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Tag Archives: Tom Palmer

avengers 267: time and time again

15 Sunday Dec 2019

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in superhero

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Avengers, big box of comics, John Buscema, kang, Roger Stern, Storm, time travel, Tom Palmer

One of my favorite Avengers stories features the time-traveling psychopath known as Kang The Conqueror. He sports a ridiculous outfit that only John Buscema and Tom Palmer could make cool.

What kind of evil plan can a person hatch in striped purple thigh-high boots? Stripping to pay his way through college? But don’t judge Kang by his fashion sense, because he rocks hard in this minor masterpiece.

I was 13 when this issue appeared on the comic book rack at the Walgreens on Manchester Road in Ballwin, Missouri. The opening sequence blew my mind, and I still get a thrill reading it years later. The complete three-issue story is one of the few mid-80s superhero yarns that still holds up for me as an adult reader, and though I no longer have the complete Stern/Buscema run, I’ve read it a bunch of times. These days, I just reserve a little space for my absolutely favorite Avengers stories, including this one.

It begins the day Colossus joins the Avengers, and opens with Storm descending from the sky like the weather goddess she is. Goddess and, as we discover, an Avenger.

I love the mood and tone of Stern’s captions on that page and generally for the entire run. Despite some typical comic-book clunkers such as expositional thought balloons, his prose always made me feel like I was reading a book for adults, not children. But back to our story.

The President of the USA escorts Colossus onto the scene to induct him into the Avengers and become an American citizen.

What’s that? You don’t remember Storm and Colossus being Avengers in the 1980s? Pay attention!

Iron Man flies onto the scene to give a gift to the POTUS on this momentous occasion. And gosh, isn’t Tony Stark such a great guy?

Just tug a little harder, sir! But suddenly…

Wait, what? The whole team just got nuked into oblivion? Is the series cancelled? What do you do after THAT?!

If you’re a super-villain, you gloat.

The nuke was just a warm-up. Now, it really starts to hit the fan. It turns out that Kang’s time-traveling adventures are creating all kinds of alternate timelines, and each has its own Kang. A mysterious council has summoned our nuke-loving Kang to their secret chamber in a limbo outside of time. When Kang questions the council’s authority to tell him what a massive screw-up he is for getting his entire planet destroyed, they reveal themselves to be a trio of alternate Kangs!

They kill him then adjourn and vanish. But one Kang comes back to snoop around the building, and who does he run into? One of the other Kangs! John Buscema gives the Jack Kirby treatment to the wonders inside the secret chambers inside the secret chamber, and Kang gives Kang a tour of his time-monitoring operations.

In fewer than ten pages, Stern gave the Avengers new members, nuked an entire planet, discovered alternate realities, hatched a nefarious plot of betrayal and murder spanning centuries and multiple universes, and plumbed the depths of grief, greed, and evil in the human soul. And the real Avengers, the stars of the series, haven’t even appeared yet!

The heroes show up soon enough, and the adventure is a solid one with plenty of twists and turns and mysteries to solve. Despite his goofy outfit, Kang is a strong villain with a plan he seems entirely capable of pulling off, and he steals the show in a way usually reserved for Dr. Doom. Fitting, I suppose, since Kang originally came from the future using Doom’s time-machine and, after becoming an Egyptian Pharaoh in the past, patterned himself after Doom. As far as alternate timeline stories go, I’d rather re-read this classic than re-watch Avengers Endgame any day.

Collector’s Guide: The full story appears in issues 267, 268, and 269 of the original Avengers series, and they cost about $3 to $6 each, depending on their grade.

A big “thank you” to this blog’s readers for making it possible to get these issues as part of my ongoing big box of free comics series.

The Avengers by Stern, Buscema, & Palmer

19 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in superhero

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Avengers, collection, John Buscema, Marvel Comics, Roger Stern, Tom Palmer

avengers stern buscema palmer  (2)

Tom Palmer’s painted cover kicks off our favorite years of the Avengers. Roger Stern, John Buscema, and Tom Palmer would collaborate from #255 through #285 in a number of powerful story arcs and historical events. Stern would hand over the writing reigns to Ralph Macchio and subsequently Walter Simonson while Buscema and Palmer stayed on through #300.

avengers stern buscema palmer  (3)

The creative team begins with a brutal destruction of the primitive but beautiful Savage Land, a hidden ecosystem in the Antarctic regions where dinosaurs still roam tropical jungles. While the Avengers take down the bad guy, it comes at a heavy cost, and Stern makes no effort to put a silver lining on the tragedy.

avengers stern buscema palmer  (13)

The storytelling in the next arc of deep-space intrigue continues to fire on all cylinders for several issues. Then we get derailed by the hokiest ending possible. Why? All I can type without raising my blood pressure is “Secret Wars II.”

