Two collections I’ve always wanted to own are the complete “Tales of Asgard” series by Lee and Kirby and the “Inhumans” backup that replaced it. Today, the sixth and final issue reprinting the complete “Tales of Asgard” feature (soon to be released in hardcover) was released. The blurb on the last page announces the “Inhumans” backup feature… which was also released today in a Marvel Masterworks hardcover.
Ah, yes… life is good.
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There has also been little contact between the X-Men and the Inhumans (which would seem a natural pairing to me). When John Byrne got around to it in Hidden Years, the results were kind of... down-letting.
"Down-letting" sounds like something out of the Heimskringla.
"Then did Swein Tin-Ear read to Asbjorn the Well-Read the drapa that he had written, asking 'Surely you have heard no finer drapa than this that I have written?' Asbjorn did not hurry to reply, for in truth did he find Swein's drapa to be poorly-written and derivative, and hastily sought he in his mind the right words to give his friend a gentle down-letting."
Verily, tis' true. Swein's drapa was long-winded and pretentious, the sort of drapa that only hath appeal to easily swooned young lasses who favor the darker colors.
Verily, tis' true. Swein's drapa was long-winded and pretentious, the sort of drapa that only hath appeal to easily swooned young lasses who favor the darker colors.
I’ve spoken before of “Vintage Fantastic Four,” that run from approximately the wedding of Reed and Sue through the introduction of the Kree and Him in which new characters and concepts were introduced every single issue. What I didn’t know until last night (after reading Mark Evanier’s introduction to Marvel Masterworks Vol. 125) is that Martin Goodman, spooked by Harvey Comics’ plans to launch a superhero line, planned to double Marvel’s output from eight monthly comics to 16. Lee and Kirby brainstormed a number of new characters including Blackbolt (a solo character), the Inhumans, the Coal Tiger and a Wyatt Wingfoot prototype.
Marvel’s distributor (DC Comics) shot down Goodman’s plan to expand, leaving Lee and Kirby “stuck” with all these new characters. Eventually, Blackbolt was folded into the Inhumans, the Coal Tiger became the Black Panther, and these and other characters became supporting characters in the Fantastic Four.
A couple of years ago, I posted a series of Jack Kirby discussions spotlighting his solo work. I had planned to eventually return with a “Miscellaneous Jack Kirby” thread which would have covered the Inhumans feature he did solo in the early issues of Amazing Adventures just before he left Marvel for DC. It’s no secret that Kirby was becoming increasingly dissatisfied toward the end of his 1960s tenure at Marvel, and although Evanier doesn’t confirm my suspicion in his introduction, I have always suspected that the Inhumans series was a bone thrown to Kirby to give him a feature with writing as well as artist credit.
When I first read these stories, I didn’t like them as much as I did the Lee/Kirby collaborations on the Inhumans backup feature which replaced “Tales of Asgard” but ran only briefly. Now I think I may have unfairly judged those issues. For one thing, the story was plotted as two 20-page stories, but then reformatted at the last minute as four 10-page stories when it was decided to launch it as a co-feature in a “split-book” rather than in a solo title. Also, Kirby’s pencils were inked by Chic Stone rather than Joe Sinnott. Stone was a great inker for Kirby’s earlier style, but I think Sinnott’s style better suited Kirby’s pencils at the time. When I try to imagine what the unlinked pencils must have looked like, I can see that Kirby put every bit as much effort into this feature as he did to… well, everything else he did, really.
Other than Jack Kirby, Marvel Masterworks Vol. 125 also features the artwork of Gene Colan, Mike Sekowsky (inked by Bill Everett!) and Neal Adams, and is an interesting document not only of how characters evolve over time, but of comic book publishing practices at the time. The art of Mike Sekowsky (who I will forever associate with the JLA and DC) is particularly interesting to me in this volume.
There’s something about this collection that makes the whole seem greater than the sum of its parts to me.
I divide the book into five main sections:
LEE/KIRBY: This series got off to a strong start but lasted only seven installments: two historical, two featuring Black Bolt and three featuring Triton. It’s disappointing that it didn’t last long enough to spotlight each of the Royal Family in turn.
GOODWIN/COLAN: This was intended to have been the first issue of a new Inhumans series which would have spotlighted Medusa (at a time when Marvel felt the need for strong female leads). The series was shevled and the story saw print in Marvel Super-Heroes #15.
KIRBY SOLO: I mentioned earlier that these four 10-pagers from Amazing Adventures #1-4 featured strong pencils but I felt that Chic Stone’s inking was ill-suited to Kirby’s current style and concluded that this represented Kirby at the top of his game. That was before I re-read them. This is not Kirby’s best plot.
