This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post here at Balladeer’s Blog resumes examining Marvel Premiere, this time from issue #31 to 40.
MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #31 (Aug 1976)
Title: A Birthday Nightmare
Villains: A violent mob and Major Del Tremens’ troops
Synopsis: This was the origin story for Woodgod, created by Bill Mantlo. Just outside Liberty, NM is a ranch used by government scientists David Pace and his wife Ellen Pace. It serves as their residence AND laboratory for their Top-Secret projects.
One such project is a deadly nerve gas called Purple Mist. Another is the cross-fertilization of human and animal genetic material which has resulted in the unnatural “birth” of Marvel’s newest character – called Woodgod by David Pace.
Under observation by the Paces, Woodgod grows to maturity in just three days and his enormous intellectual potential has him speaking in simplistic English but we’re told Woodgod will be at genius level in a few more days.
Superstitious people in Liberty, NM get covert glimpses of the creature and decide to raid the Pace ranch to destroy Woodgod and any other such “monsters” being created there. David and Ellen are shot to death in the attack but our main character is super-strong and invulnerable, so he survives being shot multiple times.
Woodgod’s still-childlike mind is confused by the violence. The attackers destroy all the lab equipment at the ranch and unintentionally unleash the Purple Mist nerve gas into the air. All the attackers die, then all the human and animal life within 15 miles of the ranch drops dead as well.
The only survivor is Woodgod, whose healing powers make him immune to the gas. At nearby Vertigo Military Base (later retconned into Tranquility Base) Major Del Tremens and his troops become aware of the chaos at the Department of Defense installation on David and Ellen Pace’s ranch. Continue reading
THE LUNARIAN PROFESSOR AND HIS REMARKABLE REVELATIONS CONCERNING THE EARTH, THE MOON AND MARS TOGETHER WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE CRUISE OF THE SALLY ANN (1909) – Written by James B Alexander back in the glory days of titles so long they might not fit in a 140 character limit. 
TEEN TITANS Vol 1 #44 (Nov 1976) 
DOES LOVE DIE WITH YOU? (2025) – This is the first novel from 
THE NEW HUMANS (1909) – Written by B Vallance. No other name has come to light for the author of this thought-provoking work. Explorer Montgomery Merrick is roaming around the wilds of 1909 Uganda when he falls down a mountainside and into a concealed valley. 
FLASH COMICS Vol 1 #1 (Jan 1940) 
Jay’s love interest Joan Williams asks him to find her father, who has been abducted by enemy spies called the Faultless Four and led by the French Sir Satan. The Frenchman and his British, Russian and Slavic colleagues want her retired major father to reveal the secrets of America’s new Atomic Bombarder.
BEYOND THE ETHER (1898) – Written by W. Cairns Johnston. This little honey is so jam-packed with enjoyable weirdness that it’s sort of like “If Ed Wood wrote Steampunk.” 
This weekend’s belated superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at this Iron Fist adventure serialized in Deadly Hands of Kung Fu. It was penned by Chris Claremont and though it features his X-Men foes the Demons of the N’Garai and a woman called the Firebird whose schtick resembles his later retcons to the Phoenix Force, the story ultimately sucks and is an incoherent mess. 
DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU Vol 1 #19 (Dec 1975)
Iron Fist attacks the pair, joined by Colleen, who is swiftly defeated. Our hero continues fighting the Messengers and when he uses the power of the Iron Fist to finish them off, that somehow causes him and Jade to be transported from Earth to Feng-Tu. They are in the throne room of Dhasha Khan (right), who affirms that he is the ruler of this afterlife and states that he plans to strip Jade of her soul and have it damned forever.
A JOURNEY IN THE TWENTY-NINTH CENTURY (1824) – Written by Faddei Bulgarin, who had served in the Polish Legion of Napoleon’s Grand Army in his youth before going on to work for the Czars of Russia. In this fascinating tale an unnamed narrator gets swept overboard in the Gulf of Finland in 1824. The cold water and another element somehow put him in suspended animation and when he comes to he is all the way over in Siberia, where his body was recovered in the waters of Cape Shelagski centuries after he was lost at sea.
FUNGUS ISLE (1923) – Written by Philip M Fisher. Fungus Isle has the same proto-Creature Feature feel to it that The True Inheritors (qv) had. In the case of the previously reviewed story, it was a forerunner of various giant spider flicks. 
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