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. Continue reading
CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS Vol 1 #6 (Sep 1941) 
Story 3: Captain America Meets the Hangman 
SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #50 (Jul 1967) 
Over the next few weeks, the crime rate in New York City skyrockets with no Spider-Man getting in the way of villainy and only Daredevil fighting street-level wrongdoing. Our hero’s absence is noted in criminal circles, inspiring the Kingpin to at last operate openly. 
WEREWOLF BY NIGHT Vol 1 #32 (Aug 1975) 
Moon Knight arrives at Jack’s Los Angeles apartment, where Jack shows up shortly before the Full Moon rises and turns him into the Werewolf. The pair fight it out through the streets of L.A. while Moon Knight’s helicopter pilot Frenchie abducts 
THE HUMAN FLY 
Origin: Rick Rojatt was given a fictional origin story for this Marvel Comics series. He was a young man who was severely injured in a car crash that killed his wife and children. After much reconstructive surgery, roughly 60% of Rojatt’s bone structure was replaced with lightweight steel. 
SPIDER-MAN Vol 1 #176 (Jan 1978) 
Peter becomes Spider-Man and gets to the apartment that Harry shares with Flash Thompson. He finds Flash unconscious on the floor and the Green Goblin ransacking Harry’s bedroom. Spider-Man attacks the villain, assuming it’s Harry in the costume, but in a few issues it will turn out to be Dr. Hamilton himself, who manipulated his patient Harry Osborn to find his late father Norman Osborn’s Green Goblin costume and weaponry. 
SPIDER-WOMAN Vol 1 #17 (Aug 1979) 
Our heroine slips away from Eric to try getting back her costume without exposing her secret identity. At one point, the drunken woman dressed as Spider-Woman falls off the deck of the mountaintop disco. Jessica uses her powers to save the woman and recover her costume before the drunk knows what’s what. 
MARVEL TEAM-UP Vol 1 #53 (Jan) 
The genetically engineered human/ animal hybrid creature Woodgod (at right) – also immune to the nerve gas – is still being contained in the depopulated town by Major Del Tremens and his troops at Tranquility Base, who caused the nerve gas leak. 
MONSTER OF FRANKENSTEIN Vol 1 #1 (Jan 1973) 
That chunk is brought on board Walton’s vessel and stored in the hold. While the captain relates to a crew member the tale told to his ancestor about the monster’s creation and history, the rest of the crew plot a mutiny over being kept in the frozen north for so long just to recover a monstrous corpse.
GHOST RIDER – Daredevil biker Johnny Blaze makes a deal with the devil: Johnny’s soul in exchange for Satan curing the cancer in the body of Blaze’s mentor “Crash” Simpson. We all know how deals with the devil go, and not only does Crash die anyway, but Johnny Blaze is cursed to periodically transform into the flame-headed monster called Ghost Rider.
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