OMU: Fantastic Four -- Year Two

With the third issue of Fantastic Four, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby christened their series “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine,” and despite the hyperbole, it was an assertion often hard to deny. The nature and personality of the series rapidly took shape, as well as the devotion to continuity – both within this series and amongst their other superhero titles – that came to define the Original Marvel Universe. In that third issue, the team first adopted their familiar blue and black costumes, having worn regular street clothes in their first two outings. They also left the fictional setting of “Central City” and set themselves up in the very real town of New York, another innovation that bucked the old conventions of superhero comics. From then on, both in Fantastic Four and a spin-off series of Human Torch solo stories published in Strange Tales, Stan, Jack, and Dick Ayers created a truly bizarre rogue’s gallery of villains, ranging from the ludicrous to the sublime.

The next twelve months in the lives of the characters were extremely busy, as they battled dangerous menaces such as Doctor Doom, the Sub-Mariner, the Skrulls, the Wizard, and the Puppet Master; encountered weird alien beings like the Watcher and the Impossible Man, and met other superheroes inspired by the FF’s example, such as the Avengers, Spider-Man, and the X-Men, as well as the misunderstood Hulk. All the while each member of the team was dealing with his or her own personal issues that often led to quarreling, self-doubt, and lingering misunderstandings. But they also learned to live with each other as a team and as a family.

Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding forward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale.) Some information presented on the timeline is speculative and some is based on historical accounts. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.


The Marvel Universe kicks into high gear -- Fantastic Four, Year Two


January 1962 – The Fantastic Four decide to take a break from the media frenzy generated by their debut and rent an isolated hunting lodge in upstate New York. While there, they hear on the radio that they are being blamed for a number of terrorist attacks and have been declared public enemies. An Army squadron surrounds the cabin and places them under arrest. The Fantastic Four are moved to a specially-prepared federal prison, but, realizing they have been framed, they break out and track down the imposters. Reed’s greatest fears are realized when the imposters turn out to be the advance team of an alien invasion fleet, a race of shape-changing Skrulls from the Andromeda galaxy. Posing as the imposters, the F.F. board the fleet’s flagship and convince the Skrulls that the Earth’s defenses are too formidable. Returning to Earth, the Fantastic Four are able to convince the authorities that the Skrulls committed the crimes, and they are cleared of all charges, although the threat of the alien invasion is never made public. Though one of their number has slipped away, Reed has the remaining captive Skrulls change themselves into cows and then hypnotizes them into forgetting their true nature. The F.F. leave them grazing in a pasture near King’s Crossing, NY.

February 1962 – Reed uses the money from the sale of Richards Laboratories to lease the top floors of the Baxter Building, located on the East Side of Manhattan not far from the United Nations Building, to serve as their headquarters. Reed and Ben move into the Baxter Building and Reed sets up his laboratory equipment. With the help of his teammates, Reed has their headquarters up and running in just a couple of weeks. Intending for an evening’s entertainment, they end up instead battling the powerful illusionist called the Miracle Man. At the conclusion of the battle, the Torch angrily quits the team. Then, wandering through the city, Johnny finds the Sub-Mariner in a Bowery flophouse. The Torch flies him out to the harbor and drops him in. The sudden shock partially restores Namor’s memory. Learning of the destruction of Atlantis, the Sub-Mariner attacks New York, but the F.F. drive him off. This is the team’s first major public victory, and they are hailed as the saviors of the city.

March 1962 – Doctor Doom attacks the Fantastic Four in their own headquarters and kidnaps them, holding Sue hostage. Reed is shocked when he recognizes the voice of his former college colleague. Doom takes them to his private castle hidden in the Adirondack Mountains and sends Reed, Ben, and Johnny back in time, circa 1700. Returning to the present, the F.F. trick Doom and escape. Realizing he is outmatched, Doom leaves his laboratory in flames and abandons the fight.

April 1962 – Doctor Doom tracks down the Sub-Mariner and enlists his aid in attacking the Fantastic Four. Namor attaches a small device in the basement of the Baxter Building that allows Doom to haul the entire skyscraper into space. However, Doom double-crosses the Sub-Mariner, intending to destroy him as well. Namor helps the F.F. defeat Doctor Doom, and the villain is left drifting in outer space. The Baxter Building is returned to its foundations and Namor returns to the ocean depths. Sue has developed a crush on the muscular and enigmatic Sub-Mariner, and he finds her attractive as well, none of which sits well with Reed.

May 1962 – The F.F. are invited to a congressional dinner at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. However, a riot breaks out as people throughout the city are affected by an alien ray. A flying saucer tails the F.F. back to their headquarters in New York, and they are coerced into journeying to the planet Xanth. Foiling the schemes of the Xantha dictator, Kurrgo, they return to Earth aboard the Xantha flying saucer. Reed immediately begins studying the alien craft, hoping to crack the secrets of its advanced technology. Still bitter about the government’s treatment of his starship project, Reed refuses to turn the flying saucer over to the military.

Later, Johnny goes on his own to capture a masked menace calling himself the Destroyer, who is threatening an amusement park in Glenville. Next, the Torch matches wits with Bentley Wittman, the celebrity genius known as “the Wizard,” who tries to discredit the young hero. After which, the Fantastic Four battle the mysterious Puppet Master and Ben meets the villain’s blind step-daughter, Alicia Masters. Alicia finds herself drawn to Ben, and helps the F.F. win the fight. The Puppet Master is severely injured, and must be hospitalized.

June 1962 – While investigating acts of sabotage at a local housing development, the Human Torch encounters the warlord Xemu of the “Fifth Dimension” and meets the beautiful Valeria. Upon his return, Johnny enrolls in summer school to make up for his missed semester. Meanwhile, Reed invests a great deal of their money into the stock market. Unfortunately, the market soon takes a sudden plunge, and the team is forced to declare bankruptcy. Tensions run high as they contemplate selling off Reed’s many inventions to ward off their creditors. However, they receive an unexpected offer from a Hollywood movie studio to appear in a documentary film. Desperate for cash, the four adventurers soon find themselves back in California. They are astonished to discover the owner of the studio is none other than Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, who financed his purchase of the studio with treasures from the ocean floor. Although the team at first enjoys their taste of the Hollywood lifestyle, they soon discover it is all an elaborate trap. The F.F. overcome Namor’s attacks, and Sue rejects his rather arrogant marriage proposal. Moreover, she shames him into honoring their contract, and he agrees to produce the film. The documentary is made in record time, to feed the public’s growing fascination with super-powered beings like the monstrous Hulk, the heroic Ant-Man, the mighty Thor, the Avenging Angel, and the mysterious television sensation called Spider-Man. Ben celebrates his 37th birthday.

July 1962 – The Fantastic Four is a hit in theaters; the F.F. become more famous than ever and quickly return to financial solvency. Seeing the film, Spider-Man tries to join the team, but changes his mind after meeting them. The Torch gets into a fight with a character calling himself Paste-Pot Pete, who manages to escape after the Torch foils his attempt to steal a new missile. Then, Doctor Doom returns and switches bodies with Reed, a trick he learned from the alien Ovoids, who rescued him when he was adrift in space. Despite his best efforts, Doom is defeated, and subjected to his own shrinking ray, which actually transports him into the Microverse. Later, the Torch captures a counterfeiter named Wilhelm Van Vile and also battles the Wizard again in his own high-tech house. The Impossible Man comes to Earth for the first time, looking for some fun. He wreaks havoc for a few hours, until the F.F. trick him into going elsewhere. Sue celebrates her 23rd birthday.

The Torch battles Carl Zante, known as the Acrobat, who tries to trick him into helping commit a bank robbery. Then the Torch picks a fight with the Sub-Mariner to prove himself to his older teammates. Soon after, the Fantastic Four are contacted by General T.E. “Thunderbolt” Ross, who seeks their aid in capturing the Hulk. Convinced the Hulk is, in fact, real, the F.F. agree to give it a shot, and they fly General Ross back to New Mexico in their newly-modified Fantasti-car. Soon, Reed meets Ross’ scientific advisor, Dr. Robert Bruce Banner. After an inconclusive battle with the Hulk, the F.F. discover the base is actually being sabotaged by a communist agent, who is arrested. The F.F. receive military honors, and are soon back home in New York. Then, the Torch defeats Wilhelm Van Vile again after the two-bit crook finds a reality-warping alien paint-set.

Meanwhile, Reed’s study of the Xantha flying saucer has enabled him to back-engineer a ship that will safely reach the moon, years ahead of the government’s project. He is intent on investigating a mysterious “Blue Area” of the moon he has discovered. Upon arriving, they find the remains of a long-dead alien city within a pocket atmosphere, a super-powered cosmonaut calling himself the Red Ghost, his three super-powered apes, and a mysterious entity calling himself the Watcher. The Fantastic Four are mobbed upon their return to earth, and their celebrity only increases as the first people on the moon.

August 1962 – Reed presents a report of their lunar adventure to NASA, but the space administration finds his tales of intangible communists, super-powered apes, and omnipotent giants too outlandish to give credence. They accept his technical reports for study, but they are so advanced and idiosyncratic as to be of little practical use to the Apollo program. A fair amount of resentment begins to grow toward the grandstanding heroes.

Meanwhile, the Puppet Master goads the Sub-Mariner into once more fighting the F.F., this time in his own undersea lair. Although defeated, Namor has begun to turn his attention away from the surface word, and to become obsessed with finding his lost people. Later, the Torch battles a cranky Glenville resident nicknamed the Sorcerer, who comes into possession of a box of demons. Paste-Pot Pete busts the Wizard out of jail and they attack the Torch, only to be defeated again.

Then, having gotten on each other’s nerves, the Fantastic Four decide to take a break and pursue separate interests for a little while. Reed takes a position with General Electronics in New England, Sue accepts a role in a low-budget science fiction film in California, Johnny joins the circus, and Ben first tries his hand at professional wrestling. Their opportunities have all come about due to the careful calculations of the criminal genius called the Mad Thinker, who seizes his opportunity to break into the Baxter Building and steal Reed’s most recent genetics research. The Thinker uses Reed’s formulae to create the first of his awesome androids. With the unwitting help of their mailman, Willie Lumpkin, the F.F. defeat the Thinker and he is arrested. Later, the Torch battles Professor Orson Kasloff, a super-villain wannabe who calls himself the Asbestos Man. Reed celebrates his 40th birthday.

September 1962 – Johnny begins his senior year at Glenville High School, and is invited to give a motivational speech at Peter Parker’s high school in Queens. Then, the F.F. team up with Ant-Man to battle Doctor Doom, who has made himself absolute ruler of a civilization in the Microverse. Here they first meet the brave Princess Pearla, who develops a crush on the Torch. Having driven Doom back to their home universe, the F.F. and Ant-Man return as well. Failing to track Doom down, the F.F. try to go about their daily lives, only to be hounded by silly-looking floating dummies -- Doctor Doom’s way of taunting them. Then, Doom begins to act on the global stage, bedeviling President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premiere Nikita Khrushchev. He holds Alicia Masters hostage, but the F.F. are nevertheless able to board his flying fortress, escape his diabolical traps, rescue Alicia, and drive Doom to abandon ship in utter defeat.

