SUPER-BLOG TEAM UP! The Voracious Villainy of The Crimson Dynamo !

WELCOME TO THE THIRD INSTALLMENT OF SUPER-BLOG TEAM UP MERRY MARCHERS! My colleagues in comicdom and I are unequivocally delighted to rollickly welcome you to this installment’s special theme of…VORACIOUS VILLAINRY! And this installment of SAS will be featuring the 1^st appearance of the voracious villain known as…THE CRIMSON DYNAMO! As always, I, Jubilant Jeff V, will be your guide through the sensational silver age of marvel comics! So as Vin Scully, the immortal voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers would say, “Pull up a chair and let’s get on to this one”. You heard the man merry marchers so pull up a chair let me share with you a terrific tale of suspense, a time when a golden avenger went head to head with a crimson dynamo!

Now, this silver age sensation, Tales of Suspense #46, in all honesty, is my favorite SAS in my humble collection. I only acquired this tantalizing tale this past December put I have already read this issue three times since then and probably flipped through it just for sheer joy another two or three times! I decided to visit a local comic shop while I was visiting back home in NJ, “The Joker’s Child”. Whenever I find myself in a new shop I immediately walk in in awe, just soaking it all in and having NO IDEA where to start! So my brother and I spend about half an hour walking around the store (it was a pretty big shop, plus I’m told a slow browser and only my brother can really put up with this so he’s my go to man when it comes to new comic shop hunts!) and the way the shop was set up that on the front of every long box stack was a placard of a cover with a price sticker on it. Turns out what they were and what this system was is the placards were actual photocopies of the actual covers of each of the “special” back issues they had in stock and the comics themselves could be found locked in a corresponding drawer. I can honestly say that I have never seen this approach before or since and I have been in comic shops in NJ, PA, NY, TN, MO, MS, OH, and AL! Once I saw the placard for this issue, for Tales of Suspense #46, it was comic book love at first sight! Staring back at me was the earliest Tales of Suspense featuring Iron Man that I had ever seen in person and actually had the possibility of owning due to its manageable price tag and fair condition. I saw this cover and knew that it just HAD to be mine:

Of course, like most covers during the early silver age of marvel comics, this cover was done by none other than Jack “King” Kirby himself. When the shop owner pulled this comic out for me, and I could feel that peerless power of a Kirby cover, a feeling of absolute joy poured over me! The shop owner grabbed me a new board and a new mylar bag and that made the cover pop even more! When I got the issue home, I couldn’t even bring myself to read it right away, I just admired it for the 1^st few days and it was a glorious thing! Alrighty then merry marvel marchers, bring on the villains and the panels!!!

*Let me fill ya in here loyal one! So Stark Industries is being sabotaged by the Crimson Dynamo, a villain with the capability to control and manipulate electrical currents and fields. Definition of a "dynamo" as per the unquestionable source known as Wikipedia ;) is "an electrical generator that produces direct current. Dynamos were the first electrical generators capable of delivering power for industry, and the foundation upon which many other later electric-power conversion devices were based, including the electric motor, the alternating-current alternator, and the rotary converter". Here is where it gets interesting loyal ones. This issue is also the 1st appearance of one Anton Vanko, a.k.a. The Crimson Dynamo. Name sound familiar? Perhaps from the marvel cinematic universe? Of course it does because merry marvel marchers are the most well informed readers in all of comicdom!

A showdown between the Crimson Dynamo and old Shell head ensues when Vanko decides it's time to go all in and take on Iron Man head to head. Tony manages to not only outsmart Vanko, but also gain a valuable ally. 

Well that's all for today marvelites, Jubilant Jeff V signing off! EXCELSIOR!

P.S. Just to make sure you guys don't miss out on the bolstered Silver Age Sensation experience in each post, remember to click on any of the text that appears gold in each post because that means that I'm linking ya to even more goodness. -Awareness lovin Jeff!

