These nice, escapist bits of fun have proven very popular with readers of Balladeer’s Blog. FOR PART 1 OF BALLADEER’S BLOG’S EXAMINATION OF MANTIS CLICK HERE
THE AVENGERS Volume 1, Number 120 (February 1974) Death Stars of the Zodiac
Obviously the February 1974 date means this was years before Star Wars, so the “Death Stars” of the title are just a generic reference to astrology. This individual issue kicks off a multi-part story that significantly advances the MANTIS narrative as we head toward the Celestial Madonna Saga.
Zodiac was a team of supervillains who had fought the Avengers multiple times previously. Periodically individual members of Zodiac would clash with individual Avengers in the pages of their own comic books.
DEATH STARS OF THE ZODIAC
Synopsis: The opening scene features Taurus, in his secret identity of billionaire Cornelius Van Lunt, visiting an imprisoned Zodiac member, Joshua Link. Link is the “evil” twin of the Gemini duo. Van Lunt, who has concealed his true identity from his teammates in Zodiac, has been forced to reveal himself to Joshua Link.
The reason for that is to get Gemini ready for an upcoming jailbreak, since Taurus wants ALL the members of Zodiac on hand as the team enacts his master plan.
NOTE: Cornelius Van Lunt had been a background figure in the Avengers’ comic books for quite a while by this point. He was one of those people from Old Money in New York and his family was friendly with the family of Janet Van Dyne (The Wasp), likewise from New York Old Money. As in all the way back to when New York was a Dutch possession in the 1600s.
For a real-life example of such types think of Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt. Hell, if you go back far enough their family was known as “the Van Roosevelts.”
At any rate Cornelius had often used his family ties to try to romance Janet Van Dyne and his family fortune to hassle Tony Stark and would try plots to leverage Avengers Mansion out of their hands to force the team out of New York City. Until it was revealed that he was secretly Taurus he just seemed like the typical Marvel Comics civilian character who harasses the heroes, like J Jonah Jameson with Spider-Man, Senator Kelly with the X-Men, General Ross with the Hulk and the Yancy Street Gang with the Thing.
Getting back to the story, after Taurus busts Joshua Link out of jail and welcomes him back to Zodiac, their next move is to have Joshua move against his “good” twin, Damian Link. Damian is the New York Police Department’s Liaison with the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. Continue reading
THE AVENGERS Volume 1, Number 119 (January 1974) Night of the Collector
The eight Avengers – accompanied by Loki, helpless and insane from what happened in the Dark Dimension – land the borrowed aircraft on the roof of Avengers’ mansion and exit from it. Exhausted, the heroes forgot that the S.H.I.E.L.D. transport did not have their Quin-Jet’s setting for disarming the defense systems of Avengers Mansion. 
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. In the case of Fungus Isle it seems like the inspiration for Attack of the Mushroom People, aka Matango, the Fungus of Terror. 
THE AVENGERS Volume 1, Number 115 (September 1973) Below Us The Battle 
Despite the Swordsman’s pardon and his status as an Avenger the Brits do not want the formerly wanted man allowed in the country. Thor – more worldly in the comic books than he is in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – negotiates with the British and the Swordsman is allowed in England but the Avengers are responsible for his actions. 
PSI CASSIOPEIA, or STAR: A MARVELOUS HISTORY OF WORLDS IN OUTER SPACE (1854) – Written by Dr Charlemagne Ischer Defontenay, a French M.D. and author. Long before J.R.R. Tolkien churned out obsessive amounts of fine detail about his fictional Middle Earth, Defontenay produced this volume of history, poetry and drama from his fictional planets in the star system Psi Cassiopeia. 
The system where that planet is located is a three-star system. Ruliel is the large, white star at the center, around which orbit the two lesser stars Altether (green) and Erragror (blue). The planet called Star is orbited by large planetoids/ moons named Tassul, Lessur, Rudar and Elier. Throwing all science to the winds the planet is also orbited by a small red star called Urrias. 
THE WRECK OF A WORLD (1889) – Written by W. Grove. (No other name available) This novel is the sequel to Grove’s A Mexican Mystery, an ahead-of-its-time work about a train engine devised to have artificial intelligence. The machine – called only The Engine in that story – rebelled and took to preying on human beings in horrific fashion. For Balladeer’s Blog’s review of that novel click 
Our story begins in what was to Grove “the far future” of 1949. After a fairly superficial depiction of the world’s political and scientific situation in this imaginary future the meat of the tale begins. All in all the author did not present 1940s technology as being much more advanced than what was available in the 1880s. Grove might have done better to set his tale in 1899 or just into the 1900s to detract from his lack of vision on this particular element. 
THE ULTIMATE INHERITORS (1914) – Written by Berg Bellair. This is a very entertaining work of vintage or “ancient” science fiction and is especially noteworthy for the way it anticipates the many “big bug” movies of the 1950s and later. 
Fifth Canto, Stanza 1: BETWEEN YOUR LITERATURE AND MINE – Maldoror goes meta, addressing the reader directly for daring to condemn him while still continuing to read about his nightmarish activities. He recommends a recipe for preparing the flesh of one’s mother after killing her, and otherwise seems to presage many modern-day serial killers. CLICK 
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