Designed to compete with DC Comics‘ successful launches of House of Mystery and House of Secrets,[2]Tower of Shadows, like its companion comic Chamber of Darkness, sold poorly despite the roster of artists featured. After its first few issues, the title, published bimonthly, began including reprints of “pre-superhero Marvel” monster stories and other SF/fantasy tales from Marvel’s 1950s and early 1960s predecessor, Atlas Comics. After the ninth issue, the title changed to Creatures on the Loose, and the comic became a mix of reprints and occasional sword and sorcery/SF series.
Jean Grey and Sabretooth return to Earth 616. Weapon X and his Black Legion attack the last human city where Weapon X slays both Magneto and Rogue, leaving Jean Grey and Sabretooth the last two X-Men alive. Jean telepathically nudges clones of the Scarlet Witch to recreate the Decimation and remove all mutants’ powers across the globe. However, this was only successful within a radius of 12 feet, so Jean Grey and Sabretooth are both left de-powered. The human coalition distracts Weapon X with a bomb long enough for the group to escape as the city explodes behind them. Harper Simons joins with the human team, the X-Terminated. Others who work with the X-Terminated are Doctor Moreau and Bolivar Trask.
Forty years have passed and the zombies have come back home after eating just about everything else in the universe. Yum yum! What awaits them back on Earth, though, is beyond anything even these shambling monstrosities could have conceived! This is a new series featuring the amazing, irreverent take on the Marvel characters that became last year’s unexpected smash hit. They’re back and more stomach-churning than ever! The smash hit series is back, daring to ask: “Whose stomach are you in?”
Jennifer Walters, the cousin of Bruce Banner (Hulk), is the small and somewhat shy daughter of Los Angeles County Sheriff William Morris Walters and Elaine (née Banner) Walters (who died in a car crash when Jennifer was seventeen). Operatives of Nicholas Trask, a crime boss who had crossed paths with her father, shot and seriously wounded her on a day that Bruce Banner happened to be in town for a visit. Since no other donors with her blood type were available, Banner provided his own blood for a transfusion; as they already shared the same blood type and DNA, his radioactive blood, combined with her anger transformed Jennifer into the green-skinned She-Hulk when the mobsters tried to finish her off at the hospital.
The characters first appeared in Eclipse Magazine #2-8. It would later be reprinted in a color trade paperback, I Am Coyote. Afterwards, a new comic book series started at Marvel ComicsEpic Comics line, that ran 16 issues. It was notable for the first published work of Todd McFarlane. According to Epic editor-in-chief Archie Goodwin, artist Steve Leialoha‘s departure after issue #2 caused deadline problems that the series never fully recovered from, leading to its early cancellation.
Luke Cage was created by Archie Goodwin and John Romita, Sr. shortly after Blaxploitation films emerged as a popular new genre. He debuted in his own series, Luke Cage, Hero for Hire, which was initially written by Goodwin and pencilled by George Tuska. Cage’s adventures were set in a grungier, more crime-dominated New York City than that inhabited by other Marvel superheroes of the time. The series was retitled Luke Cage, Power Man with issue #17.
As the Blaxploitation genre’s popularity faded, Cage became unable to support his own series and was paired with another superhero whose popularity was based on a declining film genre, the martial arts hero Iron Fist, in an effort to save both characters from cancellation. Though the series title would remain Power Man in the indicia for a while longer, with issue #50 (April 1978) the cover title became Power Man and Iron Fist. It would remain thus until the series’s cancellation with issue #125 (September 1986). The series’s final writer, James Owsley, attempted to shed Cage’s Blaxploitation roots by giving him a larger vocabulary and reducing usage of his catchphrase, “Sweet Christmas!”.
Fantasy Masterpieces, became Marvel Super-Heroes with issue #12 began showcasing a try-out feature as each issue’s lead. This encompassed solo stories of such supporting characters as Medusa of the Inhumans, as well as the debuts of Captain Marvel (#12), the Phantom Eagle (#16) and the Guardians of the Galaxy (#18). The Spider-Man story drawn by Ross Andru in issue #14 was originally planned as a fill-in issue of The Amazing Spider-Man but was used here when that title’s regular artist, John Romita Sr. recovered more quickly than anticipated from a wrist injury. Andru would become the regular artist on The Amazing Spider-Man several years later.
In 2011, IGN listed Secret Wars as one of the best comic book events. Their writers found the action and goofiness of the story to be enjoyable. They also highlighted the impact it had on the Marvel Universe by introducing the symbiote and new characters. In 2011, Alex Zalben of MTV News ranked Secret Wars as the second biggest comic event ever; he praised its story and lasting effect.
Moon Knight received his first ongoing series in 1980, with Doug Moench and Bill Sienkiewicz as its main creative team. The character received an expanded origin story in issue #1, which also introduced several recurring characters as well as recurring enemy Bushman. The series depicted several characters who doubted the moon god Khonshu was real and believed Marc Spector only experienced a hallucination while near death. It was never explained why other characters, such as Spector’s lover Marlene, concluded this when there was no other explanation for Marc’s spontaneous recovery from his wounds and a death-like state and when it was well known by this time that many gods of myth in the Marvel Universe (such as Thor and Zeus) were real, living entities from other dimensions and planets.
After early sales were good, Marvel made the Moon Knight series a flagship title available in comic shops starting with issue #15. The companion mini-series Moon Knight: Special Edition reprinted the Hulk and Marvel Preview Moon Knight stories in color and standard comic format, as opposed to their original magazine format. Sienkiewicz left the series after issue #30, though he continued to contribute covers until the series ended with issue #38.
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