THOMAS/ADAMS: Things begin to look up a bit in the next four 10-pagers from Amazing Adventures #5-8. So far this thread I haven’t had much to say about “Asgardians,” but Thor takes point in issue #8. It’s still early enough in Marvel’s shared universe that the Avengers have not yet met the Inhumans, nor consulted with the Fantastic Four. In reaction to a news broadcast on the splash page, The Scarlet Witch asks, “Black Bolt? Who is he, Cap?” to which Captain America replies, “I wish I knew, Wanda. I wish I knew.”
CONWAY/SEKOWSKY: As I mentioned before, these two full-length stories from Amazing Adventures have a kind of DC feel to them. Not only does this two-parter continue the Inhumans’ story, it also continues Magneto’s during the time when the X-Men didn’t have a title of their own, which is how I’ve most often read them.
The volume also includes Avengers #95, an Inhumans chapter sandwiched right in the middle of the Kree/Skrull War and the chapter most people reading this post will be familiar with if they are familiar with any of these stories at all. It serves as something of a “coda” to the Thomas/Adams stories from Amazing Adventures. As much as their Avengers and X-Men are recognized, these stories are often overlooked.
The volume concludes with a few Inhumans-related humor pieces from Not Brand Echh.
Coming in April: Inhumans Masterworks Vol. 2, including The Inhumans #1-12, Captain Marvel #52-53 and tales from What If…? #29-30 and Thor Annual #12.
I forgot to mention yesterday that there is a gap between Amazing Adventures #10 and Avengers #95 in which an untold tale must occur. As I indicated yesterday, I prefer to skip from AA #8 to Avengers #95, anyway (in which case one might expect a “gap”), but I have read them straight through before. Despite the fact that AA #10 mentions that the story will be continued in Avengers #95 and promises to fill in the gaps between stories at a later date, I had the impression that the transition was smoother. To the best of my knowledge, this untold tale has yet to be told.
Still in the mood for Inhumans (and unwilling to wait until April), I decided last night to re-read Hulk Annual #1. This is the one that introduced Maximus’ band of traitorous Inhumans Leonus, Aireo, Timberius, Stallior, Falcona and Nebula. What even I had forgotten is the bond forged between Hulk and Black Bolt in that story. In the wake of World War Hulk in difficult to recall that Hulk left the Great Refuge pondering, “Hulk could have stayed there! Black Bolt might have been a real friend… but it wouldn’t have helped… because everyone else hated me! Maybe someday Hulk will find whole city full of men like Black Bolt! But until then, Hulk can only run… and hide… and hate!”
I know I still haven’t had too much to say about Asgardians so far in this thread, but the Hulk had been in Asgard just seven short issues prior to Hulk Annual #1.
Just recently I saw or read something where the X-men were interacting with the Inhumans (Ha!, just looked it up: Uncanny X-Men: First Class # 1). At first the X-men were grooving on how nice it was to a have a society where everyone is accepted and then Nightcrawler witnessed the terrigan mysts ritual then freaked out to see that they were intentionally mutating their offspring, conflict ensues.
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So, has there been any interaction between the Asgardians and the Inhumans over the years?
There has also been little contact between the X-Men and the Inhumans (which would seem a natural pairing to me). When John Byrne got around to it in Hidden Years, the results were kind of... down-letting.
"Then did Swein Tin-Ear read to Asbjorn the Well-Read the drapa that he had written, asking 'Surely you have heard no finer drapa than this that I have written?' Asbjorn did not hurry to reply, for in truth did he find Swein's drapa to be poorly-written and derivative, and hastily sought he in his mind the right words to give his friend a gentle down-letting."
Awesome.
Marvel’s distributor (DC Comics) shot down Goodman’s plan to expand, leaving Lee and Kirby “stuck” with all these new characters. Eventually, Blackbolt was folded into the Inhumans, the Coal Tiger became the Black Panther, and these and other characters became supporting characters in the Fantastic Four.
A couple of years ago, I posted a series of Jack Kirby discussions spotlighting his solo work. I had planned to eventually return with a “Miscellaneous Jack Kirby” thread which would have covered the Inhumans feature he did solo in the early issues of Amazing Adventures just before he left Marvel for DC. It’s no secret that Kirby was becoming increasingly dissatisfied toward the end of his 1960s tenure at Marvel, and although Evanier doesn’t confirm my suspicion in his introduction, I have always suspected that the Inhumans series was a bone thrown to Kirby to give him a feature with writing as well as artist credit.