If ya want more Silver Age Sensation Splendidness, head over to Twitter and Pinterest and give me a follow! Ya can follow me on Twitter as SilverAgeSensations @JubilantJeffV or on Pinterest as Silver Age Sensations @jeffv5  

To check out the other issues in this #SuperBlogTeamUp mini series, follow these links loyal ones: 

The Bronze Age Babies

The Frightful Four (Are Brains Required for This Outfit?)

http://bronzeagebabies.blogspot.com/2014/05/super-blog-team-up-frightful-four-are.html

Between The Pages

Two Villains Rule The World of Cakes: Darth Vader & Boba Fett

http://betweenthepagesblog.typepad.com/between-the-pages-blog/2014/05/two-villains-rule-the-world-of-cakes-darth-vader-and-boba-fett.html

Fantastiverse

Green Goblin: The Art of Villainy and Madness

Longbox Graveyard

Thanos: Love & Death

http://wp.me/p1yye7-2pU

SuperHero Satellite

The Great Darkness Saga

http://wp.me/p2N3Qb-k9

Chasing Amazing

Carnage: How I Helped Create This Monster

http://wp.me/p1wQNx-1B5

Flodos Page

The Villainous Villainies of The Lamp-Lighter

http://flodospage.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-villainous-villainies-of-lamplighter.html

Retroist

Doctor Doom

Superior Spidertalk

Peter Parker's Parents

The Unspoken Decade

Godkillers:  Doomsday and Bane

http://theunspokendecade.com/2014/05/21/super-blog-team-up-presents-godkillers-doomsday-bane/

The Daily Rios

JLA vs. Beasts

Days of Silver Age Past

I’m going to borrow a little lyric from Huey Lewis and The News and add my own personal Silver Age flare to it. So from the “The Power of Love”, Silver Age Sensation style, we have: “The power of inspiration is a curious thing, it can make Magneto weep, it can make the Banshee sing!” Oh the fleeting muse that is inspiration. Where does it come from? Well the inspiration for this post came from an opportunity seized, an opportunity lost, and an opportunity gained. Picture if you will a local comic shop and within it, flipping through the back issues is yours truly; Jubilant Jeff V. I hear a fellow merry marvel marcher chatting with the owner behind the desk and apparently in the customer’s view is some new back issues that the store must have picked up and that I apparently missed ENTIRELY when I had walked in. I’m flipping through the back issues and I hear “So did ya get a chance to price that X-Men #6 ya have there?” Well, naturally, this gets MY attention. I’m thinking to myself, X-Men #6, that’s the crossover with the Sub-Mariner, and any single digit issue of the X-Men goes for at least $50 because demand for Silver and Bronze Age X-Men is perpetually high.

I casually made my way toward the front of the store, continuing to “flip” through the back issues when in actuality I just wanted to continue to eavesdrop and get a look at the condition of the book. I hear the owner say that he hasn't had a chance to price it yet but it’s in REALLY rough shape but that he could price it for him now if he wants. So there I am, mentally holding my breath as I wait for the pricing verdict. The owner then flips through the Overstreet guide and says well in good condition it’s worth $46 which this issue is FAR from so let’s say $10. The marvelite says quite casually “I think I'll take that instead of what I was originally gonna get, just as well anyway”. And at this point my mental conversation is as follows: TEN DOLLARS! TEN DOLLARS! *HANGS HEAD IN DEFEAT*. I did manage to get a look at the issue before the fellow marvelite left and the spine of the issue was pretty much worn away and jagged, the spine of the book itself looked like it had some water damage but I still couldn’t help but be a bit envious of the find. So there we have the fellow marvelite with the aforementioned opportunity seized, myself with the opportunity lost, and the grand no-prize goes to the loyal one who could guess what the opportunity gained was???.................................That would be the writing of this new installment of this sizzling Silver Age Sensation of course! 

The X-Men was the brain child of who other at Marvel than Stan The Man and King Kirby. Stan Lee himself, in the book entitled “Stan Lee’s Amazing Marvel Universe” goes on to say that of all his books he really felt that the X-Men had the greatest untapped potential especially as a way to impart some wisdom on the readers. Stan, in an interview with Chris Hardwick over at The Nerdist, has said that he was certainly not the most learned man around and that he certainly did not want to preach to his readers but if a “teaching” moment seemed to arise, well then he would try to slide a little teaching moment in here or there. The 60’s were a turbulent time in American history and tolerance and segregation were at the forefront of the nation’s minds. Stan and Marvel wanted to connect with the readers and show them both how segregation can feel and how tolerance and respect could be the cure. What did Stan and Jack devise as the perfect vehicle of transmission for their message? They conceived a group alienated by society because they were different. The group they conceived was none other than THE X-MEN!!!!