The stories bounce back quickly when Sub-mariner comes on stage. The X-Factor tie in of #263 makes a much better read than the Secret Wars II debacle. Some may revile this issue for cheapening the death of Jean Grey by bringing her back, and they’ve got a point.

avengers stern buscema palmer  (4)

After the last unsavory Secret Wars II tie-in, #266 comes as a surprise: one of the highlights of this run.

avengers stern buscema palmer  (5)

Maybe it’s that opening splash page of the Silver Surfer zooming through a seething gouge in the earth’s crust, magma and stone implacably raging all around him. Buscema draws the Surfer like no one before or since, and it’s a treat to see him in these pages. Stern gives us an intimate character study of the Surfer and the Molecule Man against a background of geologic ferocity.

avengers stern buscema palmer  (11)

The stories kick back into high gear with a totally off-beat Kang story. Stern takes us wandering with lost Avengers in a misty maze of limbo as a madman with a time machine tries to kill off every version of himself except the one living now. This was the story that originally got us into the Avengers, and we may show it some undue favoritism. It still kicks ass.

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Just seeing this opening splash panel where Storm joins the Avengers brings a smile to my face. Oh, this is going to be good!

avengers stern buscema palmer  (12)

The Sub-mariner gets a very sympathetic treatment in these tales. Stern portrays him as arrogant and hot-headed, yes, but he’s also grown up a lot. Public outcry about crimes he has committed in the past saddens him. He knows he has acted rashly and been in the wrong. Captain America and Hercules know what the score is with Prince Namor, though, and they stand by him. The entire team has his back when he needs to set things right in Atlantis, and many readers recall this as a highlight of the series.

avengers stern buscema palmer  (7)

The brutality of the next big story arc is all the more disturbing in light of how unflinchingly the team handled the devastation of the Savage Land twenty issues earlier! The Avengers get beat down, and we mean beat down. They suffer.

Since the writing of this arc, many mainstream comics have topped it for sheer shocking brutality. But you would be hard pressed to find an Avengers fan that wasn’t blown away at this particular point in the series. It has a certain subtlety to it, like when we see a character’s face reacting to the horrors we never see.

avengers stern buscema palmer  (9)
avengers stern buscema palmer  (8)
avengers stern buscema palmer  (10)

In the aftermath of this battle, we get a few issues of character studies, shake up the membership roster, and have a quiet moment with Jarvis the Butler in the hospital after his terrible beating. Stern ends this run by pitting the Avengers against the Gods of Olympus in another action-packed confrontation.

He Stands Triumphant in the Very Center of Pangea!

03 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in dinosaur, jungle, superhero

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Avengers, Holocaust in a Hidden land, John Buscema, Ka-zar, Roger Stern, Savage Land, Terminus, Tom Palmer, Zabu

Remember when the Savage Land was totally destroyed by a giant alien in space armor? Dinosaurs on the run, Terminus looking mighty creepy, and the Avengers flexing in the jungle. Not to mention Hercules making friends with a sabretooth tiger, a little Kirby Krackle, and Shanna trying on her new leopard bikini. It’s all part of one of our favorite runs on the Avengers. We posted two excerpts: Part One.

Collector’s Guide: From Avengers #256-257: “Holocaust in a Hidden Land.”

Roger Stern plotting and scripting, John Buscema handling layouts and breakdowns, and Tom Palmer’s finishes bringing it all together! This team rocked the Avengers for thirty issues in #255-285, from 1985-1987.




You are Mine to Do with as I Choose!

03 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in dinosaur, jungle, superhero

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Avengers, Holocaust in a Hidden land, John Buscema, Ka-zar, Roger Stern, Savage Land, Terminus, Tom Palmer, Zabu

Remember when the Savage Land was totally destroyed by a giant alien in space armor? Dinosaurs on the run, Terminus looking mighty creepy, and the Avengers flexing in the jungle. Not to mention Hercules making friends with a sabretooth tiger, a little Kirby Krackle, and Shanna trying on her new leopard bikini. It’s all part of one of our favorite runs on the Avengers. We posted two excerpts: Part Two.

Collector’s Guide: From Avengers #256-257: “Holocaust in a Hidden Land”

Roger Stern plotting and scripting, John Buscema handling layouts and breakdowns, and Tom Palmer’s finishes bringing it all together! This team rocked the Avengers for 30 issues #255-285, from 1985-1987.




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