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Mars Will Send No More

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Mars Will Send No More

Tag Archives: Paul Jenkins

Spectacular Spider-man 21

14 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in superhero

≈ 1 Comment

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Doctor Strange, Fantastic Four, Kingpin, Paul Jenkins, poker, Spectacular Spider-man, Spider-man

spectacular spider-man 21  (15)

 
Spider-man was our first great superhero enthusiasm and this is one of our favorite stories of his. It has no big fights between men in tights and other misfit miscreants of science. It merely shows a poker game, and a few old friends telling funny stories.

You can buy it as Spectacular Spider-man #21 (Marvel Comics, 2005). If you buy the otherwise awesome Spectacular Spider-man TPB collections, you will discover they omitted this issue from the paperbacks.

This isn’t a comic book you give to someone who has never read comics before. This material assumes you know and like these characters already. It gives you a chance to spend an evening shooting the breeze with a few of your favorite Marvel superheroes. Paul Jenkins spent his Spider-man run exploring Peter’s psychological and emotional landscape. But here, at the end of his run, he leaves us with something lighthearted. And for that, it qualified for runner up in our second round of Top Ten favorite single issues of all-time.









An Inhuman Retrospective

24 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in superhero

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Amazing Adventures, collection, Doug Moench, first issue, George Perez, Gil Kane, Inhumans, Jack Kirby, Jae Lee, Marvel Comics, Paul Jenkins

inhumans collection (1b)

We’ve always had a fondness for the Inhumans as characters and concepts despite the lackluster treatment they often receive in print. The Inhumans first appeared as supporting characters in the Fantastic Four when creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby still masterminded that title together. In 1970, Kirby launched Inhumans on their own adventures in Marvel’s second attempt at an Amazing Adventures title.

inhumans collection (1a)

Marvel ran the 1961 Amazing Adventures for just half a year, its first six issues collecting some entertainingly vintage stories by Kirby and Steve Ditko, Dick Ayres, Paul Reinman, Don Heck, and Larry Leiber. You can preview many of these golden-age sci-fi and monster stories in our archives.

Beginning with a new #1 issue — something that seems a monthly event at Marvel these days — the 1970 Amazing Adventures put both the Inhumans and the Black Widow on the cover. The Black Widow stories have some wonderful John Buscema and Gene Colan artwork you can preview at Diversions of the Groovy Kind.

The Inhumans get the full Jack Kirby treatment for three issues. He writes and draws them in pretty straight-forward superhero adventures. We have the first story in our archives. Like Kirby’s Black Panther, they lack  depth but make fast-paced action stories for young readers. 1970 also gave Inhumans fans another Jack Kirby treatment of his genetically-modified heroes: the final issue of the first Silver Surfer series.

inhumans collection (1c)

Even the Mandarin appears in these Amazing Adventures, in his utterly ridiculous “Asian Villain” outfit! The Inhumans made it about sixteen issues in this format, with Roy Thomas and Neal Adams stepping up to create new stories after Kirby left. But like Thomas & Adams’ X-men, the Inhumans were doomed as a publication.

inhumans collection (1d)

Okay. Not exactly doomed. They got their own title after that! Leaving behind the anthology comic format, the Inhumans had earned their own shot as title characters. Doug Moench and George Perez launched them with Inhumans #1 in 1975. We have that first issue in our archives, too: Spawn of Alien Heat!

inhumans collection (1e)

That series showed a lot of potential, but its struggle to find its feet is almost palpable. You can find it reprinted in a hardcover format as Marvel Masterworks: Inhumans #2 from 2010, the first volume of which covers all those Amazing Adventures stories plus their origin story from Thor.

inhumans collection (1f)
inhumans collection (1g)

Marvel billed the Inhumans as “uncanny” in this series, a word they would later apply to the X-men. The “Uncanny X-men” stuck, and few readers of bronze-age Marvel recall anyone but the X-men ever being uncanny! Gil Kane moved from cover art to interior art in this series. Although his style seems rough after Perez’s smooth work, Kane delivers some truly classic 70s work in stories like “A Trip to the Doom” in issue #7.

inhumans collection (1h)
inhumans collection (1i)

In what now feels like a desperate ploy to boost sales, the Inhumans fight Hulk in their final issue. The same thing happened to Kirby’s Eternals in the mid-70s. Bad sales figures? Hulk Smash! “Let Fall the Final Fury” turns out to be the last appearance of the Inhumans in their own title for about 25 years.

inhumans collection (1j)

Despite some great guest appearances in John Byrne’s Fantastic Four in the 1980s, the Inhumans never really got a stellar treatment until Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee crafted a twelve-issue limited series for them in the 21st century. We have some of that artwork in our archives. The Inhumans live up to their potential in this compelling story, despite its reliance on the same old struggle with Maximus the Mad.