Now, I would also be lying if a certain tweet had not also served as a wee bit of inspiration for the compilation of this post. The tweet alluded to was via one of my favorite venues for procuring a run of comics for VERY reasonable prices with a WIDE variety to choose from; Midtown Comics. I saw this tweet and my excitement for the X-Men was rejuvenated! “@MidtownComics New X-Men: Days of Future Past Official Trailer! http://bit.ly/Q7pefz “ Seeing this reignited my reminiscence of first seeing the Days of Future Past storyline unfold on the X-Men animated series of the 90's, a storyline that I actally first watched on VHS type as a special promotion from Pizza Hut of all places! 

As homage to Stan’s wishes to use X-Men as a model to disseminate knowledge I would like to take this opportunity, my merry marvel marchers, to share with you some of THE most interesting things that I have learned about the Silver Age of Marvel comics through the pages of the Uncanny X-men: 

1) A Case of Mistaken Identity: As most marvelites know and as I have previously mentioned, Jack Kirby was the first man to draw the uncanny X-Men but did you know that the next two men to take over for King Kirby were actually the same person? Indeed they were, a fact that Karen, a friend of mine over at Between the Pages, pointed out to me. The second artist’s name to appear on the mag was Jay Gavin and the third name to appear was Werner Roth but as it turned out, Werner Roth and Jay Gavin were one in the same person! The story goes, as recounted to me via Karen, that Werner was working for both DC and Marvel during this time and he did not want to lose his employment by “working for the competition”. Roth decided to use the pen name of Jay Gavin, the names of his two sons, when he first started work on X-Men over at Marvel so not to anger or rouse the suspicion of the executives over at DC. 

2) Who okay-ed the color choices for the original Sentinels? With “Days of Future Past” generating quite the buzz, and understandably so as it is one of the most thought compelling storylines in all of marveldom, I thought you loyal ones might be interested in seeing the genesis of the one of the major players in that storyline…………THE SENTINELS! 

Now I must admit that the Sentinels, as a whole, are probably in my top 3 favorite Marvel "villains" of all time. They are intelligent, follow the same self-awareness paradigm as Skynet in the Terminator (coincidence?), are organized, and are truly a powerful and an even match for the X-Men. 

Stan Lee has previously admitted that due to his expansive workload he was not exactly focusing 100% on all the material that he gave the green light for. Most famously Stan recounted a tale in which he was getting ready to leave for Europe during the time that The Amazing Spider-Man #121 was being worked on and quickly okayed the project in haste on his way out of the office and was actually surprised to see that the creative team had decided to kill Gwen Stacey! I have to imagine that a similar circumstance must have come up when the inker showed up to show Stan his color choices for the original Sentinels because  that’s truly a “unique” color scheme that the Sentinels have going on here: 

Well that's all for today marvelites, Jubilant Jeff V signing off! EXCELSIOR!

If ya want more Silver Age Sensation Splendidness, head over to Twitter and Pinterest and give me a follow! Ya can follow me on Twitter as SilverAgeSensations @JubilantJeffV or on Pinterest as Silver Age Sensations @jeffv5  

P.S. Just to make sure you guys don't miss out on the bolstered Silver Age Sensation experience in each post, remember to click on any of the text that appears gold in each post because that means that I'm linking ya to even more goodness. -Awareness lovin Jeff!

SUPER-BLOG TEAM UP! Retcons & The Red, White, and Blue Silver Age Avenger!

WELCOME TO THE SECOND INSTALLMENT OF SUPER-BLOG TEAM UP MERRY MARCHERS! My colleagues in comicdom and I are positively pleased to rollickly welcome you to this installment’s special theme of…retroactive continuities or better known as…RETCONS*! (*Retcons are when a creative team decides to take an already established character and reinvent them and their storyline-Jubilant Jeff V!) In this issue of Super-Blog Team Up as your very own merry marcher of marveldom, Jubilant Jeff V, I will be exploring one of the earliest, if not the earliest retcons of a major character in the Silver Age of Marvel Comics! This issue will be exploring the retcon better known as…AVENGERS #4.

