POSTLUDE: Marvels #3

Featuring: Marvels
Release: January 25, 1994
Cover: March 1994
$5.95
Writer: Kurt Busiek
Artist: Alex Ross
Letterers: Starkings w/ John Gaushell
Editor: Marcus McLaurin
Assistant editor: Spencer Lamm
Editor in chief: Tom DeFalco
Cover design & logo: Joe Kaufman
Interior Design: Comicraft
45 pages

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X-Men #23	Reading order	Daredevil #18
Marvels #2	Marvels	Marvels #4

And then it was quiet. No one around. They were all inside– or gone. Was this what it was going to be like? Silence and emptiness– forever?

We again jump back to 1994. As noted in this post, which serves as something of a vision statement, my goal here is to be able to reread my first comic, Avengers #309, but this time with full context, without feeling like I was missing anything or that I had read things out of order. More than that, it’s an attempt to try to see decades of disparate titles by a variety of creative voices as telling a larger single story.

I see Marvels, the masterpiece by Busiek and Ross, as an attempt to come to terms with that same story, and then to tell it in miniature. In general I try to take a contemporaneous viewpoint, looking at our 1966 stories from the perspective of 1966, and not spending too much thought on what later stories have to say. Marvels is the exception, as I’m using Marvels to frame our reading and my thinking about this reading.

For example, we jumped a little bit ahead in our X-Men reading lately. The rush through X-Men was to line up with this issue of Marvels. I was eager to read this comic right after the Galactus saga, but knew I had to hold back until after the X-Men battled Count Nefaria. And the choices in reading order we made with respect to the Avengers and Fantastic Four stories were inspired by how Marvels presented them.

There is no other later series I let impact my thinking on these stories. That’s born both out of a love of Marvels and its creators, and a trust in Kurt Busiek to have done his homework.

As this post is a bit long and picture-heavy, I’ve broken it into two parts.

The series Marvels covers the Marvel Universe from 1939-1973. I don’t know how far this blog will go before I get bored or die, but I’m hoping to at least hit 1973 and finish Marvels. But that is several years away.

There’s also a bit of timing in the writing of this blog that has recontextualized Marvels and the stories it represents again. I started this blog in 2019 and reached Marvels #1 in 2020, and found new meaning in Phil’s desire for the world to return to normalcy. I write this blog post in 2024, with 2020 four years in the past, but the pandemic continuing to affect lives in big and small ways.

Marvels #1 starts with the dawn of Marvel in 1939 and takes us into the war in Europe, likely around 1943. We then jump forward 20 years and Marvels #2 covers the ground of part of our reading. It skips the introductions of most of the heroes and takes us to 1964 and Avengers #6 (May 1964), then ends in 1965 with Tales of Suspense #69 (around July 1965). Its focus was on the juxtaposition of two major events, the wedding of Reed and Sue in Fantastic Four Annual 3, and the introduction of the Sentinels in X-Men #14-16.

Thinking in terms of Fantastic Four, a title which has been a monthly constant in our reading, Marvels #2 covers the ground of approximately Fantastic Four #29-43.

Marvels #3 will cover a little less ground, Fantastic Four #44-50, bringing us to around February 1966. And most of the page count is dedicated to recapturing a single story, the battle between the Fantastic Four and Galactus in Fantastic Four #48-50. Due to its wonky arrangement with other stories, the original battle only covered about 48 pages of comics originally, so the retelling in miniature is not actually that much shorter, taking up almost 32 pages.

Of course, this retelling will not be from the perspective of the Fantastic Four, but our man Phil Sheldon.

The story has been about Phil, but also about his changing opinion of the Marvels. In the 1930s, he thought they were something to fear when he first saw Human Torch and Sub-Mariner, but came to conclude they were something to cheer on when he saw Captain America, and then all the heroes teaming up against Nazis. He continued to cheer them on into the 1960s, loving the Fantastic Four and the Avengers… but not the X-Men. Mutants, he hated. Though he grew a bit by the end.