The F.F.’s plans to relax over the next week are foiled when a Skrull warrior publicly claims the earth for his alien empire. Going into battle, the F.F. are stunned to find that this “Super-Skrull” can mimic all their powers. The F.F. are finally able to weaken the Super-Skrull and trap him within a volcano on a deserted island in the Pacific Ocean. Johnny celebrates his 18th birthday. Soon after, Dr. Doom tries to use Spider-Man against the F.F., but fails. Then, the Torch fights the Eel and nearly dies when he must absorb the blast of a small nuclear device that the criminal inadvertently activates. Recovering, he then teams up with Spider-Man to capture the thief known as the Fox. Although they don’t exactly get along, the Torch and Spider-Man part on relatively friendly terms.

Meanwhile, the Sub-Mariner has been reunited with his people, the Atlanteans, and decides to launch a full-scale invasion of the surface world. Namor and his legions are able to conquer New York City before being driven off by the Fantastic Four. (The Avengers are busy fighting Loki, Spider-Man is in Florida battling the Lizard, and the nascent X-Men are off in Illinois rescuing Hank McCoy.) When the Invisible Girl is injured, Namor calls off the attack. The Lady Dorma is furious, and seeing it as a betrayal, the Atlanteans desert him.

October 1962 – Sue soon recovers from her injuries, and Johnny meets Doris Evans at school, then battles her father’s gardener, Samuel Smithers, who discovers the means to become the Plant Man. Then, the F.F. travel back to ancient Egypt using Doctor Doom’s abandoned time machine. In the past, they battle the renegade time-traveler calling himself Pharaoh Rama-Tut. Later, the Torch again brawls with the Acrobat, who is passing himself off as Captain America. The Torch sees through the ruse and unmasks him. Then, the F.F. encounter the enigmatic Watcher, who alerts them to the menace of Owen Reece, the Molecule Man. Barely able to match the Molecule Man’s seemingly limitless power, the F.F. are relieved when the Watcher lends a hand. A few days later, the Torch first fights the Sandman after he escapes from jail.

Then, the F.F. are contacted by CIA agent Nick Fury, whom both Reed and Ben had met during WWII. Fury requests their aid in battling the Hate Monger, who has been causing riots and unrest in major cities. Fury and the F.F. track the Hate Monger to his headquarters in a small South American country. The villain is killed in the ensuing conflict, and the heroes are stunned when, unmasked, he appears to be none other than Adolf Hitler himself. Soon after, the Torch and the Thing once again fight the Puppet Master, nearly killing each other in the process. On Halloween night, Johnny sees a live TV broadcast during which Doctor Strange makes a “haunted house” disappear.

November 1962 – Sue discovers her force field powers, and with Reed’s help develops new applications for her invisibility powers as well. Tired of being hounded by the public, the F.F. consider moving their headquarters to a more remote area. Reed decides to investigate purchasing a small island off the coast of New Jersey. However, once there, they encounter the Mole Man again, and are forced to destroy the island completely. Then, the Torch has a rematch with the Eel. Later, Iron Man contacts the F.F. while searching for the Hulk. Soon after, the F.F. battle Doctor Doom again, along with his three scientifically-altered underlings “Handsome Harry” Phillips, Yogi Dakor, and Bull Brogin. However, Doom outsmarts himself and once again is cast adrift in outer space. The Torch exposes a communist agitator known as the Rabble-Rouser. Then, the F.F. are called away from a Life magazine photo-shoot to deal with the “Infant Terrible,” a powerful alien toddler lost on earth. Later, on an evening sightseeing cruise around Manhattan, the Torch meets Iceman, and they fight the modern-day pirate called Captain Barracuda.

When the Hulk goes on a rampage in New York City, the Human Torch and the Thing try to stop him, while Mr. Fantastic succumbs to a sudden illness. Although outmatched, the Thing puts up a valiant battle that rages all across the city. Finally, the Fantastic Four and the Avengers join forces to battle the Hulk at a construction site, totally demolishing the partially completed building. The Hulk is driven into the harbor and promptly disappears. The F.F. and the Avengers part on good terms, vowing to assist each other in battling menaces to mankind. Then, the Avengers mop up while the Torch fights the Plant Man again in the New York Botanical Gardens.

December 1962 – The lovestruck Sub-Mariner kidnaps Sue and takes her to his undersea lair. The Human Torch enlists the aid of Doctor Strange to find her. The F.F. battle Namor and his Atlantean soldiers, but the fight ends when Sue tells Namor she would never choose him over Reed. Despite this, Reed is plagued by doubts as to where her true feelings lie.

The Human Torch goes after the “Terrible Trio,” Doctor Doom’s former minions whom the F.F. fought a month ago. Then, the F.F. travel to Washington, DC to receive the Congressional Gold Medal and to meet with President Kennedy. They hire young attorney Matt Murdock to work on their lease while they’re gone. When they return, they find their headquarters is a shambles and their long-range passenger missile has been wrecked in a battle between Daredevil and Electro. Worse, Murdock neglected to work on their lease, so Reed fires him. Later, the Fantastic Four meet the mysterious X-Men, who lead them into battle with the Puppet Master, the Mad Thinker, and his awesome android. The F.F. are impressed by the X-Men, and are left with a good opinion of the team. Soon after, the Torch and the Thing battle Abner Jenkins, who calls himself the Beetle. Then, the F.F. secretly return to the moon for a rematch with the Red Ghost. They are again aided by the Watcher. Next, the Torch and the Thing battle Paste-Pot Pete, who has given himself a make-over.

Exhausted, the F.F. take a Christmas vacation to Transylvania, but end up battling the diabolical alchemist Diablo. After returning home, the Torch and Thing have another run-in with the Sub-Mariner, when they incorrectly assume he is leading an invasion force toward New York.


Notes:

January 1962 – At the climax of Fantastic Four #2, Reed tricks the Skrulls by showing them pictures of monsters he claims to have clipped from some comic books, specifically Journey Into Mystery and Strange Tales – two titles actually published by Marvel. This is the first mention of a Marvel Universe counterpart of the Marvel Comics Group. It is unlikely a race as advanced as the Skrulls would be fooled by comic book illustrations, but it may be that Reed faked some photos based on what he saw in Johnny’s comics. The four Skrull spies would eventually return in Avengers #92-93, playing a key role in the epic Kree-Skrull War.

February 1962 – The Sub-Mariner was the first “Golden Age” character resurrected for the new Marvel Universe, although the Human Torch was inspired by his 1940s namesake. Coincidentally, Johnny sees one of the other bums in the flophouse reading an old copy of Sub-Mariner Comics. For a more detailed look at Prince Namor during this time period, see my Sub-Mariner chronology.

March 1962 – Doctor Doom, the FF’s greatest nemesis, was introduced in Fantastic Four #5. In the same issue, Johnny is seen reading an Incredible Hulk comic book, the third time the Marvel Universe counterpart of the Marvel Comics Group is referenced. Reportedly, what Johnny has is a fictionalized account, in comic book form, based on the various recent sightings of the mysterious green-skinned menace.

April 1962 – The first “Super-Villain Team-Up,” from Fantastic Four #6, which would become a regular feature of the Marvel Universe. Doctor Doom and the Sub-Mariner would eventually even star in their own short-lived series together.

May 1962 – It stands to reason that Reed Richards would bear a grudge against the government for threatening to pull the plug on his starship project a year earlier, and explains why the team never really cozied up to the military-industrial complex despite Reed’s scientific genius. The Human Torch debuted in his own series of stories in Strange Tales #101.

June 1962 – On this timeline, the stock market crash in Fantastic Four #9 coincides with a real stock market crash in late May 1962. It’s possible it took a week or so for the team to feel the full effects of the financial crisis. At this point, Spider-Man was still known as an entertainer, appearing mainly on the Ed Sullivan Show. His career as a crimefighter had yet to begin in earnest. The winged mutant Warren Worthington III spent the early part of the summer fighting crime as the Avenging Angel before being persuaded to join the X-Men.

July 1962 – Spider-Man never acknowledges that seeing the FF’s movie inspired him to try joining their team, but it makes sense. In fact, as far as I know, the FF’s movie was never mentioned again, although it played an important part in establishing their reputations with the general public. (It’s quite possible the film was in black-and-white, and this accounts for its obscurity.) In Fantastic Four #10, the Marvel Universe counterparts of both Stan Lee and Jack Kirby make their first appearance, working on their authorized based-on-true-stories Fantastic Four comic book.

August 1962 – Although the Fantastic Four were the first people on the moon in the Marvel Universe, the government continued the Apollo program anyway, though at an accelerated rate, as seen in Fantastic Four #98.

September 1962 – The Human Torch makes a cameo in Amazing Spider-Man #3, and then Doctor Doom menaces the web-slinger two issues later. Spidey and the Torch defeat the Fox in Strange Tales Annual #2, the first of many such team-ups between them. The Atlantean invasion of New York is depicted in Fantastic Four Annual #1.

October 1962 – Although the Torch’s seeing Doctor Strange on TV on Halloween night is never shown, it is the sorcerer’s most public appearance before the Torch contacts him in Fantastic Four #27, which takes place about a month later. Something must have given Johnny the idea to seek help from such a mysterious and unscientific source. Doctor Strange’s battle with the House of Shadows is depicted in the second story in Strange Tales #120.

November 1962 – The epic battle between the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, and the Avengers was the first of many blockbuster crossover events, the like of which would eventually cause the Marvel Universe to collapse under its own weight. But they were a startling innovation and still loads of fun circa Fantastic Four #25-26.

December 1962 – The F.F.’s trip to Washington occurs in Daredevil #2. This takes us up to Fantastic Four #30 and Strange Tales #125.


Previous Issue: The Fantastic Four – Year One


Next Issue: Sex in the Original Marvel Universe!

The TARDIS Owner's Manual

One of the most indelible images from the BBC’s long-running science fiction series Doctor Who was the quirky time machine in which the Doctor and his companions traveled the cosmos, which he called the TARDIS. Its exterior was disguised as a battered blue Police Call Box, a familiar sight on London streetcorners when the show debuted in 1963. Its interior, on the other hand, was a sprawling, labyrinthine complex of futuristic design. Thanks to the wonders of “transdimensional engineering,” the ship was, in fact, larger on the inside than on the outside; one of the show’s many mind-bending concepts.

