This issue continues Captain America's battle with Machinesmith from the last issue, with the addition of a Fantastic Four character, the robotic Dragon Man (seen both on the cover to your right and earlier, behind the scenes in Avengers #42). We also touch base with Steve Rogers's personal life, watching him as he looks for... Continue Reading →
Captain America #246 (June 1980)
In this issue—a fill-in before the legendary run by Roger Stern and John Byrne begins in the next issue—Captain America once again encounters a villain with more to his story than he initially appreciates, emphasizing the theme of mercy made at the end of the last issue. The issue opens with a NYC school board... Continue Reading →
Amazing Spider-Man #187 (December 1978)
This comic could very well have been an issue of Marvel Team-Up, which has featured Captain America teaming up with Spider-Man twice by this point (issue #13 and issue #52), except that it actually focuses on Cap more than Spidey, at least after the first few pages referencing the status quo of Spidey's life at... Continue Reading →
Avengers #170-172 and Thor #271 (April-June 1978)
These three issues of Avengers return us to the Korvac Saga, begun in issue #167, but again with minimal involvement from Captain America (and, to be honest, very little to do with Korvac in the first two issues, which deal more with Jocasta and Ultron). In fact, the one image from issue #172 is simply... Continue Reading →
Invaders #23 and #25 (December 1977 and February 1978)
These two fairly light issues—straddling issue #24, which reprinted a Golden Age tale—involve a sidetrip to Egypt during the ongoing struggle to save young Toro's life (after his critical injury in issue #21) and sets up the next storyline with tremendous resonance for the World War II era as well as today. (We'll see a... Continue Reading →
Iron Fist #12 (April 1977)
No, you didn't stumble onto my The Tao of Iron Fist site. (Not yet, at least.) Much more than your average guest appearance, this issue near the end of Iron Fist's first 15-issue series (following nearly a year's run in Marvel Premiere, all collected here) is more like an issue of Marvel Team-Up or Marvel... Continue Reading →
Super-Villain Team-Up #10-12 (February-June 1977)
Wait, Captain America... in a supervillain book? Did he "hail Hydra" already? Is this "Secret Empire 1.5"? Don't click on that "back" button, my friends: Cap features in these three issues, but not as part of a super-villain team-up. (Whew!) Instead, his archfoe the Red Skull joins Namor and Doctor Doom in "their" book, and... Continue Reading →
Captain America #206-208 (February-April 1977)
These three issues tell the story of Hector Santiago, a.k.a. "the Swine," a vicious Latin American prison warden/warlord who actually doesn't survive issue #208, and appears very little in this post at all. However, the story does leave us with another character who is perhaps the greatest contribution that Jack Kirby gave to the... Continue Reading →
Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles (1976)
Released in June 1976, this 84-page Marvel Treasury Special—really more of an early graphic novel than a comic—is a massive tribute to Captain America and America herself from Jack "The King" Kirby on the year of the country's bicentennial. In it, Cap is sent by a strange being named "Mister Buda" on a time travel... Continue Reading →
Invaders #1-4 (August 1975-January 1976)
Just two months after Giant-Size Invaders #1, the (mostly) monthly Invaders title began (the first two issues originally intended for a second giant-size comic). As I wrote in the post for the last issue (after some background regarding its origins), this series is heavy of the action and light on the moral dilemmas—this being an... Continue Reading →