Avengers #4 (1964) has been acknowledged by Stan Lee himself in the book entitled “Stan Lee’s Amazing Marvel Universe” and by many other merry marvel marchers as a watershed moments in Marvel Comics history. It is on these pages, pages written by Stan Lee and drawn by Jack Kirby, that the red, white, and blue avenger is REBOOOORRRNNNN!!!! (should be read the same way Cobra Commander sounds!- GI JOE Loving Jeff!) 

It is this rebirth that thus begins one of the most beloved retcons in Marvel Comics history as Captain America officially makes his lengthy leap from the pages from whence he began; pages printed during the era of WWII. 

 

Fun fact, the last few issues of Captain America, such as the one depicted above, were actually drawn by Jazzy John Romita himself, the man responsible for drawing your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man after Snazzy Steve Ditko left Marvel. Now, onward about that lengthy leap that Cap made. Stan had been teasing and hinting at reintroducing Captain America to the present day audience but he wasn’t sure how good old Winghead would be received. With this in mind, Stan decided to run a little Captain America pilot study. 

Filled with positive feedback and demand for Cap, Stan decided to give the people what they wanted and Captain America officially returned to the present day in trademark Silver Age fashion! 

The decision to bring Cap back marked the 1st major retcon in Silver Age Marvel. Instead of Cap simply fading into the sunset as time went by, maybe settling down and having a few kids, Stan must have said NO! I SHALL NOT HAVE CAPTAIN AMERICA GO FROM PUNCHING ADOLF HITLER IN THE FACE TO FAMILY LIFE!!NICHT*!(*Means "no" in German)I WOULD RATHER "PUT HIM ON ICE" UNTIL THE RIGHT TIME! Well Stan The Man, sounds like a good plan to me. As they say is Marveldom, the rest is merry Marvel History! 

To check out the other issues in this #SuperBlogTeamUp mini series, follow these links loyal ones! 

http://flodospage.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/green-lantern-secret-origins-revision.html 

http://bronzeagebabies.blogspot.com/2014/02/super-blog-team-up-was-vision-really.html?spref=tw 

http://betweenthepagesblog.typepad.com/between-the-pages-blog/2014/02/good-cowboys-always-shoot-first.html  

http://www.superiorspidertalk.com/peter-parker-child-of-radioactivity-or-mysticism 

http://charltonhero.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/super-blog-team-up-vol-2-7-of-9-retcon-crisis-on-continuity-earths/  

http://longboxgraveyard.com/2014/02/19/retcon-roy-thomas-and-earth-2/  

http://superblogteamup.fantastiverse.net/

The First Avenger was First a Howling Commando!

Ahhhhh the scintillating Silver Age of Marvel Comics! Throughout comics history appearances and histories have become a bit muddled, constantly being rewritten, reworked, reinvented, and reimagined. This topic will be the focus of the next installment of SUPER-BLOG TEAM UP (publishing on Feb 19^th) and yours truly, Jubilant Jeff V, will be exploring the reintroduction of one of the MOST beloved creations of the Joe Simon/Jack Kirby era into the Silver Age! Now for a bit of background and then onto the fun (and by that I mean none other than FANTASTIC panels of course). One of the most popular and well known issues in all of comicdom is Avengers #4 (March 1964) which features the reintroduction of Captain America into the Silver Age of Comics! As it is well known, Cap got his beginnings WAY back in the Golden Age of Comics and was a monumental hit during war time. Stan the Man, ever with his ever-loving finger on the pulse of comicdom decided that he wanted to test the waters a bit in November of 1963 and see what kind of reception the Golden Age Gladiator of the Red, White, and Blue would get in the Silver Age and what we got was a Stan Lee/Steve Ditko team up that brought us…STRANGE TALES #114. 

On my bookshelf sits a fantastic little gem that I picked up back before Christmas time entitled “Stan Lee’s Amazing Marvel Universe” which features Stan’s handpicked favorite moments during his time at Marvel, complete with audio commentary by Stan himself! In it, Stan discusses Strange Tales #114 and the myriad of fan mail that Stan received about how excited readers were to see Captain America again (even if the story turned out to be an imposter, the fact that Cap was still there in some form was what Stan was looking for feedback on). 