“Tardis,” actually the Latin word for “slow,” from whence we get the word “tardy,” was said to be an acronym for “Time And Relative Dimensions In Space.” The Doctor’s first traveling companion, the girl known only as Susan, claimed to have made up the name from this phrase, which would suggest that only the Doctor’s ship is called “TARDIS.” However, later writers used the term to apply to all Time Lord ships, which were officially referred to as “time capsules.” I prefer to maintain the original intent, and consider TARDIS the name of the Doctor’s ship, comparable to Enterprise, Nimitz, or Titanic.

A wealth of technical information was revealed about the ship during the 26 seasons the show was on the air, and I have gathered much of this information into what might be taken as excerpts from the TARDIS owner’s manual:

TYPE 40 TIME CAPSULE
TIME AND RELATIVE DIMENSIONS IN SPACE

The Type 40 is a self-contained research station designed for surveillance and information-gathering on alien civilisations throughout space-time. It is a transdimensionally-engineered hypercubic vehicle powered by archon energy surrounded by an all-but-indestructible shell and containing a vast complex to provide both comfort and support to the Time Lord researcher on an extended mission.

The exterior of the Type 40 consists of the three-dimensional shell topped by the Local Orientation Visualiser. The exterior can be disguised by the chameleon circuit, which is governed by the visual stabiliser unit. The transdimensional interface hatch is protected by a complex trimonic locking device, which also contains a key-operated pause-control feature, with which the operator can send the ship on to its preset coördinates without actually going inside.

The transdimensional interface hatch is linked to the main console room, but can be rerouted to the secondary control room if necessary. Additionally within the interior of the Type 40 are living quarters with food processing units, storage compartments large and small, workshops, sickbay, Zero room, indoor gardens and cloister room, swimming pool complex, holographic art gallery, and laboratory facilities, all connected by a series of corridors that provide easy access to the ship’s systems. The interior is governed by the ship’s architectural configuration system, and areas can be quickly located with the architectural configuration indicators.

The Type 40 operates through a symbiotic link with its Time Lord operator. The link is established with a component called the briode-nebuliser, which must be primed prior to operation. It is also patched into the molecular stabilisation system.

With the symbiotic link established, the Type 40’s telepathic circuits conform the patterns of the ship’s archon energy supplies with the archon energies present in the Time Lord brain. Thereby the operation of the Type 40 is influenced by the personality, imagination, and mood of its operator. A predisposition for a certain place and time on the part of the operator will cause the ship to favor that place and time in its own operational protocols. The symbiosis is made possible by the ship’s non-verbal artificial intelligence. The archon energy is used to power the ship’s hyperspace movements. The basic power supply for the ship’s systems is provided by the dynamorphic generator and moderated through the mercury fluid links.

The Type 40 contains a psionic beam communication system keyed into the ship’s telepathic circuits, regulated by the signal conversion unit. One feature of the system is that it constantly monitors and receives distress calls. The emergency transceiver allows for remote control operation from Gallifrey in the event of a crisis situation. The ship is also equipped with a “cloister bell” onboard warning system. Other safety features include: portable homing devices should the crew become separated from the ship; and in the event of a total power failure, the main door can be cranked open manually. Should the ship come under attack, the Hostile Action Displacement System can be activated, which will cause the ship to make slight adjustments in its spatial position to avoid the effects of alien weaponry. This puts a tremendous strain on the ship’s systems, however, and should only be used in the gravest emergencies. Should the Type 40 be in danger of destruction during transit, the interphasic failsafe will automatically seek out and lock onto the nearest spacecraft. The ship is also capable of generating a gravity tractor beam.

Transit is initiated by the relative dimension stabiliser (RDS), which produces the distinctive noise heard outside the ship as the exterior shifts into hyperspace. The RDS works in concert with the dematerialisation circuit. The relative continuum stabiliser (RCS) monitors the ship’s movement through time, oriented by the K-zero differential, as archon energy is fed into the trachoid time crystal. Be sure to avoid symbolic resonance in the crystal or rematerialisation will be effectively impossible! For smooth rematerialisations, be sure the multi-loop stabiliser (MLS) is engaged. The Type 40 utilises automated landing protocols to prevent rematerialisation problems.

Navigation is controlled primarily through the space-time coordinate programmer (SCP) and the time vector generator (TVG). Important components in the navigation system include the temporal drift compensators (TDC) and the lateral balance cones (LBC). The helmic regulator monitors the ship’s progress, and the synchronic feedback checking circuit should ensure a smooth journey. The Type 40 is also equipped with a movable astral map unit located in the main console room.

* * *

During his many adventures, the Doctor often needed to make modifications to the TARDIS, since he wasn’t actually using it for the purpose for which it was designed. Wandering around the universe helping people out of jams was the furthest thing from the Time Lords’ minds when they created their fleet of time capsules. But the Doctor is something of a renegade, and so the beleaguered TARDIS has had to adapt to a more rough-and-tumble existence. Some examples:

Soon after leaving Gallifrey, the Doctor assembled and installed a “time path detector” to monitor any other time machines following the same route, as he and Susan were fugitives from the authorities. Originally intended to allow them to stay one step ahead of the Time Lords, the device later came in quite handy when the evil Daleks pursued the Doctor in a time machine of their own invention.

During the Doctor’s long exile to Earth, the Time Lords had blocked from his mind the knowledge he needed to operate the TARDIS. Undaunted, the Doctor continued to experiment, attempting to escape his imprisonment. The ship was almost completely stripped down during this period, and we learned that even minor temporal effects require energy levels on the order of a nuclear power plant.

The Type 40 is equipped with a recall circuit which can pull the ship back to Gallifrey, although this component has been used only 3 times in all Time Lord history. The Time Lords found it necessary to use this method of last resort when they came under attack for the second time by Omega, one of the Time Lords’ “founding fathers,” as it were, who was trapped in an anti-matter universe. We can assume that more criminally-minded renegade Time Lords, such as the so-called Meddling Monk, the Master, and the Rani, found ways to disable this feature on their own time capsules.

The Doctor has had to jettison one-quarter of the TARDIS interior and also lost three-quarters of the remaining storage holds, the former in a desperate attempt to escape destruction and the latter purely by accident. It is clear that the Doctor has collected various odds and ends, clothing, and furniture throughout his travels, but we have no way of knowing what may have been lost during these mishaps.

Certainly additional information about the TARDIS has been offered in the various novelizations, audio programs, comic books, and TV and theatrical movies based on the show, all of which I consider non-canonical. Therefore, the above is based solely on the episodes of the original television series.


For an excellent resource on the TARDIS,visit Fluid Link.

Next: The Doctor’s Companions

Tony Television Strikes Back

The greatest shows on Earth are not under the Big Top, they’re right here on the Tony Television Network! Wednesday nights serve up something for everyone with just the right mix of comedy, action, and drama in four shows the like of which the world has never seen! Stars galore and simply unbeatable concepts spell a night of television paradise! Don’t miss a single minute!


8:00 – RED-HEADED STEPCHILD. A heart-warming laugh-riot in which Daryl Sabara stars as Benjy, a precocious troublemaker who must make a big adjustment when his widowed mom, played by Gillian Anderson, marries a Hollywood studio executive (Lee Tergesen) and he must move in with his “perfect” new siblings, Sean (Nick Carter) and Sarah (Carly Schroeder). In the pilot, Benjy inadvertently brings disaster to his new family’s high-society pool party. Featuring a special appearance by Danny Bonaduce as Benjy’s deceased dad.


8:30 – OBJECTION SUSTAINED. Jeff Altman stars as the world’s worst lawyer, Clyde Daihatsu, in this side-splitting comedy set in Hoboken. With Eamonn Walker as his long-suffering law partner Percy Blue and Jena Malone as Clyde’s on-again-off-again girlfriend Sissy Turkel. In the premiere episode, Clyde faces his greatest challenge when he is called to defend his Japanese half-sisters, played by former Pink Lady stars Keiko Kuwaki and Mitsuyo Tsukuda, from a sausage-smuggling racket.


9:00 – SUBPOENA! Follow the thrilling adventures of a corps of process servers as they tackle big city crime and corruption in this high-energy legal drama. Starring Seth Green as dauntless Mitch Madison and Clarence Williams III as Judge Jefferson J. Adams. Also featuring Jennifer Lien as Mitch’s partner Gretchen Kane, Jeff Phillips as her brother Carlson Kane, Lil’ Romeo as streetwise Capital-T, Esai Morales as computer-whiz Hector Escobar, Jamie Elman as soft-spoken Steve Raysor, Peter Berg as their boss Alan Westfield, and Tiffani Thiessen as rival process server Holly McClain. In the first installment, Mitch and his team must overcome formidable obstacles to serve papers to a corrupt Congressman (Ed Begley, Jr.) before time runs out.


10:00 – NOAA WEATHER RADIO. Kyle Secor leads a powerhouse cast in this gripping drama about the heroic meteorologists who keep our coastal cities safe. Set in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the show follows the trials and travails, both personal and professional, of Mark Billings (Secor); his co-workers sagacious Arnold Blaze (Graham Greene), hot-tempered Dan O’Leary (Colm Meany), and brainy Julietta Norris (Tracy Scoggins); his no-nonsense boss Jerry Berry (Charles Martin Smith); and his fortune-teller ex-wife Magdalena (Cyndi Lauper).



The Tony Television Network – Accept No Substitutes!!!


Previous: Tony Television Gets Real

Next: Tony Television Triumphs

OMU: Fantastic Four -- Year One

The publication of Fantastic Four #1 kicked off what writer/editor Stan Lee would come to call the “Marvel Age of Comics,” and also introduced readers to the fictional world I have come to call the Original Marvel Universe. Fantastic Four set the standard for Marvel Comics, and for many years served as the company’s flagship title. The team’s chronology is therefore unusually rich and complex.

However, the sequence of events that led to the fateful trip into orbit that first gave the four heroes their superhuman powers was really never explored in great detail. For example, it was never adequately explained what Sue and Johnny, who were later shown to live in a house on Long Island in New York, were doing in California with Reed and Ben, especially since Johnny was still in high school. Also, piloting a rocket ship into outer space requires at least several months of intensive training. Ben Grimm couldn’t possibly just show up one night after work and get behind the controls. And so, by making a careful examination of the stories, including the numerous related flashbacks seen over the years, I have used common sense to construct a simple, straightforward narrative, laying it into a historical context, that reveals previously hidden details.

Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding forward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale.) Some information presented on the timeline is speculative and some is based on historical accounts. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.


First some preliminary dates relevant to the team’s first year:


1920 -- Prince Namor is born in Atlantis.

1922 -- Reed Richards is born in Central City, California to Nathaniel and Evelyn Richards. Victor Von Doom is born in Latveria to Werner and Cynthia Von Doom.

1925 -- Benjamin Jacob Grimm is born in New York City to Daniel and Elsi Grimm.

1929 -- Evelyn Richards dies.

1936 -- Reed Richards begins taking college-level courses at the California Institute of Technology.