The four-issue Inhumans series by Carlos Pacheco earlier that summer had some stunning art by Ladronn. It attempted to free the Inhumans from the only two stories they ever seemed to get: the fight with Black Bolt’s mad brother, and their thing about needing to live on the moon. Pacheco stepped in and said, “Let’s shake this up a bit,” taking their conceptual struggles in the next logical plot direction.

inhumans collection (1k)

But, in the wake of the Jenkins/Lee story, Marvel decided on a “next generation” approach to the Inhumans. The book became more teen-friendly and introduced a new, younger set of Inhumans characters, some of whom we met in Jenkin’s story. This 2003 Inhumans series ran for twelve issues. It has its merits and perhaps competed at the time with Marvel’s Runaways and Exiles for a teen audience wanting teen characters. Of those three, only Runaways kept our attention, proving to be a book about teens that older audiences could appreciate, too.

inhumans collection (2)

And that, dear Martians, is why some lucky buyer overseas ended up with a stack of Inhumans comics from us! We collected those first Kirby issues, the run of their 1970s title, and the Jenkins/Lee paperback, along with some other minor Inhumans goodies from over the years. It was fun to have them all close at hand for a few years, and we did hold on to our single-issue copies of the Jenkins stories.

inhumans collection (3)

Spectacular Spider-man: Disassembled!

16 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in superhero

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Disassembled, Humberto Ramos, Paul Jenkins, Spectacular Spider-man, Spider-man

The Avengers made such a splash getting “Disassembled” back in 2004 that sometimes Spider-man’s creepy role in that event gets overlooked. Paul Jenkins took advantage of the wave of weirdness coursing through the Marvel Universe to have a bit of horrific fun with our favorite web-slinger.

A femme fatale takes a shine to Spidey. Her diabolical plan? To transform Spidey into some kind of hideous spider mutant. Throughout the four issues of this story, we see Spider-man in various stages of grotesqueness as he mutates into something that, we guess, the lady wants to mate with. The build-up is intense, and the resolution is as cool as it is unexpected. Captain America guest stars. Have a look at some of the splash pages in our gallery today!

Collector’s Guide: From Spectacular Spider-man #17-20; Marvel, 2004. Story by Paul Jenkins. Pencils & Covers by Humberto Ramos.




The Lizard’s Tale – Part 2!

12 Monday Mar 2012

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in superhero

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Curt Connors, Daimon Scott, lizard, Paul Jenkins, Spectacular Spider-man, Spider-man

Paul Jenkins took a more psychological approach to Spider-man and his villians when he wrote The Spectacular Spider-man. In “The Lizard’s Tale,” Jenkin hypothesizes that maybe Dr. Curt Connors doesn’t really lose control. Maybe he just uses his Lizard persona to act out all his violent fantasies – his dark side. Kind of like people who drink too much and use it as an excuse to be dumb jerks.

Collector’s Guide: From The Spectacular Spider-man #12-13. Reprinted in Spectacular Spider-man TPB #3, 2004. Story by Paul Jenkins, Pencils by Daimon Scott.




The Lizard’s Tale – Part 1!

11 Sunday Mar 2012

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in superhero

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Tags

Curt Connors, Daimon Scott, lizard, Paul Jenkins, Spectacular Spider-man, Spider-man

Paul Jenkins took a more psychological approach to Spider-man and his villians when he wrote The Spectacular Spider-man. In “The Lizard’s Tale,” Jenkin hypothesizes that maybe Dr. Curt Connors doesn’t really lose control. Maybe he just uses his Lizard persona to act out all his violent fantasies.

Collector’s Guide: From The Spectacular Spider-man #12-13. Reprinted in Spectacular Spider-man TPB #3, 2004. Story by Paul Jenkins, Pencils by Daimon Scott.



MLK Day In Full Effect!

17 Monday Jan 2011

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in superhero

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Black Captain America, Black Panther, Black Spider-man, Captain America, Christopher J. Priest, Joe Bennett, Mark Buckingham, Paul Jenkins, Spider-man, the crew

For MLK Day, feast your eyes on the on the first page in recorded history where we see a black Spider-man, long before Marvel introduced Miles Morales. Jenkins wrote issues #20-50 on this series, and it’s a good read. The covers by Humberto Ramos are a real treat. Jenkins continued scripting Spidey in The Spectacular Spider-man #1-27 in 2003, with Humberto Ramos taking over most of the interior artwork.

Collector’s Guide: From Peter Parker Spider-man #35, Jan. 1999.
Story by Paul Jenkins, art by Mark Buckingham/Wayne Faucher.

And though the story of a black Captain America has been told more than once, our hands-down favorite is from The Crew in 2003. Story by Priest, Pencils by Bennet.

Priest kicked it into high gear to write an awesome action story beginning in the pages of Black Panther. Teaming up with Bennet (and a run of Black Panther pencilers including Jorge Lucas and Jim Calafiore) was a great idea, because this team crafted the best Black Panther story since McGregor’s Jungle Action run in the 1970s. The story ran through Black Panther issues #50-62 and continues in The Crew #1-7. Sales of this grossly under-rated minor masterpiece brought The Crew to an early close. These Black Panther and The Crew issues mostly sell in NM or VF condition for a buck or two a piece, so grab a stack today.

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