immortus – Coke & Comics

Who is Kang?

That which is written, is written… and an eternity of raging will not alter one instant of that which will be. Only one maddening enigma remains! Who knows that which is written? Who knows what will be — in the end?

This post was requested by a reader, Bill. Actually, what Bill requested was a brief history of Kang. But brevity is not my strong suit. So I’ll do what I can, which is a comprehensive history of Kang from 1962-2007, the year I stopped reading Marvel regularly.

Who is Kang? In short, he is Kang the Conquerer. He’d conquered the world of the future, and while Alexander wept for there were no new worlds to conquer, Kang found new worlds by setting his sights on conquering history. His story only gets confusing because he’s also gone by other names, like Rama-Tut, Immortus, Scarlet Centurion, Nathaniel Richards, Victor Timely, Whisperer, Iron Lad, and maybe Dr. Doom. And because there is a whole multiverse of Kang variants out there.

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we met Kang in Loki, portrayed by Jonathan Majors, and he plays a significant role in Ant-Man and Wasp: Quantumania.

This post is broken into 3 pages.

1962-1969 Meet Rama-Tut, Kang, Immortus, Ravonna, and the Scarlet Centurion.
1974-1990 Learn the truth about Immortus; witness the death of Immortus; meet He Who Remains, the Time-Keepers, Marcus, Nathanial Richards, and Nebula; witness the death of Immortus again; then learn the real truth about Immortus. (Still not the real truth)
1990-2005 Meet Mr. Mobius of the Time Variance Authority, learn the actual truth about everything, and meet Iron Lad of the Young Avengers.

Pages: 123

Avengers #16

The Old Order Changeth!

Featuring: Avengers
Release: March 11, 1965
Cover: May 1965
12 cents
Dazzling script by: Stan Lee
Dashing layouts by: Jack Kirby
Darlin’ artwork by: Dick Ayers
Delicate lettering by: Artie Simek
20 pages

Previous	#334	Next
Avengers #15	Reading order	Journey Into Mystery #114
Avengers #15	Avengers	Avengers #17

“Avengers Assemble!” shouts Captain America. With quite the assemblage of heroes and villains behind him. Check out our pretty full cast list near the end.

A little annoyed with myself as I make this post. I screwed up. In the middle of a move and all my comics are in transit. I have this issue, my second oldest Avengers comic after issue 8, and I thought I had scanned this before I packed and shipped it. I remembered doing so. Apparently I only scanned the single page I used in my Wandavision post.

I considered pausing our reading for a bit until I could scan my comic, but who knows when that will be. So we’ll press forward with scans, err, found on the internet. We’ll call them temporary. I’ll come back in a month or so and replace them with my own. You probably won’t even notice the difference. I just prefer to scan my own comics when I can.

And this issue means a lot to me.

Had it since early childhood somehow. My cousin had borrowed it for an extended period of time, but I eventually got it back.

This is a pretty historic issue. For whatever reason, Heck chose this issue of all issues to take a breather, leaving Ayers to do the artwork over Kirby’s layouts… or perhaps Kirby’s loose pencils, or maybe full pencils for some of the comic.

Here’s an interesting post on the breakdown of artistic labor in this issue, including speculation that Carl Hubbell was involved: https://nick-caputo.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-unknown-art-of-carl-hubbell.html

First, we need to wrap up the story from last issue. Captain America had just fatally defeated Zemo, and now needs to get back to New York with Rick. He’ll have some trouble with Zemo’s henchmen. Meanwhile, the battle with the Masters of Evil continues in New York.

Let’s just say the Avengers win, though Enchantress and Executioner escape. The battle’s anyway over by page 4, and we have more important things to discuss.

It turns out this was these heroes’ final battle together.

Avengers #10

The Avengers Break Up!

Featuring: Avengers
Release: September 8, 1964
Cover: November 1964
12 cents
Story superbly written by: Stan Lee
Art adorably drawn by: Don Heck
Inked by darlin’ Dick Ayers
Lettered by stalwart Sam Rosen
20 pages

Previous	#275	Next
Tales of Suspense #60, Story B	Reading order	Journey Into Mystery #110
Avengers #9	Avengers	Avengers #11

The issue’s title is “The Avengers Break Up”. Yet, at no point in the issue do the Avengers appear to break up. Instead, characters go to great lengths repeatedly to explain the title via the dialogue. “Now that Thor’s over there and Iron Man’s across the room, it’s basically like they’ve broken up.”

The Heck/Ayers art looks much as it did last issue, which I see as a negative. I’ll give them credit for a couple nice panels. A trippy one of Immortus and an easy-on-the-eyes Enchantress.

We get a weirdly sexist moment in an era filled with weirdly sexist moments. I don’t know if I’m ready to claim it’s the worst, but it’s up there. Iron Man recommends giving Rick Jones a uniform and making him an official Avenger. “…why don’t we make his membership in the Avengers official, as the Wasp’s is…”