1937 -- Ben Grimm’s older brother Daniel is killed in a street gang fight.

1938 -- Phineas T. Horton creates the android which will be named “The Human Torch.”

1939 -- Susan Storm is born in Glenville, Long Island to Franklin and Mary Storm. The android Human Torch embarks on a crime-fighting career. Prince Namor first attacks the surface world, suspecting an invasion of Atlantis. Dubbed “The Sub-Mariner,” he has many epic battles with the android Human Torch.

1941 -- Reed Richards is recruited into the Army as a codebreaker.

1942 -- America enters World War II. Major Reed Richards is sent to Europe, where he soon meets Sgt. Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos. During the summer, Reed is re-assigned to the O.S.S. Meanwhile, on the homefront, Ben Grimm becomes the leader of the Yancy Street Gang.

1943 -- Ben Grimm leaves the gang and enlists in the Army Air Forces to become a fighter pilot.

1944 -- Jonathan Spencer Storm is born in Glenville, Long Island to Franklin and Mary Storm. Lieutenant Ben Grimm is captured by the Japanese, but soon rescued by Captain Simon Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders. A few weeks later, Ben meets Sgt. Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos, assisting them on a search-and-destroy mission.

1945 -- World War II ends and Ben Grimm enters college at State University in New York on the G.I. Bill, where he meets both Reed Richards and Victor Von Doom. Ben quickly becomes a star of the school football team. Reed and Ben become roommates. Reed talks constantly of his ambition to build a spaceship and take it to another star system. Ben laughingly promises that if Richards ever builds it, Ben Grimm will fly it himself.

1949 -- Ben Grimm graduates from college and joins the Air Force to become a test pilot. The android Human Torch is deactivated and buried in the Nevada desert.

1950 -- The Sub-Mariner loses a fight with Paul Destine, who gives him amnesia before utterly destroying Atlantis; Namor ends up a bum in New York City’s Bowery.

1953 -- Reed attends Columbia University and stays in a boarding house run by Susan Storm’s aunt. Sue falls in love with the much older Reed, much to his embarrassment. A nuclear bomb test reactivates the android Human Torch and he resumes his crimefighting crusade, while young Johnny Storm thrills to reports of his adventures.

1955 -- Reed graduates from Columbia and returns to his father’s research complex in Central City, California. Mary Storm dies in a car accident. Beginning to malfunction, the android Human Torch returns to the desert and deactivates himself.

1956 -- Susan Storm graduates from Glenville High School and works various modeling jobs in and around New York City. She keeps in touch with Reed, although he is working obsessively on his research projects.

1957 -- Nathaniel Richards mysteriously disappears, leaving Reed some two billion dollars, with which he initiates his long-anticipated starship project, setting it up at the family labs in Central City, California, and securing federal funding as well. Franklin Storm is convicted of manslaughter and imprisoned.

1958 -- While test-flying a prototype F-4 Phantom, a mechanical failure causes Ben Grimm to crash. He is trapped in the burning wreckage until being rescued by his best friend, fellow test pilot Desmond Pitt. Later in the year, Pitt takes a position at NASA and he and Ben start to lose touch.


And now, the way it began -- The True History of the Fantastic Four!


February 1961 – His starship project nearing completion, Reed Richards contacts Ben Grimm to take him up on his college promise to be the pilot. Impressed by Reed’s tenacity, Ben agrees and resigns from the Air Force, taking a position at Richards Laboratories. Ben begins extensive mission training, and he and Reed renew their friendship. Ben continues to date Dr. Linda McGill, whom he had recently met on the Air Force base where he was last posted, though it becomes more of a long-distance relationship.

May 1961 – Susan Storm travels to California to spend the summer with Reed, leaving Johnny with their aunt. Reed quickly realizes he has fallen in love with Sue, and they soon reach an unspoken agreement that they will eventually marry. Driving home one evening, Reed and Sue encounter a flying saucer and its lone occupant, an alien invader calling himself Gormuu. The creature quickly grows to gargantuan size and attacks Central City. Realizing Gormuu is actually expanding rather than gaining mass, Reed is able to feed him enough raw energy to dissipate Gormuu’s molecules. Convinced that advanced alien races may pose a threat to the Earth, Reed sees his project as more important than ever.

June 1961 – After completing his sophomore year at Glenville High School, Johnny Storm joins his sister Sue in California. He quickly makes a number of new friends, thanks to his interest in hot rods and racecars.

July 1961 – Reed is stunned when he learns from the government that his funding is likely to be cut. His protests fall on deaf ears as the new Kennedy administration has decided his research is too radical. Having already spent his entire inheritance, Reed realizes his only chance of convincing the government to continue its support is to test his ship as soon as possible.

August 1961 – Without time to train another two members of his crew, Reed reluctantly agrees to allow Sue and Johnny to accompany them into space. Ben objects to this suddenly accelerated schedule, fearing safety is being compromised, but Sue goads him into taking up the challenge. Unable to obtain official clearance, Reed, Sue, Ben, and Johnny steal into the complex in the middle of the night and initiate an unauthorized launch. Unfortunately, an unexpected surge in cosmic radiation overwhelms the ship’s shielding, and the four astronauts are bombarded by cosmic rays. The ship crashes to earth near Ithaca, NY. Emerging from the wreckage, the foursome discovers they have undergone a mutagenic change on a fundamental level. Sue fades from sight, having gained the power of invisibility. Ben transforms into a hideous orange-hued brute. Reed’s body develops a bizarre elasticity, and Johnny suddenly bursts into flame and rises into the air.

Having tracked the starship’s flight, the military goes into action. An Army helicopter arrives at the crash site and transports the four astronauts to a nearby base, where they are debriefed by government agents. Reed is informed that not only is his funding terminated, but his project has been shut down and his security clearance revoked.

September 1961 – The foursome return to Reed’s lab in Central City, California, where he begins studying what’s happened to them. He first synthesizes “unstable molecules,” based on their transformed space suits. Ben has the most trouble dealing with his transformation, though Johnny’s flame poses a hazard to everyone, and Sue seems on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Reed realizes that they all need to find some positive direction to move in, and he suggests they use these strange new powers to help protect and advance the human race. Devising colorful code-names for themselves, they create a new team of super-powered adventurers called the Fantastic Four. Sue decides to call herself the Invisible Girl, Ben names himself the Thing, Johnny adopts the name of his boyhood hero, the Human Torch, and Reed proclaims himself Mister Fantastic.

Ben returns to his apartment in a profound depression and receives an unexpected visit from Linda McGill. The shock of his transformation causes her to panic and run away, which makes Ben lash out in a fit of rage, destroying his apartment. Despondent, he makes his way to a nearby bridge, where he contemplates committing suicide. However, Linda has followed him to apologize and offer comfort. Not wanting Linda to be saddled with a hideous freak, Ben drives her away, but nevertheless finds the will to go on.

October 1961 – The super-hero concept proves therapeutic, as Reed had hoped, as the Fantastic Four throw themselves into learning all they can about their strange new powers. Training constantly, they begin to gain control over their abilities. Reed channels all his research into the project as well, while struggling to raise money for the endeavor through his many inventions and patents. He also draws upon his wartime training in the O.S.S. as he prepares himself to lead the team on its missions.

November 1961 – When the world’s atomic plants come under attack, Reed sees an opportunity for the Fantastic Four to go on their first mission. The team travels to Monster Isle in the Bermuda Triangle, where they discover the Mole Man and his subterranean kingdom. The crisis averted, the Fantastic Four goes public following this mission and are hailed as heroes for saving the world’s atomic plants. They are described in various newspaper and television reports, becoming a media sensation. The Fantastic Four themselves quickly become the focus of the story, rather than any threat they may have defeated. Unaccustomed to super-powered adventurers, the public offers the bizarre quartet a wary acceptance.

December 1961 – The foursome decide to move back to New York City when Reed sells Richards Laboratories in order to raise money for the team. He and Ben take apartments in the city while Sue and Johnny move back into their old house in Glenville, Long Island. Johnny returns to high school, having missed the entire first semester of his junior year. Ben becomes increasingly reclusive as his bitterness only seems to grow.


Notes:

1922 – Since throughout the rivalry between Mister Fantastic and Doctor Doom, Reed’s being the elder or junior of Doom’s was never an issue, I surmise that the difference in their ages is negligible. As seen in Fantastic Four #11 and Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #3, Reed must be old enough to have served in the O.S.S. during the Second World War.

1925 – Although Reed and Ben were roommates at State University, there is no indication that they are the same age, especially since Reed had been taking college-level courses since he was a boy. This date assumes Ben was just old enough to become a fighter pilot about halfway through the war, as seen in Capt. Savage and His Leatherneck Raiders #7 and Marvel Two-in-One #77.

1929 – The death of Evelyn Richards was mentioned in Fantastic Four #271.

1939 – Yes, Sue is roughly 17 years Reed’s junior. They have more of a May-December romance than most people realize. Sue is not that much older than Johnny, whose age can be determined with reasonable accuracy based on his academic career. This puts the age difference at 5 years, which is enough to account for her “mother hen” attitude towards him.

1944 – Johnny’s middle name was established first as Spencer, in Fantastic Four #259, then later said to be Lowell (FF #300). I presume that Lowell is actually his mother’s maiden name, and this accounts for the confusion.

1945 – Considering Ben’s background, the G.I. Bill is probably the only way he could have gotten into college. For a detailed account of Ben’s college days, see The Thing #2.

1953 – Sue and Johnny’s extended family were never shown in great detail in any canonical story, though we know they have this aunt, as well as a cousin who works at a circus, as seen in Fantastic Four #15. Since the siblings have so many powerful and unscrupulous enemies, one can’t blame their relatives for keeping a low profile.

1957 – The story of Nathaniel Richards’ disappearance is told in Fantastic Four #271, whereas the fate of Sue and Johnny’s parents is detailed in Fantastic Four #32.

1958 – Ben’s near-fatal accident is shown in flashback in Fantastic Four #193.

February 1961 – Ben’s relationship with Dr. Linda McGill was shown, in abbreviated fashion, in Marvel Fanfare #46.

May 1961 – Reed’s battle with the alien Gormuu was presented in Fantastic Four #271, in John Byrne’s homage to Marvel’s monster comics of the late 1950s – early 1960s.

August 1961 – The Fantastic Four’s origin story was revealed primarily in flashbacks in Fantastic Four #1 and The Thing #10, though it was retold numerous times with little variation. August 8, 1961 was the date the first issue of Fantastic Four went on sale, and serves as one of the two dates upon which my timeline of the Original Marvel Universe is based.

September-October 1961 – I believe the account of the group’s decision to become a team of super-heroes in Fantastic Four #1 involves a fair amount of artistic license for dramatic effect, and the actual process of forming the team was a bit more extended. Clearly, they would need some time to come to terms with their bizarre transformations and to be able to control their powers. The psychological impact of their transformations was never thoroughly examined in any canonical story. In the flashback in The Thing #10, especially, they seem unaccountably blasé about what they’ve just experienced. Danny Fingeroth’s attempt in Marvel Fanfare #46 to show Ben’s depression, though somewhat rushed, was a step in the right direction.

