Tag: Bronze Age

ROM Spaceknight – Marvel (1979)

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To build interest in the ROM toy, Parker Brothers licensed the character to Marvel Comics, which created a comic book featuring Rom. The comic expanded on the premise that Rom was a cyborg and gave him an origin, personality, set of supporting characters and villains, as well as interaction within the Marvel Universe. The comic was written by Bill Mantlo and initially illustrated by artist Sal Buscema. Buscema stated in a 2010 interview, “I liked the character. And I liked what they did with it. I thought the concept was quite good. It was unique. It made it attractive to do. I almost hate to say this, but it was pretty easy to draw, too.” Buscema was the main artist for the series from its creation through 1984. Steve Ditko took over for the final two years of the original run.

Ultimately, the toy failed and only sold 200,000 to 300,000 units in the US, with creator McCoy blaming the failure on poor packaging and marketing. Parker Brothers subsequently abandoned the line.

The comic book outlasted the toy which it was created to support. The series lasted for 75 issues (not including the four annual issues) from December 1979 to February 1986. Rom’s regular encounters with mainstream heroes and villains established him as part of Marvel continuity.

 

Cerebus (1977)

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Cerebus the Aardvark is a series created by Canadian cartoonist Dave Sim, which ran from December 1977 until March 2004. The title character of the 300-issue series was an anthropomorphic aardvark who takes on a number of roles throughout the series—barbarian, prime minister and Pope among them. The series stands out for its experimentation in form and content, and for the dexterity of its artwork, especially after background artist Gerhard joined in with the 65th issue. As the series progressed, it increasingly became a platform for Sim’s controversial beliefs.

The 6000-page story is a challenge to summarize. Beginning as a parody of sword and sorcery comics, it moved into seemingly any topic Sim wished to explore — power and politics, religion and spirituality, gender issues, and more. It progressively became more serious and ambitious than its parodic roots — what has come to be dubbed “Cerebus Syndrome“. Sim announced early on that the series would end with the death of the title character. The story has a large cast of characters, many of which began as parodies of characters from comic books and popular culture.

Starting with the High Society storyline, the series became divided into self-contained “novels”, which form parts of the overall story. The ten “novels” of the series have been collected in 16 books, known as “Cerebus phonebooks” for their resemblance to telephone directories. At a time when the series was about 70% completed, celebrated comic book writer Alan Moore wrote, “Cerebus, as if I need to say so, is still to comic books what Hydrogen is to the Periodic Table.”

Tomb of Darkness (1974)

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Tomb of Darkness, published by Marvel, continues from the “Beware” title with issue #9. The series ran 14 issues from July 1974 to November 1976 and contained various Atlas horror reprints.

The Champions (1975)

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The team first appears in The Champions #1 (October 1975) and was created by writer Tony Isabella and artist Don Heck. The Champions, and ran for seventeen issues from October 1975 to January 1978. In addition to Don Heck, artists who drew the series include George Tuska, Bob Hall, and John Byrne

Heroic Publishing has used the name “The Champions” for a role-playing game series which has been adapted into comic books. The United States Patent and Trademark Office has ruled that Marvel abandoned its trademark of the name and can no longer use “The Champions” as the name of a comic book series. A planned 2007 revival of the series was renamed The Order.

Ragman V1 (1970’s)

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Ragman first appeared in the short-lived comic-book series named after him. He is one of a number of Jewish superheroes, and his continuity is tied to that of DC Comics‘ Golem, derived from the Golem of Prague of Jewish folklore. Ragman was created by writer Robert Kanigher and artist Joe Kubert. Ragman is sometimes compared to the other nighttime defender of Gotham City, Batman.

A Vietnam veteran, Rory had grown up helping his father, a junk man who owned a pawn shop named Rags’n’Tatters. His father always dreamed of making a better life for Rory and constantly promised that someday he would make Rory rich. While drinking with his friends one night, his father discovered 2 million dollars stuffed inside an old mattress that had been pawned just recently. He and his friends decided to hide the money for Rory, since they were too old to truly benefit from it. The money turned out to be the loot from an armored car heist and when the hoods came to the shop one night to get it, they shot down some electrical wires and used them to torture Rory’s father and his friends into revealing where the money was hidden. Rory arrived soon after and seeing his father in agony attempted to pull him free from the wires. A final shock of power ran though the old men and grounded out at Rory, knocking him unconscious. When he woke his father and friends were dead and the hoods responsible were gone. Using a costume made out of old rags (his father had bought it from a stranger before he died and left a note saying Rory could wear it to a costume party) he became Ragman, “The Tatterdemalion of Justice”.

Nick Fury and his Agents of SHIELD (1973)

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This series inspired the ABC television series Agents of SHIELD! This reprint comic features 2 classic stories from Marvel’s Silver Age. Classic Stan Lee & Jack Kirby stories with covers by Jim Steranko.

Secrets of Sinister House (1972)

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After four issues as The Sinister House of Secret Love, which featured Gothic romance/horror stories written by Michael Fleisher and others, the title changed to Secrets of Sinister House, and the original format and romance angle were abandoned the following issue.

In the same vein as House of Mystery and House of Secrets (as well as its successor, Secrets of Haunted House), Secrets of Sinister House was “hosted” by Eve (the character debuted in issue #6) and included guest appearances by Eve’s cousins Cain and Abel. In issue #16, Eve was removed as host — as editor Joe Orlando departed from the title, replaced by Jack C. Harris — to focus on the concept of the “sinister houses”. The following month, she began nudging Destiny out of Weird Mystery Tales.

Marvel Spotlight V2 (1979)

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Marvel Spotlight was revived in 1979, initially as simply a place to publish inventory stories from the recently cancelled Captain Marvel. However, once these leftover tales were exhausted, the series went on to feature other characters. Tako Shamara first appeared in Marvel Spotlight vol. 2 #5 (March 1980), in a story by Marv Wolfman and Steve Ditko. In his first appearance the character battled a huge dragon from the past called a Wani, a monster that destroyed his ancestors’ villages in 1582. The creature that Tako battled was intended to be Godzilla but since Marvel no longer had the rights to the character, which lapsed the previous year, the creature was modified to a dragon called The Wani. Issue #8 featured the final Captain Marvel solo story before the character’s death.

Kamandi (1972)

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DC editor Carmine Infantino had tried to acquire the license to publish Planet of the Apes comic books. When this failed to happen, he asked Jack Kirby for a series with a similar concept. Kirby had not seen the films but he knew the rough outline and he had also created a very similar story, “The Last Enemy!”, in Harvey Comics‘ Alarming Tales that predated the original Planet of the Apes novel. He also had an unused comic strip he created in 1956, titled Kamandi of the Caves. Kirby brought all those elements together to create Kamandi. Although his initial plan was to not work on the comic books themselves, the cancellation of Forever People freed him up to do so.

Marvel Preview V1 (1977)

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An umbrella title that showcased a different heroic-adventure, science-fiction, or sword-and-sorcery character in virtually every issue. The title introduced the Marvel Comics characters Dominic Fortune in issue #2, Star-Lord in #4,and Rocket Raccoon in #7. The vigilante character the Punisher, introduced as an antagonist in the comic book The Amazing Spider-Man, had his first solo story in issue #2.