Now he begins to wonder if he’d put a bit too much faith in all the Marvels, put them too much on a pedestal. As they become embroiled in controversy after controversy… had he overestimated them? He begins to have doubts.

And then the sky fills with fire.

We begin with a series of newspaper and magazine articles about Iron Man. The Marvels have become tabloid fodder, Tony Stark and Iron Man in particular.

Let’s see if we can’t spot all the references above.

We see the Black Widow, looking much as she did in her first appearance in Tales of Suspense #52. That’s Boris with her trying to push the camera away. Here are a few reference shots from the issue.

We also see the Crimson Dynamo. We’ve of course met two of them, the first introduced in Tales of Suspense #46. I assumed this shot was of the aforementioned Boris, the second Crimson Dynamo. But Busiek’s script claims it’s the original Crimson Dynamo. But then Ross claims he got the reference from a flashback in Amazing Spider-Man #86, which was more likely the new one…

Anyway, they wear the same armor. Here’s the original.

And here’s the new guy.

The wanted poster for Hawkeye would go back to his days as a criminal before joining the Avengers, perhaps from Tales of Suspense #57.

That shot of the Avengers including the reformed Hawkeye is obviously right out of the famous ending of Avengers #16.

There’s no comic reference for the Business Week cover. That’s the original Avengers line-up from the first issue along with their financial backer, Tony Stark. Actually, it’s not the entire line-up. For some reason, Iron Man is missing from the photo. Notice the cover date of the magazine is September 1963, the cover date of Avengers #1.

A couple shots of Iron Man in his original and new armor.

Senator Byrd is always mad at Iron Man. The mini-sub fiasco from the Daily Bugle article is from Tales of Suspense #66.

Here are some shots of Stark and the Countess from Tales of Suspense #69.

I think I see Titanium Man in the bottom right corner, from Tales of Suspense #71.

And the stick figure drawing appears to be Phil’s rendition of Nick Fury.

Obviously finding just the right shots in these old Iron Man comics isn’t easy, and requires the support of my two assistants.

Phil Sheldon is working with Ben Urich on a story about Tony Stark for the Daily Bugle. Phil normally worked for the Daily Globe. Ben has an answer for Sheldon’s concerns that Iron Man is tarnishing the image of the Marvels: Iron Man isn’t really a Marvel. He’s a hired guy in a suit; he didn’t build the suit (as far as Ben knows). So far they’ve found Stark is involved in a government thing, which is likely SHIELD, as we saw in Phil’s notes above. But they can’t get any information about it.

The sliding reputation of the Marvels makes Phil concerned for his unfinished book. The mayor declaring the Avengers a public menace and ordering them to disband does not help.

Busiek gets a quick joke out of the fact that both Phil and Ben have wives named Doris. Please nobody tell that to Zack Snyder.

We recall the Avengers being forced to disband in Avengers #21.

That Daily Bugle secretary we see isn’t Betty Brant. We recall she left in Amazing Spider-Man #34 and then had a series of replacements, as none would tolerate Jameson for long. This may be her first replacement.

We recall in Avengers #22 when the city learns the Avengers had been framed, and apologizes for disbanding them by declaring Avengers Day.

Now we actually get to see Avengers Day play out.

And this is where I thought I had outsmarted Mr. Busiek and caught him in an error. I was ready to impugn his knowledge of comics and question if he’d ever even read a Marvel comic before. As soon as Avengers Day was declared, Cap quit the Avengers to go off and be a boxer in some rural area. So how could he be at the Avengers Day celebration as depicted above?

Ha! Explain that one Kurt Busiek, you wannabe Marvel fan, you…

Oh, wait. That’s not Captain America. That’s a cardboard cutout of Captain America. Because Busiek knows Captain America couldn’t actually be there, but I guess the Mayor still wanted a photo with the “full” line-up. Huh. Well, I guess I take back those remarks about Kurt’s mother. Maybe he has read a Marvel comic or two. His script even gives explicit instructions to have a cardboard cutout of the good Captain.