November 1961 – This is the cover date of Fantastic Four #1, and serves as the other date upon which my timeline is based. In those days, comics were routinely cover-dated about three months ahead, so they would seem fresher after sitting on the stands for several weeks. After all, a bi-monthly comic could sit on the stands for seven or eight weeks before the new issue came out, and publishers didn’t want to risk losing sales on a magazine thought to be “outdated.”

December 1961 – It is eventually made clear that the team must have moved from California to New York sometime between the first two issues, though they do not establish their headquarters until the third issue.


OMU Note: The final canonical appearance of Mister Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch, and the Thing was in Fantastic Four #354.


Next Issue: The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine – FF Year Two

A Brief History of the Master

Throughout the 26 seasons of Doctor Who shown on the BBC between 1963 and 1989, the Doctor faced many fearsome foes, but his most implacable nemesis was undoubtedly the Master. Introduced during the eighth season in 1971, the Master was another renegade time-traveler from the Doctor’s own race, but unlike the Doctor, he journeyed through time and space seeking personal power. The two Time Lords would cross swords repeatedly through the rest of the series’ run. Since the character was used in so many stories by so many different writers, he developed a rich and complex continuity, which I have here attempted to lay out in a simple, straightforward narrative. In doing so, the links between the Master’s various appearances become much clearer, and many of his behind-the-scenes activities stand revealed.

I do not consider any of the numerous Doctor Who novels to be canonical, nor do I accept any film or television versions not originally shown on the BBC or not made as part of the original series production schedule. Therefore, this history is based purely on the episodes of the original television series.

Any conflicting accounts of the history of the Master are therefore non-canonical and speculative.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MASTER

The man who would one day call himself THE MASTER was born a Time Lord on the planet Gallifrey.¹ From an early age, he proved himself to be extremely brilliant, a genius in mathematics.² However, he was a restless and disaffected youth, with a vague feeling that some great destiny awaited him. Eventually, the young Master enrolled in the Pyrdon Academy of Time and met another young Time Lord, one who would eventually call himself the Doctor.³ The Master came to regard the Doctor as a good friend, as they shared many of their political views, particularly regarding the policies of the High Council of the Time Lords towards the affairs of other planets.⁴ The two friends also got to know a zealous neurochemistry student who would one day adopt the title of the Rani, although she wanted little to do with either of them.⁵ The Master and the Doctor enjoyed something of a friendly rivalry as regarded their studies, each trying to outdo the other while granting a grudging admiration for the other’s talent and intelligence. The Doctor, however, proved to be less than dedicated, and the Master’s degree in cosmic science was ultimately higher than the Doctor’s,⁶ who managed to scrape through with 51% on the second attempt.⁷

Following graduation from the Academy, the Doctor and the Master remained best friends, and both became active in Time Lord politics, attempting to change the system from the inside. For instance, the Doctor lobbied so hard for a complete ban on miniscopes, which he felt were an offense against the dignity of sentient life forms, that the High Council took action to have them all destroyed.⁸ The Master was perhaps less successful with his own agenda, and his disaffection grew. Then a crisis arose when the sitting Lord President of the High Council decided to use the dreaded weapon called the Hand of Omega to prevent any other civilization from developing time-travel technology, and thus pose a potential threat to the dominion of the Time Lords of Gallifrey. Both the Doctor and the Master were well aware of the terrible events that followed the discovery of the fabled Hand of Omega by the great criminal Salyavin, which occurred some time before they were born.⁹ Salyavin had been defeated and imprisoned by High Council President Morbius, but possession of the fearsome device corrupted him, and a great civil war ensued, at the end of which Morbius was executed.¹⁰ Determined not to allow such terrible events to occur again, the two friends decided to take decisive action.

The Master and the Doctor hatched a plan to steal the Hand of Omega and hide it away forever. They were successful in gaining possession of the device, but at the critical moment, the Master’s lifetime of dissatisfaction and malcontentment suddenly crystallized, for he realized that they could use the Hand of Omega to rule the universe. Then, surely, they could realize all the noble goals that Time Lord politics had prevented them from achieving.¹¹ However, feeling his friend had betrayed him, the Doctor resolved to hide the weapon himself, and the two allies turned on each other. The Doctor stole an obsolete Type 40 time capsule and took the Hand of Omega away from Gallifrey,¹² accompanied by a young girl who would eventually name herself Susan.¹³ The Master was apprehended and imprisoned by the Time Lords, who relentlessly pursued the Doctor through time and space. However, the Master soon made good his escape as well, vowing revenge on the Doctor and the Time Lords and intent on gaining the ultimate power that was nearly his. The Master also stole a time capsule, although in a bit more clandestine way than the Doctor had managed, and was even able to destroy all record of his existence from the Matrix, the Time Lords’ organic supercomputer.¹⁴ Renaming himself the Master, he then set off on a campaign of acquisition and conquest throughout time and space.

The Master’s activities and whereabouts for the next few centuries remain shrouded in mystery, but he used the time to develop his mental powers to such an extent that he could easily exert his will over weaker minds, and make even world leaders his puppets. He also developed or discovered technological means to accomplish similar ends, as well as his weapon of choice, the tissue-compression eliminator. The Master also cultivated a chameleon-like ability to blend into any society using forged credentials and his own natural charm. The Master considered himself a gentleman, whose ambition was wholly justified by his innate talent and vision of a cosmos united under his autocratic leadership, and he came to believe that any means necessary to accomplishing his goal were therefore acceptable. However, the Master evidently led a grueling existence, for he was forced to use up the remainder of his regenerations in a relatively short time.¹⁵ With each regeneration, he became more desperate to achieve his destiny, and more unscrupulous in his actions.

Eventually, the Master learned that his old adversary the Doctor had been tried by the Time Lord Tribunal and sentenced to exile on the planet Earth, a world the Doctor had developed a strong affinity for.¹⁶ The Master thus traveled to Earth and began an experiment under the guise of Professor Emil Keller. He installed a machine in Stangmoor prison that actually contained a living creature that fed off the mental energy of human beings.¹⁷ Some time later, the Master formed an alliance with the energy-based beings called the Nestenes, who were attempting a second invasion of the Earth, the first having been foiled by the Doctor. The Master thus infiltrated the Beacon Hill radio telescope facility as well as seeing to the production of a new generation of Autons. With the help of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT), the Doctor was able to foil the invasion as well as strand the Master on Earth by stealing the dematerialization circuit from his time capsule.¹⁸ Not to be outdone, the Master resumed his experiment with the Keller machine, using it as part of a complicated plot to cause a full-scale nuclear war, intending to set himself up as ruler of the devastated world. He struck a bargain with the Doctor, agreeing to hand over the nuclear warhead he had hijacked in return for his dematerialization circuit. Although the Doctor attempted to double-cross him, the Master retrieved his component and left Earth, but not before gloating over the Doctor’s exile.¹⁹ Unfortunately, the Master’s time capsule was captured by a giant space-borne parasite called Axos, which brought the Master back to Earth. Although they had made a deal, the Master was unwilling to trust Axos to release his ship to him, and so he tricked UNIT into giving him access to the Doctor’s ship, which the Doctor insists on calling the TARDIS. The Doctor offered to form an alliance with the Master so that they might both escape Earth before Axos destroyed it. However, this too was a trick, for once the TARDIS was operational, the Doctor used it to hurl Axos into an inescapable time-loop. The Master regained his own time ship and again managed to escape the Earth’s authorities.²⁰

The Master then raided the Time Lords’ vast information files, in which he discovered a report on a doomsday weapon created by the inhabitants of the planet Uxarieus, which could cause stars to detonate from long distance. He traveled there only to have his plans ruined by the Doctor, who was acting at the behest of the Time Lord Tribunal.²¹ The Tribunal was aware of the Master’s activities, but they seemed to operate in secret, considering that the High Council would later claim total ignorance of the Master’s existence. He returned to Earth intending to gain control of the powerful forces of the Dæmons, alien scientists who had been manipulating humanity since prehistoric times.²² Despite a great deal of careful preparation, the Master’s plan was again foiled by the Doctor and UNIT, who even managed to capture the Master and put him in a specially prepared prison, where he spent many long and boring months. However, he had also learned from the Time Lords’ files of a race of aquatic sentient reptiles who were about to try to reclaim the Earth. He planned to ally himself with these “Sea Devils” against the human race, but they double-crossed him, forcing him to cooperate with the Doctor. However, it allowed the Master to escape back to his time ship.²³

Another scheme brought him to Earth again, though, disguised as a Greek physicist who had invented a primitive transporter device. Its true purpose was to give the Master control of Kronos, one of the Chronovores that inhabit the time vortex. Despite the Doctor’s interference, the Master unleashed Kronos on ancient Atlantis, bringing about its destruction. The Doctor was finally able to free Kronos from the Master’s control, but the Master managed to escape yet again.²⁴

Some time later, the Master formed an alliance with the Daleks, agreeing to help them invade the Milky Way galaxy in exchange for dominion over the planet Earth, although he actually intended to double-cross the Daleks and seize total power for himself. Employing some Ogron henchmen, the Master set about starting a war between the Earth and Draconian space empires. Unfortunately, his plans were once again upset by the Doctor, now free from his exile. His scheme collapsing, the Master wounded the Doctor with a ray gun and escaped in his time capsule.²⁵

Not long after, the Master reached the end of his 12th and final regeneration. Unwilling to let his life come to an end without accomplishing his goals, he attempted to regenerate again, but the process decimated his body, leaving him looking like a warmed-over corpse. It was only his burning hatred of his own people that allowed him to survive in this pain-ravaged state. He also realized that his only hope for survival was to usurp the energies of the Eye of Harmony, a stabilized black hole created by Rassilon, which provided the Time Lords with all their power. But to do that, he must return to Gallifrey. He made a deal with an ambitious member of the High Council, Chancellor Goth, in which the Master would arrange for Goth to become President if Goth gave him passage through the transduction barrier that protected the planet. Goth had underestimated the Master’s mind-control powers, though, and became a puppet in a scheme of presidential assassination. Hoping to frame the Doctor for the crime, the Master sent him an urgent summons home. When the Matrix then generated a prediction of the impending assassination, the Master intercepted it and beamed it into the Doctor’s mind while he was en route to Gallifrey. The assassination was successful, and the Doctor was saved from execution only by a legal loophole, which gave him time to prove that Goth and the Master were behind the plot to kill the President. Goth was killed and the Master played dead as well, in order to be placed inside the Panopticon Vault, where the President’s body now lay in state. Reviving himself, the Master took from the President’s body the Sash of Rassilon and went to find the Great Key, a sort of ceremonial scepter. These relics, however, were actually powerful tools that allowed the user to use the Eye of Harmony. The Doctor managed to stop the Master before his tampering destroyed their entire stellar system, but not before he had unleashed earthquakes and destruction that left half the Capitol in ruins and caused untold damage and the loss of countless lives. Although he was apparently killed, the Sash of Rassilon enabled the Master to convert just enough power to continue in his current state of existence and escape in his time capsule.²⁶ Now reminded of the Master and the danger he posed, the Time Lord authorities would keep a closer eye on him in the future, but they apparently had their own reasons for allowing renegades like the Master and the Doctor to roam the universe.²⁷

