This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post here on Balladeer’s Blog continues from my 2021 look at the earliest Iron Fist martial arts stories.
MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #25 (Oct 1975)
Title: Morning of the Mindstorm
Villains: Angar the Screamer and Khumbala Bey
Synopsis: This issue picks up right after Iron Fist (Danny Rand) stopped the Skrull robot called the Monstroid before it could kill Princess Azir from Marvel’s fictional Arabic nation Halwan. Lt. Rafael Scarfe and the rest of Azir’s New York City police bodyguards are grateful, but the princess’s hulking Halwan bodyguard Khumbala Bey feels shamed and attacks Iron Fist.
Soon, Azir stops the fight and returns to the Halwan consulate in New York City. Next, Iron Fist learns that Colleen Wing has been abducted by minions of his archenemy Master Khan, who is secretly running a plot in Halwan. On Master Khan’s orders, Daredevil and the Black Widow’s old foe Angar attacks our hero with his Mindstorms. Iron Fist defeats the villain. Continue reading
CRACK COMICS Vol 1 #17 (Oct 1941) 
LADY JUSTICE Vol 1 #1 (Sep 1995) 
LADY JUSTICE Vol 1 #2 (Oct 1995) 
VENUS
ASTONISHING TALES Vol 1 #25 (Aug 1974) 
RED NAILS – I always like to emphasize that – despite the way Marvel Comics’ 1970s and 1980s Conan stories kept the character’s name alive and introduced new generations to him – the Cimmerian was not a mere comic book figure. Iconic author Robert E. Howard introduced Conan on the printed page in his 1930s stories featuring the character. 
I. This first installment introduces readers to a blonde female pirate – Valeria of the Red Brotherhood. She is the only female pirate among them and is as notoriously deadly as the others. NOTE: Yes, this is the character that Sandahl Bergman played in the 1982 Conan the Barbarian film. That movie made her a standard thief instead of a pirate and – sadly – gave her the “ghostly return” scene that actually belonged to Conan’s true love Belit (Bay-LEET) from 
DEFENDERS Vol 1 #12 (February 1974)
Dr Strange, Hulk and Valkyrie are the only Defenders available who can be rallied to save the world from Xemnu. (I’d have thrown in Clea, too, myself.) Our heroes battle the alien, who is defeated and again seems to be destroyed in the explosion of a spaceship he made the enthralled citizens of Plucketville construct for him. 
This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post here at Balladeer’s Blog looks at Marvel’s 1973 combination of its licensed War of the Worlds rights with its original IP Killraven (1973-1976). It was similar to how Marvel combined their licensed Fu Manchu rights with 
WAR OF THE WORLDS – Jonathan Raven, rechristened Killraven in the gladiatorial circuit of Earth’s alien conquerors of the “future,” leads a group of Freemen in an attempt to retake the planet. CLICK 
THE WARLORD STRIKES – On the run after the destruction and genocide of their Staten Island rebel colony, Killraven and his Freemen run afoul of the Warlord, a human quisling who has wanted revenge against the rebel leader ever since he escaped from the gladiatorial pens. CLICK 
AVENGERS Vol 1 #115 (September 1973)
Synopsis: The Avengers fly in a Quin-Jet to Garrett Castle in England to check up on their British member the Black Knight (Dane Whitman). He has been out of touch for an alarmingly long time. 
FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #81 (Dec 1968) 
The team’s old foe the Wizard invades the Baxter Building to keep his recently confiscated Power Gloves from being reverse engineered by the Fantastic Four. 
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