When I first read these stories, I didn’t like them as much as I did the Lee/Kirby collaborations on the Inhumans backup feature which replaced “Tales of Asgard” but ran only briefly. Now I think I may have unfairly judged those issues. For one thing, the story was plotted as two 20-page stories, but then reformatted at the last minute as four 10-page stories when it was decided to launch it as a co-feature in a “split-book” rather than in a solo title. Also, Kirby’s pencils were inked by Chic Stone rather than Joe Sinnott. Stone was a great inker for Kirby’s earlier style, but I think Sinnott’s style better suited Kirby’s pencils at the time. When I try to imagine what the unlinked pencils must have looked like, I can see that Kirby put every bit as much effort into this feature as he did to… well, everything else he did, really.
Other than Jack Kirby, Marvel Masterworks Vol. 125 also features the artwork of Gene Colan, Mike Sekowsky (inked by Bill Everett!) and Neal Adams, and is an interesting document not only of how characters evolve over time, but of comic book publishing practices at the time. The art of Mike Sekowsky (who I will forever associate with the JLA and DC) is particularly interesting to me in this volume.
I divide the book into five main sections:
LEE/KIRBY: This series got off to a strong start but lasted only seven installments: two historical, two featuring Black Bolt and three featuring Triton. It’s disappointing that it didn’t last long enough to spotlight each of the Royal Family in turn.
GOODWIN/COLAN: This was intended to have been the first issue of a new Inhumans series which would have spotlighted Medusa (at a time when Marvel felt the need for strong female leads). The series was shevled and the story saw print in Marvel Super-Heroes #15.
KIRBY SOLO: I mentioned earlier that these four 10-pagers from Amazing Adventures #1-4 featured strong pencils but I felt that Chic Stone’s inking was ill-suited to Kirby’s current style and concluded that this represented Kirby at the top of his game. That was before I re-read them. This is not Kirby’s best plot.
THOMAS/ADAMS: Things begin to look up a bit in the next four 10-pagers from Amazing Adventures #5-8. So far this thread I haven’t had much to say about “Asgardians,” but Thor takes point in issue #8. It’s still early enough in Marvel’s shared universe that the Avengers have not yet met the Inhumans, nor consulted with the Fantastic Four. In reaction to a news broadcast on the splash page, The Scarlet Witch asks, “Black Bolt? Who is he, Cap?” to which Captain America replies, “I wish I knew, Wanda. I wish I knew.”
CONWAY/SEKOWSKY: As I mentioned before, these two full-length stories from Amazing Adventures have a kind of DC feel to them. Not only does this two-parter continue the Inhumans’ story, it also continues Magneto’s during the time when the X-Men didn’t have a title of their own, which is how I’ve most often read them.
The volume also includes Avengers #95, an Inhumans chapter sandwiched right in the middle of the Kree/Skrull War and the chapter most people reading this post will be familiar with if they are familiar with any of these stories at all. It serves as something of a “coda” to the Thomas/Adams stories from Amazing Adventures. As much as their Avengers and X-Men are recognized, these stories are often overlooked.
The volume concludes with a few Inhumans-related humor pieces from Not Brand Echh.
Coming in April: Inhumans Masterworks Vol. 2, including The Inhumans #1-12, Captain Marvel #52-53 and tales from What If…? #29-30 and Thor Annual #12.
Still in the mood for Inhumans (and unwilling to wait until April), I decided last night to re-read Hulk Annual #1. This is the one that introduced Maximus’ band of traitorous Inhumans Leonus, Aireo, Timberius, Stallior, Falcona and Nebula. What even I had forgotten is the bond forged between Hulk and Black Bolt in that story. In the wake of World War Hulk in difficult to recall that Hulk left the Great Refuge pondering, “Hulk could have stayed there! Black Bolt might have been a real friend… but it wouldn’t have helped… because everyone else hated me! Maybe someday Hulk will find whole city full of men like Black Bolt! But until then, Hulk can only run… and hide… and hate!”
I know I still haven’t had too much to say about Asgardians so far in this thread, but the Hulk had been in Asgard just seven short issues prior to Hulk Annual #1.
from pvponline.com
Just recently I saw or read something where the X-men were interacting with the Inhumans (Ha!, just looked it up: Uncanny X-Men: First Class # 1). At first the X-men were grooving on how nice it was to a have a society where everyone is accepted and then Nightcrawler witnessed the terrigan mysts ritual then freaked out to see that they were intentionally mutating their offspring, conflict ensues.
PowerBook Pete said:
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