Quite some time later, the Master formed a plan to usurp the awesome power of the Keeper of Traken. He arrived in the capitol city of the Empire of Traken, and his time ship disguised itself as a statue called the Melkur. From this base, the Master was able to exert his evil influence over a member of the ruling council, Kassia. The Doctor arrived, brought there by the dying Keeper, and he befriended Kassia’s husband, Consul Tremas. The Master’s plan was partially successful, and he briefly assumed the power of the keepership, which was enough to enable him to commandeer the body of Consul Tremas and refashion it to more closely resemble his old self.²⁸ Escaping from Traken in his new body, the Master sprung a series of traps on the Doctor, who was now traveling with the orphaned daughter of Tremas, Nyssa. When the Doctor foiled the Master’s attempt to gain control of the reality-altering mathematics of the inhabitants of Logopolis, the Master caused the Doctor to plummet from atop the radio telescope at Earth’s Pharos Project, which forced the Doctor to regenerate.²⁹ While he was recovering inside the TARDIS, the Master kidnapped his young friend Adric and replaced him with a duplicate created by the Logopolitan’s block transfer computation process, which Adric’s mathematical prowess made possible. It also created the incomprehensible city of Castrovalva as a further trap for the Doctor, but it was ultimately the Master who became trapped when the local space folded in on itself.³⁰

Somehow, the Master escaped this fate, but eventually found himself stranded on prehistoric Earth, the dynamorphic generator aboard his time capsule exhausted. He discovered the gestalt form of a group of Xeraphin colonists, who merged to save themselves from radiation sickness. Planning to use their powers to repair his time ship, the Master first cannibalized his ship to create a time corridor that brought a couple of Concorde aircraft back from the future. Aboard the second Concorde was the Doctor, and the Master used components from his TARDIS as well. However, the Doctor was able to trick the Master, leaving him stranded on the distant planet of Xeriphas.³¹ On this world, the Master discovered a shape-changing android called Kamelion, which apparently enabled him to repair his time ship and resume his campaigns. The Master began using Kamelion’s abilities to undermine key civilizations in order to set himself up as ruler of the resulting chaos. However, the Doctor turned up once again, stole the android, and sent the Master’s time ship out of control.³²

The Master was rescued by none other than the High Council of the Time Lords, who offered him a new life-cycle, a full set of 12 regenerations, if he would agree to rescue the Doctor from the Death Zone, a vast wilderness on Gallifrey used in the days of Rassilon as a sort of gladiatorial arena. The Master encountered several of the Doctor’s incarnations, but the Doctor seemed to have difficulty recognizing him in his Trakenite body. Regardless, none of the Doctors trusted him enough to let him help, so the Master went off on his own, forming a convenient alliance with some Cybermen until he was able to destroy them within the Tomb of Rassilon at the center of the Death Zone. Once inside the inner sanctum, the Master claimed the prize of immortality as his own, only to be knocked out by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Lord President Borusa, who was the mastermind of the entire operation, then claimed immortality, only to discover it was a trap set long ago by Rassilon himself, whose image appeared over his sarcophagus and teleported the Master back to his time ship. From there the Master made good his escape.³³

While experimenting with his tissue-compression eliminator, the Master had an accident that left him miniaturized. He was able to construct a makeshift control room scaled down to his current size, which he used to reassert control over the android Kamelion, still stored aboard the Doctor’s TARDIS. With Kamelion’s help, the Master traveled to the planet Sarn, where the healing properties of numismaton gas restored him to his normal size, despite the interference of the Doctor and his friends. Something went wrong, however, and the Master appeared to be consumed by the numismaton flames, but in fact he lived to fight another day.³⁴

Subsequently, the Master tracked down the Rani, an acquaintance from the Time Lord Academy who had also left Gallifrey to set herself up as ruler of the planet Miasimia Goria. Needing a special chemical found only in earthlings, the Rani had traveled to 19th century Earth, to a small mining village near Killingworth, England, and it was there that the Master found her. He decided that he could use her scheme to help him become ruler of the Earth, although the Rani proved unwilling to cooperate. The Doctor turned up also and sabotaged the Rani’s time ship, sending it out of control with she and the Master trapped on board with some rapidly growing dinosaurs. The Master’s own time capsule was apparently abandoned outside the mining village, disguised by its chameleon circuit.³⁵

Somehow, the Master was able to return to Gallifrey and once again infiltrate the Matrix. While there, he uncovered shocking information as to the secret activities of the High Council of the Time Lords. Upon discovering that a race called the Andromedans were hacking data from the Matrix from a secret base on Earth, the High Council ordered that a device called the Magnetron be used to move the Earth to another part of the galaxy. Intent on gaining the stolen data for himself but unable to act independently, the Master hired an intergalactic highwayman named Sabalom Glitz to recover the files from the relocated Earth. Afraid that the meddlesome Doctor would uncover these and more of their secrets, the High Council rigged a trial that would finally put the Doctor out of the way. The Master decided there was more to be gained from exposing the High Council’s conspiracy than from letting the Doctor be executed, and he intervened. Once the scandal was revealed, insurrection broke out on Gallifrey and the High Council was deposed. However, both the Master and Glitz became trapped in the Matrix, awaiting justice from the new Time Lord government.³⁶

The Master was exiled to the unnamed planet of the Cheetah People, and was stranded there when he next encountered the Doctor. The strange energies of the planet infected the bodies of its inhabitants, causing a feline mutation to slowly transform them into Cheetah People. While there, he discovered traces of a lost civilization that had bred a species of kitlings, small cat-like creatures that possessed the power of teleportation. Establishing a mind-link with these creatures, the Master used them to bring the Doctor to the doomed planet, certain that his clever adversary would find a means of escape for both of them. The Doctor did, indeed, and the Master found himself back on Earth, but the mutation continued to transform his body and affect his mind. As he succumbed to the transformation, the Master developed the power of teleportation as well, and used it to transport himself and the Doctor back to the disintegrating planet for their final battle. The Doctor refused to fight, however, and as the planet broke up, he was transported back to the TARDIS in a blinding flash.³⁷ It is conceivable that the Master was likewise transported to his “home,” his time capsule, sitting derelict near Killingworth for a century. At which point, he undoubtedly made it operational again and dematerialized, the power of tooth and claw still growing within him.


___________________________________

¹ 8.1 “Terror of the Autons.”

² 14.3 “The Deadly Assassin.”

³ 8.1 “Terror of the Autons.”

⁴ 9.3 “The Sea Devils.”

⁵ 24.1 “Time and the Rani.”

⁶ 8.1 “Terror of the Autons.”

⁷ 16.1 “The Ribos Operation.”

⁸ 10.2 “Carnival of Monsters.”

⁹ 17.6 “Shada.”

¹⁰ 13.5 “The Brain of Morbius.”

¹¹ 8.4 “Colony in Space.”

¹² 25.1 “Remembrance of the Daleks.”

¹³ 1.1 “An Unearthly Child.”

¹⁴ 14.3 “The Deadly Assassin.”

¹⁵ ibid.

¹⁶ 6.7 “The War Games.”

¹⁷ 8.2 “The Mind of Evil.”

¹⁸ 8.1 “Terror of the Autons.”

¹⁹ 8.2 “The Mind of Evil.”

²⁰ 8.3 “The Claws of Axos.”

²¹ 8.4 “Colony in Space.”

²² 8.5 “The Dæmons.”

²³ 9.3 “The Sea Devils.”

²⁴ 9.5 “The Time Monster.”

²⁵ 10.3 “Frontier in Space.”

²⁶ 14.3 “The Deadly Assassin.”

²⁷ 20.7 “The Five Doctors.”

²⁸ 18.6 “The Keeper of Traken.”

²⁹ 18.7 “Logopolis.”

³⁰ 19.1 “Castrovalva.”

³¹ 19.7 “Time-Flight.”

³² 20.6 “The King’s Demons.”

³³ 20.7 “The Five Doctors.”

³⁴ 21.5 “Planet of Fire.”

³⁵ 22.3 “The Mark of the Rani.”

³⁶ 23.4 “The Ultimate Foe.”

³⁷ 26.4 “Survival.”


Next: The TARDIS Owner’s Manual

Considering Pym Particles

There has been a spate of books published recently examining the scientific underpinnings of various works of science-fiction, such as Lois Gresh and Robert Weinberg’s The Science of Superheroes, a fad inspired by the 1996 book The Physics of Star Trek by Case Western Reserve University physics professor Lawrence M. Krauss. I’m sorry to say I have not read any of these books, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking about such matters. I have of late been especially interested in the nature of the elusive Pym particle, which is commonly used in the Marvel Universe to cause people or objects to shrink or grow. However, in whatever form these Pym particles are administered, be it in a fluid or as a gas, they have a very specific set of effects on the object as it changes size. By examining these effects, I devised a startling new theory on the workings of Henry Pym’s greatest discovery.

I started with some basic premises, derived empirically:

First, when Ant-Man shrinks to the size of an ant, he still retains his “full-size” strength, meaning he can jump on a guy and knock him down. This was amply demonstrated in various issues of Tales to Astonish, recently reprinted in Essential Ant-Man. By the same token, he can also lift a pencil, even though it looks like a telephone pole compared to his tiny stature. On the other hand, he could ride upon a flying ant, which was obviously able to bear his weight.

Second, neither his teammates in the Avengers nor the villains they fought ever made fun of Ant-Man for having a squeaky little voice. They did occasionally have trouble hearing him, though, without electronic amplification. Pym’s partner the Wasp suffered from this problem as well, usually when she needed to warn someone of imminent danger. Similarly, no one ever commented on Giant-Man or Goliath having a super-deep voice, either.

Third, when, as Giant-Man, Pym would grow to a height of fifty feet (a feat later duplicated by Clint Barton), he was still able to stand up without shattering his leg bones and inflate his lungs to breathe. Similarly, he could walk around on rooftops and climb the exterior of buildings without causing expensive property damage. He was, however, apparently able to lift heavy objects such as an automobile.

This leads me to believe that the person who is exposed to Pym particles does not actually shrink or grow at all, in the sense that his or her body gains or loses mass. Instead, the Pym particles create a sort of space-warp that changes the body’s relationship to the surrounding world. Simply put, it’s less a matter of Ant-Man’s body being compressed, and more a matter of it suddenly being further away.

