The cancellation of Marvel Two-in-One led to the Thing’s first completely solo series, which ran for 36 issues. The Thing was originally written by John Byrne and later, Mike Carlin. The series also featured art by Ron Wilson and later by Paul Neary. It elaborated on Ben Grimm’s poor childhood on Yancy Street in its early issues, and chronicled the Thing’s later foray into the world of professional wrestling. It also featured a major storyline offshoot from Marvel’s Secret Wars event, in which the Thing elects to remain on the Beyonder‘s Battleworld after discovering that the planet enables him to return to human form at will. A full third of the series’ stories take place on Battleworld.
Amazing Adventures was a split title featuring the Inhumans (initially both written and drawn by Jack Kirby, later drawn by Neal Adams) and the Black Widow (initially by writer Gary Friedrich and pencilerJohn Buscema). The Widow was dropped after vol. 2, #8, and full-length Inhumans stories ran for two issues before that feature, too, was dropped.
Vol. 2, #11 (March 1972) introduced solo stories of erstwhile X-Men member the Beast, in which he was mutated into his modern-day blue-furred (originally grey-furred) form. The initial story was by writer Gerry Conway, penciler Tom Sutton, and inkerSyd Shores. Steve Englehart became the feature’s writer with issue #12 and added Patsy Walker and her then-husband, “Buzz” Baxter, to the Beast’s supporting cast in issue #13.
The Star Hunters were infected by the Corporation controlling Earth with a virus which would cause their genes to mutate if they set foot on the planet again without receiving an antidote which the Corporation would only give to them on completion of their mission – to learn the true origins of man.
In late 1982 (cover dated January 1983), Marvel published a humorous one-shot comic featuring some of their most notorious goofs. Subtitled “Mighty Marvel’s Most Massive Mistakes”, the book was organized and spearheaded by Jim Owsley and had a cover which was deliberately printed upside-down. In the comic’s story Lee, with the help of artists Bob Camp and Vince Colletta, exposes and pokes fun at typos, misspellings and other errors.
The first Captain Marvel was created by Stan Lee and Gene Colan in Marvel Super-Heroes #12 (December 1967). This character is an alien military officer, Captain Mar-Vell of the Kree Imperial Militia, who is sent to observe the planet Earth as it is developing technology to travel into space. Mar-Vell eventually wearies of his superiors’ malign intent and allies himself with Earth, and the Kree Empire brands him a traitor. From then on, Mar-Vell fights to protect Earth from all threats.
He was later revamped by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane. Having been exiled to the Negative Zone by the Supreme Intelligence, the only way Mar-Vell can temporarily escape is to exchange atoms with Rick Jones by means of special wristbands called Nega-Bands. He is also given superpowers and his Kree military uniform is replaced with a form fitting costume.
With the title’s sales still flagging, Marvel allowed Jim Starlin to conceptually revamp the character, although his appearance was little changed. Mar-Vell is freed from the Negative Zone and becomes a cosmic champion, the “Protector of the Universe” appointed by the cosmic entity Eon. Together, Mar-Vell and Rick continue to battle against evil, most notably battling the Death-worshipping Thanos. Mar-Vell became a close ally of the Titans, and one of their number, Elysius, became his lover.
Once the line was on the market, a vigorous merchandising campaign took place, with DC Comics and Kenner striving for the Super Powers logo to become ubiquitous. DC Comics produced three comic book mini-series featuring characters from the toyline, one during each year of the toyline’s existence. The first series of comics in 1984 was plotted by Jack Kirby, who also provided covers, and went on to pencil the second series. (These two series were collected and reprinted in 2013 in The Jack Kirby Omnibus Vol. 2, in 2018 in Super Powers by Jack Kirby, and in 2019 in DC Universe: Bronze Age Omnibus by Jack Kirby). The third and final series was penciled by Carmine Infantino.
Though popular with college students, the overall sales of Jungle Action were low, and Marvel relaunched the Black Panther in a self-titled series, bringing in the character’s co-creator Jack Kirby—newly returned to Marvel after having decamped to rival DC Comics for a time— as writer, penciler, and editor. However, Kirby wanted to work on new characters and was unhappy at being assigned a series starring a character he had already worked with extensively. He left the series after only 12 issues and was replaced by Ed Hannigan (writer), Jerry Bingham (penciler), and Roger Stern(editor). Black Panther ran 15 issues (Jan. 1977 – May 1979). Due to the series’s cancellation, the contents of what would have been Black Panther#16-18 were published in Marvel Premiere #51-53.
A three-issue miniseries entitled The Krypton Chronicles, published in 1981, tells of Superman researching his roots when, as Clark Kent, he was assigned to write an article about Superman’s family by an assignment editor impressed with the television miniseries Roots. To do so, he and Supergirl travel to Kandor, where they learn the history of the El family.
A second Journey into Mystery ran 19 issues (October 1972 – October 1975). The title was one of four launched by Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Roy Thomas to form a line of science fiction and horroranthologies with more thematic cohesiveness than the company’s earlier attempts that decade,which had included the series Chamber of Darkness and Tower of Shadows. Whereas those titles generally presented original stories, these new books would instead adapt genre classics and other stories. With the four titles’ debuts set to be staggered over the course of four months, Marvel premiered Journey into Mystery vol. 2 (October 1972), Chamber of Chills (November 1972), Supernatural Thrillers (December 1972), and, with a late start, Worlds Unknown (May 1973).
Man-Bat was the second ongoing comic series featuring a Batman villain, the first one being Joker (Volume 1). Man-Bat started publication in 1975, but was prematurely cancelled after the second issue by DC Comics Publisher, Carmine Infantino. The Man-Bat stories featured in this series were later moved as back-up features on Detective Comics (Volume 1) and later Batman Family (Volume 1).