So, what was Stan’s answer to this demand by the readers to see more Cap? Well the answer for that can be found right on the cover of Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #13 (December 1964)! 

 

The line right under Commandos on the cover reads “Guest Starring: (In Answer to the Greatest Reader Demand in Marvel’s History) Captain America and Bucky! This issue featured Cap back in his Golden Age glory battling Nazi Germany, but this time he was fighting alongside the ever-loving Sgt. Nick Fury!

So loyal readers and followers of SAS, there ya have it! Cap, as himself, physically appeared and was published months before his triumphant and much heralded return to the Silver Age in March of 1964 on the pages of Avengers #4. The caveat here though is that though Cap did return on the pages of Sgt. Fury #13, he was “returning” as the Cap of the Golden Age, as a continuation of his story line, where on the pages of Avengers #4 Captain America was starting anew but that my friends is a story for another day, on another platform, the platform of…SUPER-BLOG TEAM UP!!! Until then…EXCLESIOR! 

What do you see Mr. A? That is The Question; isn't it Rorschach

 

Examine the picture above. Tell me...what do you see? It's a funny thing, ink on page; but then again so is the mind. The mind can interpret a thing in so many different ways, each interpretation and feeling different from the last. The ink on this page, the ink that has taken the shape of Rorschach, did not start out the way it ended. In fact, Rorschach went by two other names before this current one; both names given to him by his creator, Steve Ditko. Rorschach's first incarnation went by a very simple name, an easy to remember name...Rorschach's first name was Mr. A.  

Mr. A was a Steve Ditko creation that was the personification of something that Ditko self prescribed to; objectivism. Objectivism is a morality in which the world is described as being in only two shades; either black or white and there exists no gray area. According to objectivism, the world is comprised of either good or evil and actions are examined wholly as either 100% good or 100% evil. Good is rewarded and commended and evil is punished swiftly. As you can see pictured above, Ditko created this strip entirely in black and white to reiterate the philosophy behind Mr. A. In the BBC special, "In Search of Steve Ditko", Alan Moore (the co-creator and writer of "The Watchmen") describes how Ditko and his philosophy served as an inspiration for the composition of Rorschach. As you take a look at these following two pages, are you able to see the resemblance? 

 

 

What we have on these two pages is Rorschach and a demonstration of Rorschach's moral code, just about 20 years or so before that incarnation was actually conceived. Rorschach's voice echoes in Mr. A's words as he explains to the filth of his city that they are garbage and like all garbage they needed to be taken out. When Steve Ditko moves on to Charlton Comics he decides to take Mr. A with him under a new name. The name that Ditko chooses for this incarnation is The Question.   

It is this second incarnation that Watchmen creators Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons directly drew from when creating Rorschach. At the time that The Watchmen was being conceived, DC had just finished the acquisition of Charlton Comics and therefore Charlton characters such as The Question and Captain Atom were up for grabs and available for Moore and Gibbons to tap into. In the official companion to the graphic novel, "Watching The Watchmen" (pictured below) we are privy to a bevy of unpublished sketches and ideas behind Rorschach's creation. 

 

Pictured below you can see that when Moore and Gibbons were conceiving Rorschach they were directly drawing from both The Question and from Ditko himself, as notes scrawled alongside Gibbons rough sketch indicate. Rorschach was to be an embodiment of objectivism, adhering to a strict moral code. 

In Gibbons early imaginations of Rorschach he had even decided to dress him very similar to The Question; giving him the trademark blue trench coat and fedora. 

So, loyal readers of Silver Age Sensations, I leave thee with one final question to ponder...

 

For further reading on Snazzy Steve Ditko, and his most famous creation, this time in CAKE FORM, follow this link true believers, over to "Between The Pages: Where Food and Pop Culture Meet"! http://betweenthepagesblog.typepad.com/between-the-pages-blog/2014/01/whats-so-amazing-about-spider-man.html 

For an in-depth look at Ditko and Charlton Comics (the group that Ditko left Marvel for, bringing objectivism and The Question with him) head on over to "Superhero Satellite" http://charltonhero.wordpress.com/2014/01/14/charlton-action-heroes-a-count-down-to-retcon/