Imagine you and I are standing at opposite ends of a football field. From your perspective, I would appear to be very small. But of course, I would still have my normal strength and gravity would affect me the same as it does if I were standing right next to you. If I spoke to you, my voice would be harder to hear, but its pitch would be no different. Now, suppose I could essentially be over there and next to you at the same time. I would appear to have shrunk to a very small size, but actually I’d be the same size I always am. If I then jumped on your foot, you would feel my full 210 lbs. coming down on you in a very concentrated area. This is because my body is inside the space-warp and your foot is outside of it.

Now, let’s say I sit upon a flying ant, which doesn’t try to kill me because of my handy cybernetic helmet. Instead of crushing the ant, I draw it into the space-warp with me. Now the ant is essentially “giant-size” and able to bear my weight as though I were 6 feet tall and it was 12 feet long. However, the ant appears to be its normal size relative to the world around it.

On the other side of the coin, if I use the Pym particles to appear to grow to a height of 10, 25, or 50 feet, it is the reverse of the previous process. It’s more as though I were closer to you, rather than becoming more massive. My voice would not seem deeper, just louder. And if I walked across a pedestrian footbridge, it wouldn’t collapse any more than it would if I were normal-size, because I still weigh 210 lbs. Therefore, no matter how big I seem to get, I can always support the weight of my own body normally.

Lifting an automobile is analogous to flying on the ant. As I grasp the car, I draw it into the space-warp with me, and it then seems to me to have been miniaturized, even though it remains the same size relative to the rest of the world. The point is, I haven’t really “grown;” a more appropriate term might be “magnified.” Maybe it would be clearer to say that the space-warp has made the rest of the world farther away, from my perspective. Follow: We’re back on either side of the football field, except now we’re on opposite sides of the 50-yard line instead of being in the end zones. From your perspective, everything on my side of the field seems much smaller – me, the benches, the cooler of Gatorade. So, if you could be on your side and on my side at the same time, you would seem gigantic, relatively speaking. It’s an extension of the celebrated “I’m Crushing Your Head!” phenomenon.

Thus, the “shrinking” and “growing” is really just a sort of optical illusion. The space-warp has merely altered the relative distance between the objects within it and those without. That would satisfy the three premises listed above.

This theory is inspired by the concept of “transdimensional engineering” which allowed the TARDIS on Doctor Who to be larger on the inside than it is on the outside. As the Doctor once explained, the only way to put a large box inside a small box is to have the large box be further away so that it looks smaller, at which point it would seem to easily fit inside the small box, with room to spare. The trick is to have the large box be “over there” and “here” at the same time. That’s the essence of transdimensional engineering.

For the rather half-assed explanation of the workings of Pym Particles originally devised for the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, consult the online Marvel Directory.

OMU: Sub-Mariner

Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner was in fact the first Marvel Universe character to see print. He debuted in the ultra-rare 1939 promotional comic book Motion Picture Funnies Weekly some six months before the start of his regular feature in Marvel Mystery Comics. The brainchild of writer/artist Bill Everett, Namor was a violent, hot-headed hero with no love for the world of the surface-dwellers. He remained a fixture of the “Golden Age” comics published by Marvel’s predecessors, Timely and Atlas, until the mid-1950s. He was the first such character revived by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby for their new wave of super-hero comics in the early sixties, and from the start they established a tenuous continuity with his earlier adventures.

The Sub-Mariner’s absence from the scene since the “Golden Age” was explained by showing him living as an amnesiac derelict, a state he had been in for many long years. The full story of how he lost his memory would be revealed much later, after he once again received his own title. The timeline here deals only with Namor’s life during 1962 and the first half of 1963 in the Original Marvel Universe. To continue onward, I’ll have to wait for the eventual publication of Essential Sub-Mariner volume 1.

Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding forward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale.) Some information presented on the timeline is speculative. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.



The Sub-Mariner Chronology – Part One


January 1962 – Namor is living as a bum in New York City’s Bowery. His long hair and beard disguise his appearance. He shuffles around in an intoxicated stupor, with no memory, given to fits of rage and violence. The other bums try to avoid him whenever possible.

February 1962 – By chance, Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, discovers Namor in a flophouse after storming out on the Fantastic Four. Trying to restore Namor’s memory, the Torch drops him into the harbor. Namor swims to a nearby Atlantean outpost in the North Atlantic Ocean, which has been destroyed. He learns there that the main city of Atlantis has also been destroyed by the surface dwellers. Namor returns to New York bent on revenge. He directs a giant sea monster to attack the city, but the FF kill it. Then Namor first meets Sue Storm, the Invisible Girl, and is smitten with her. Namor is still a bit mentally unbalanced, and the Fantastic Four are able to drive him off.

March 1962 – Namor begins searching the oceans for his lost people. He returns to Atlantis, located off the coast of Antarctica, and finds the city utterly destroyed and abandoned.

April 1962 – Doctor Doom tracks down the Sub-Mariner and convinces him to join forces in attacking the Fantastic Four. Namor returns to New York to confront the FF and plant Dr. Doom’s “grabber” device in the basement of their headquarters, enabling Doom to haul the entire Baxter Building into orbit. Realizing he’s been betrayed, Namor attacks Doom, leaving him drifting in space. The Baxter Building is returned to its foundations and Namor ditches Doom’s spacecraft in the ocean.

May 1962 – Namor continues his search for the Atlantean Diaspora, but without success.

June 1962 – Learning the Fantastic Four have gone bankrupt, Namor hatches an elaborate scheme. He purchases a failing movie studio in Los Angeles and renames it Imperial Studios. Then, he tricks the FF into performing for the cameras while he tries to destroy them. The FF escape Namor’s various traps, however, and Sue shames him into honoring his part of the bargain. Namor orders that the movie be completed, then returns to the ocean depths. Ironically, the documentary film The Fantastic Four is a financial success, and Imperial Studios will continue to operate for many years to come.

July 1962 – Several weeks later, the Human Torch picks a fight with the Sub-Mariner, and manages to bury him in an undersea avalanche. By the time Namor frees himself, the Torch has gotten away.

August 1962 – Namor finally finds evidence of his people, and knows he is on the right track. However, his search is delayed when the Puppet Master takes over his mind and uses him to attack the Fantastic Four. Thus, Namor kidnaps the Invisible Girl. The FF track him down, but Namor is soon freed from the Puppet Master’s control and immediately sends the FF home, intent on resuming his search.

September 1962 – Namor is at last reunited with his people and claims the throne of Atlantis. He is also reunited with his betrothed, the lovely Lady Dorma. Namor raises his army and declares war on the surface world, leading them in an invasion of New York. However, when the Invisible Girl is badly injured, Namor calls off the attack. Lady Dorma is furious, and, seeing it as a betrayal, the warlord Krang convinces the Atlanteans to desert Namor. The Sub-Mariner returns to New Atlantis and finds himself alone.

October 1962 – Having been abandoned by the Atlantean people, Namor begins plotting his revenge against the surface world. However, he studies his enemies more completely this time, and makes his plans much more carefully.

Mid November 1962 – Namor seeks to make an ally of the Hulk against the human race. Together, they set a trap for the Avengers on the Rock of Gibraltar. During the battle, however, the Hulk seems to disappear, and, realizing he is outmatched, Namor beats an angry retreat. Continuing his search for his people, Namor comes across a group of Eskimos worshipping a strange idol – a human figure within a giant chunk of ice. Enraged, Namor hurls the idol out to sea, where it begins to drift south.

Late November 1962 – While searching for the Atlanteans, Namor finds an alien from the D’Bari system who’s been trapped on earth for centuries, and who is the basis of the myth of the Medusa who turned men into stone. Namor strikes a bargain with the alien, promising to raise his spaceship from the ocean floor if he will turn the Avengers to stone. The plan nearly succeeds, but the newly-revived Captain America saves the day. Meanwhile, Namor comes across a loyal band of his elite guard, and together they attack the Avengers. The Sub-Mariner and Captain America are as yet unable to remember each other, both still suffering from partial amnesia. When the alien takes off in his spaceship, Namor abandons the fight, certain that the Avengers won’t survive the havoc caused by the ship’s launch.

Early December 1962 – The Sub-Mariner becomes obsessed with Sue Storm, which drives even his elite guard to desert him. Alone again, Namor boldly invades the Baxter Building and kidnaps Sue. His troops return during the ensuing battle with the Fantastic Four. However, Sue ends the battle by declaring her love for Reed Richards. The surface-dwellers vanish into thin air before Namor can lash out in rage.

Mid December 1962 – Namor is invited to Magneto’s island fortress in the North Atlantic to discuss joining forces against the human race. Namor soon arrives and meets the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Mastermind, and the Toad. Suddenly, the Angel attacks, but Namor drives him off. They return to Magneto’s command bunker as the X-Men storm the island. Namor is incensed by Magneto’s harsh treatment of the Scarlet Witch and destroys Magneto’s control systems. Flying into a rage, Namor then wrecks Magneto’s fortress, fights with the X-Men and the Brotherhood, and returns to the sea.

Late December 1962 – The Sub-Mariner agrees to meet with Reed Richards at the Baxter Building to discuss a truce. However, the Human Torch and the Thing attack Namor before he reaches shore, afraid that he is launching another invasion. Believing Richards has betrayed him, Namor returns to the ocean depths after an inconclusive battle.

Mid January 1963 – Namor is finally reunited with his people and once again takes the throne. All is forgiven, and the Atlanteans begin settling into the reign of Namor the First.

Late January 1963 – Atlantis suddenly comes under attack by the barbarian hordes of Attuma, who believes the Atlanteans are at their most disorganized. A war breaks out, and a scorned Dorma decides to betray Namor to Attuma so that she and Namor can have a life together. Once Attuma breaches the walls, his promises to Lady Dorma are forgotten, and the war resumes.

Early February 1963 – Dorma flees from Atlantis, filled with shame, and goes to enlist the aid of the Fantastic Four. They agree to help and travel to Atlantis to do battle with Attuma’s army. Sue uses her powers to make Namor invisible, giving him the edge over Attuma in single combat. Attuma and his followers are defeated, although Namor remains unaware of the FF’s involvement.

March-April 1963 – New Atlantis recovers from the battle with Attuma’s hordes. They strengthen their defenses as Namor builds his government and watches as Atlantean society finally begins to flourish once again. Namor begins training his troops to fight more effectively. Meanwhile, the warlord Krang continues to badger Namor to invade the surface world once again. Namor is sick of fighting, however, and wishes to turn his attention to domestic affairs.

Early May 1963 – The Avengers contact the Sub-Mariner with an offer of membership. Aware of his service to the Allied Powers during World War II as a member of the Invaders, the Avengers believe they are offering Namor the chance for redemption in the eyes of the surface world. Namor does not yet remember his time with the Invaders, however, and declines the offer. He is now interested only in being an effective ruler.