We then see Senator Byrd demanding Iron Man be unmasked along with news reports that Tony Stark has vanished. Both of these things actually happen a lot. But I’m guessing we’re talking about Tales of Suspense #72 here. We see Byrd insisting privately Iron Man be unmasked, which could lead to the press conference depicted above. At the same time, we learn Tony Stark is missing. This time he’s been kidnapped by the Mad Thinker. The next time it will be the Mandarin. And, well, it will happen in most every other issue.

Serendipity is Busiek’s secret tool in this series. We saw it last issue and will see it repeatedly this issue. In finding unintended connections between concurrent stories, Busiek weaves them into a more cohesive whole.

In the pages of Tales of Suspense, Stark has his legal troubles and publicity troubles thanks to Senator Byrd. In the pages of Strange Tales, Stark has been secretly designing weapons for SHIELD. SHIELD is a shadow organization that fights most of its battles in the shadows. But their battle against the Druid became a big public spectacle. Busiek notes this would have lead to headlines about the government ending a global menace with Stark technology… at exactly the time Tony Stark needed the good press. Where Busiek found serendipity, Urich sees conspiracy, finding it too convenient that SHIELD is now willing to come out of the shadows when Stark needs the PR boost.

The very public battle against the Druid’s egg-shaped weapons was from Strange Tales #145.

We’re soon getting to the main story of the issue, the battle with Galactus. But first, another point of serendipity. To hide Earth from the Silver Surfer, the Watcher first filled the sky with fire, and then with stone debris. Busiek notes that shortly before that battle, in Avengers #27, Attuma had nearly flooded the East Coast. So before fire and stone, there was water. Three ancient elements, three signs. One is not connected, but Busiek saw the connection. As will the relgious fanatic warning of armageddon, warning that water is the first sign.

“Three signs and then the Apocalypse! Three signs, and Judgment Day!” The fanatic is oddly close to being correct.

We see here also another motif of the issue, Phil’s struggles to balance career and family. There’s always a Marvels-related emergency to photograph, but he needs to make time for the wife and kids as well. This struggle for balance is familiar to those who have been reading along with Spider-Man’s story. And Mr. Fantastic has similar troubles balancing his scientific work with being a husband.

Generally, Marvels is focused on what people witnessed. The mid-Atlantic battle depicted above didn’t have many witnesses, so Phil explains how the public heard about the battle on the radio. The image drawn is thus not a literal depiction of events in the issue, but the imagination of the radio audience. Which is why it’s okay for Ross to draw from the cover instead of an interior panel just this once. The cover is representative of the battle, not a literal scene.

The scenes of Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four are familiar from Amazing Spider-Man #34 and Fantastic Four #45 respectively. Of course, we know that’s not Spider-Man but Kraven attempting to frame him, just the way Enchantress and her crew tried to frame the Avengers.

And so it continues. The stories we’ve been reading are news stories to Phil and the public, like Hulk’s attack in DC from Tales to Astonish #75. The Times reports of Ka-Zar’s capture in Daredevil #14. Phil looks at pictures of Hercules from Journey Into Mystery #125 and Captain America’s battle with Batroc while an unnamed SHIELD agent escapes in Tales of Suspense #75.

We often see the shots don’t quite match a panel from the comic, but seem to be set just before or just after the shot in the comic. Sometimes it combines the perspective of multiple panels.

Atomic power had been a shining miracle once, too — before the Cold War. Before it became something to fear. Were we misjudging the Marvels– or were we simply starting to see them for what they really were?

Here we go. Phil has his moment of doubt if the Marvels are really as magnificent as he’d made them out to be. Public opinion seems to be turning against them. Phil overhears someone talking about banning them from the city.

And then the sky fills with fire.

(Continued on Page 2)