteam called the Champions along with his fellow former Avenger the Black Widow and other heroes.

MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #27 (Dec 1975)

Title: Deathsong (despite the cover)

Villain: Dansker

NOTE: Satana the Devil’s Daughter had first appeared as a foe of her half-brother Son of Satan (Daimon Hellstrom) and had also previously appeared in her own series in Marvel’s “adult” black & white horror magazine Haunt of Horror.

Synopsis: The wandering Satana is drawn to the remote town of Chandler, CA by infernal forces she senses there. It turns out that Dansker, a demon from Hell who tutored Satana in her youth down there, has possessed a woman in Chandler.

His host body has perpetrated so much evil in Chandler that she/ it has been bound to a stake, condemned to be burned alive. Satana uses her power to shoot Hellfire from her hands as well as her succubus powers to save the woman.

The Dansker reveals himself as the entity possessing the young woman and Satana must thwart Dansker’s plan to physically come to the Earth for a reign of terror.

MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #28 (Feb 1976)

Title: There’s a Mountain on Sunset Boulevard

Villain: Starseed

Synopsis: Ghost Rider (Johnny Blaze), Werewolf by Night (Jack Russell) and Morbius the Living Vampire (Michael Morbius) all happen to live in California. When the peak of a mountain lands on Sunset Boulevard it creates full-moon conditions that change Jack into his Werewolf form.

He, Ghost Rider and Morbius are joined by Man-Thing (Ted Sallis), who was teleported to California by the Sunset Boulevard Mountain’s mystical energies. (It’s only a comic book. Just go with it.) I would have included Satana in this Legion of Monsters, too.

Our four heroes reach the top of the mountain where they encounter a golden-skinned man called Starseed. He is the last survivor of a magical race from Earth’s distant past. They and their mountaintop realm were abducted by aliens thousands of years ago.

Having outlived the abductors, Starseed has used his own powers to fly back to Earth with the mountaintop intent on reclaiming what is now California as his own. The Legion of Monsters defeat him, of course.

MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #29 (Apr 1976)

Title: The Liberty Legion

Villain: The Red Skull

NOTE: Marvel’s 1970s (but set during World War Two) series The Invaders was so successful they tried launching this spin-off series set in the same time period. While the Invaders consisted of Marvel’s actual 1940s stars like Captain America, Sub-Mariner, the original Human (android) Torch, Bucky and Toro, the Liberty Legion was made up of the company’s lesser-known 1940s heroes.

Synopsis: When the Red Skull captures and enthralls Cap, Sub-Mariner, Human Torch and Toro to do his evil bidding, only Bucky escapes. He uses a live radio broadcast to summon all superheroes who are listening to join him to thwart the Red Skull and free the Invaders.

The Patriot, Miss America, Whizzer, Jack Frost, the Thin Man, Red Raven and Blue Diamond answer Bucky’s call and become the Liberty Legion. 

MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #30 (Jun 1976)

Title: They’re Blitzing the Bronx

Villain: The Red Skull

Synopsis: The Liberty Legion members help Bucky fight the enthralled Invaders as the Red Skull uses them in his campaign of terror along the East Coast as World War Two rages on.

After assorted clashes up and down the coast, the Liberty Legion manage to capture Toro. Bucky gets an idea how to use the still-hypnotized Toro against the Red Skull, which he does during the climactic Yankee Stadium battle between the Invaders and Liberty Legion.

The Red Skull is defeated, the Invaders are cured and the Liberty Legion is established as a team to protect America’s World War Two homefront while the Invaders continue battling the Axis Nations around the world. 

*** That puts us at roughly the half-way point of Marvel Premiere‘s 61-issue run. I’ll examine the remaining issues in the near future.