Late May 1963 – Krang continues to beat the drums of war, but Namor now desires to make peace with the surface world. He returns to New York seeking a forum, and decides a public trial will suit his purposes. He engages the law firm of Nelson and Murdock and then goes on a rampage, causing extensive property damage. He is opposed by Daredevil, but Namor allows himself to be taken into custody. However, as the trial begins, Lady Dorma arrives to tell Namor that Warlord Krang has staged a coup in his absence. Namor returns to Atlantis, despite Daredevil’s best attempts to stop him. However, Namor is captured by Krang’s forces and imprisoned.

June 1963 – Namor is set free by the Lady Dorma, and he leaves Atlantis on a quest to find the fabled Neptune’s Trident, which he believes is essential for him to regain the throne from Krang.



Notes:


February 1962 – The Sub-Mariner was reintroduced in Fantastic Four # 4. Coincidentally, Johnny sees one of the other bums in the flophouse reading an old copy of Sub-Mariner Comics. It was established as early as Fantastic Four # 2 that the Marvel Universe had its own counterpart of the Marvel Comics Group, which went on to become something of a running gag in various titles.

June 1962 – In the original story in Fantastic Four # 9, Namor’s business venture actually has the unlikely name of S-M Studios. This was later changed to Imperial when it was realized that kids might get the wrong impression of what kind of movies Namor was making. It’s unlikely Stan Lee realized that S-M could mean “sadomasochism” as well as “Sub-Mariner.” He didn’t have that sort of sense of humor.

July 1962 – The Human Torch first took on the Sub-Mariner solo in Strange Tales # 107, which at the time was a sort of companion title to Fantastic Four.

September 1962 – The Atlantean invasion of New York is depicted in Fantastic Four Annual # 1.

November 1962 – Namor and the Hulk team up in Avengers # 3. In the following issue, Namor appears just long enough to hurl the frozen idol into the sea, which contains the cryogenically-preserved Captain America. The real reason Cap and Namor don’t seem to know each other is that it wasn’t until years later that Roy Thomas had the idea that they had fought side-by-side during World War II as members of the Invaders. That was the first major “retcon” of the Marvel Universe.

Early December 1962 – Namor is unaware of the behind-the-scenes involvement of Doctor Strange in Fantastic Four # 27.

Early May 1963 – Again, the Invaders angle is not in the original story, but it explains why the Avengers would make Namor such an offer at this point. He would eventually join Earth’s Mightiest Heroes many years later. Namor battles DD in Daredevil # 7.

June 1963 -- This takes us up to the beginning of the Sub-Mariner’s solo series in Tales to Astonish # 70.



OMU Note: The Sub-Mariner’s final canonical appearance was in Namor: The Sub-Mariner # 25 (April 1992).



Next Issue: The Way It Began: Fantastic Four – Year One

Tony Television Gets Real

Friday night has traditionally been called the “television graveyard” –- the night only losers stay home and watch the tube. At the Tony Television Network, we prefer to think of them as TV connoisseurs. That’s why we’ve developed these finely-crafted programs to appeal to the most discriminating of tastes. So pour a glass of wine, cut the cheese, and tune in to the Best TV Network Ever!!!


8:00 –- MYSTERIOUS HIDDEN SECRETS OF THE ARCANE. Malcolm McDowell and Jeri Ryan host this fascinating weekly odyssey into the world’s most baffling mysteries. From their ornate and spooky set, they weave a web of reports from their far-flung correspondents and investigators. In the first episode, we learn all about a group of dedicated UFO researchers called The Friends of Gray Barker; discover the shocking truth about the celebrated Patterson Bigfoot film; and see biographical profiles of the scary Satanist Anton LaVey and occult rocket scientist John Whiteside “Jack” Parsons. Plus, musical guest Lisa Loeb rocks the house.


9:00 –- THE PRISONERS. Two unwitting contestants wake up to find themselves stripped of their identities and trapped in a remote resort village in this “Reality TV” show based on the classic 1968 thriller The Prisoner. Nominated by friends and family, the hapless contestants must first discover what’s happened to them and then try to find a way to escape. The only people in “the Village” they can trust are each other, but each starts out unaware of the other’s presence! Can they find each other within a bedeviling maze of betrayal and deceit? Can they overcome the machinations of each week’s sadistic new “Number 2”? Thrill to their exploits in this high-stakes game of identity and perseverance! Next time, it could be you!


10:00 –- WORLD’S CRUELLEST PRACTICAL JOKES. Bad girls Rose McGowan and Lisa Boyle host this rip-roaring “cinema verité” show that really pushes the envelope. In the first episode we take our hidden cameras to a hospital emergency room for all manner of hilarious hijinks, and then top it off with our weekly “Talking Corpse” feature from the palatial Mortando Funeral Chapel. Get in on the wacky fun!


The only TV graveyard now will be for our competitors! Long live TTN !!!


Previous: Tony Television is Family Television

Next: Tony Television Strikes Back

OMU: Hulk -- Year Two

After spending the better part of a year as a regular character in The Avengers, the Hulk was again awarded a series of solo stories, this time as part of the split-book Tales to Astonish. As Marvel was phasing out its sci-fi and monster stories, it converted its anthology titles into super-hero double features. The Hulk was first paired up with stories featuring Giant-Man and the Wasp, and later with the Sub-Mariner. During this period, the Hulk seemed to finally hit his stride, and important characters such as Glenn Talbot and the Leader were introduced. The “secret identity” facet of the stories was also abandoned, as the dual nature of Bruce Banner and the Hulk was made public knowledge. The series was distinctive in that, rather than telling self-contained stories, or even two- or three-part story arcs, Stan Lee decided to try more of an ongoing “soap opera” approach, allowing each issue to roll into the next for an extended, rambling narrative.

Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding forward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale.) Some information presented on the timeline is speculative and some is based on historical accounts. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.


Now, without further ado, on with The Hulk: Year Two



Early January 1963 – Bruce Banner manages not to turn into the Hulk for two or three weeks by focusing on his research and restocking his hidden underground lab. He also tries to distance himself from Betty Ross, now that his transformations are unpredictable. One day, Giant Man arrives at Desert Base in search of the Hulk. Feeling persecuted, Banner’s frustration reaches the boiling point and he loses control, changing into the Hulk. The jeep he was driving is wrecked, and he goes off to attack Giant Man. Hulk goes on a rampage in a nearby town, terrorizing the locals once again. Then, he encounters a strange spinning man, really the criminal known as the Human Top, who tells the Hulk he can find Giant Man in the next town. Sure enough, Giant Man is there and the Hulk attacks. After a battle in the main street of the evacuated town, the Hulk and Giant Man see a missile coming towards them. Giant Man learns from the Wasp that the missile carries a low-yield atomic warhead, fired by the military after the Human Top told them the Hulk was alone in the deserted town. Cursing himself, the Hulk intercepts the missile and hurls it into the hills outside of town. Although the others are saved, the Hulk is caught in the ensuing nuclear explosion and blacks out. He crashes to earth and changes back into Bruce Banner. Betty is overjoyed when Banner comes staggering out of the desert, and after a long rest, he resumes his research.

January - April 1963 – Banner buries himself in his research for about four months, making tremendous strides forward in a variety of projects, primarily a device he calls the “Absorbatron,” which will protect a city from atomic attack by absorbing all the radiation. Also, perhaps inspired by Iron Man, Banner develops a heavy-duty suit of robotic armor to be used for close observation of nuclear tests. Having realized that undue stress triggers his transformation, Banner only turns into the Hulk a few times in this period, and the Hulk, increasingly suspicious of humans, keeps a low profile out in the desert.

Late April 1963 – Banner turns into the Hulk when a spy tries to steal his suit of robotic armor, but the Hulk leaps off into the desert and the spy gets away with the armor. The next morning, as the spy is testing the armor, the Hulk attacks him. However, the Hulk begins changing back into Banner and the spy gets away again. He discovers one of Banner’s underground equipment dumps and begins constructing a crude missile to destroy Desert Base.

A day or two later, as Banner is cobbling together a portable electronic scanner to track the robotic armor, Major Glenn Talbot arrives as the new security chief for Desert Base. Talbot has been suspicious of Banner for some time, and was assigned to the base when General Ross finally made a full report of Banner’s many disappearances over the last year. Later, while out in the desert tracking the robotic armor, Banner changes into the Hulk and battles the spy, knocking him into a deep chasm inside a cavern. The missile has been launched, however, and the Hulk intercepts it, but the resulting blast knocks him unconscious. Talbot finds him, and the Hulk is captured by the military once again. Rick Jones returns to New Mexico that night, having heard a report of the Hulk’s capture on the radio. Meanwhile, the dead spy’s employer, the mysterious figure known as the Leader, sends the master of disguise called the Chameleon to find out what happened. Disguised as General Ross, the Chameleon unwittingly helps the Hulk to escape unobserved. Having changed back into Bruce Banner, he easily slips out of the Hulk-sized shackles, and Rick helps him avoid the guards, get back to his quarters and get some fresh clothing. Banner then turns up at a late-night emergency meeting and confronts General Ross and Major Talbot. Shortly afterward, the Chameleon attacks Banner, ties him up, and assumes his identity. Banner turns into the Hulk and attacks, causing the Chameleon to flee. Trying to escape, the Chameleon throws a gamma grenade he took from Banner’s lab. The Hulk shields the blast with his body, but the shock wave knocks the Chameleon out.

The next morning, the Chameleon recovers and reports to the Leader that the Absorbatron is being moved to a base on the west coast by train. Later that afternoon, the train leaves, with Banner and Talbot aboard. The Leader sends one of his robotic Humanoids to steal the device. The Hulk fights the Humanoid off, but the Absorbatron falls off the train. That evening, Talbot finds Banner with the Absorbatron and places him under arrest on suspicion of espionage.

Early May 1963 – Several days later, Banner is transferred from the military prison to Washington D.C., to stand before a congressional investigation. Having been following the story in the newspapers, Rick Jones arrives and uses his Avengers connections to get a meeting with President John F. Kennedy. Desperate, Rick tells Kennedy the whole story of Bruce Banner and the Hulk. JFK agrees to keep the secret and arranges for the charges against Banner to be dropped.

The next day, Banner and Talbot arrive at Astra Island in the Pacific Ocean to test the Absorbatron. The Leader’s army of Humanoids attack, trying to steal the device. The Hulk fights them while Talbot secures the device inside the bunker. Troops move in, and a grenade causes a landslide that knocks the Hulk and the Humanoids into the ocean. The Hulk swims off, changes into Bruce Banner, and is picked up by a Russian submarine.

Mid May 1963 – A week later, Banner arrives in the Soviet Union and is brought to a work camp for kidnapped scientists. He changes into the Hulk and destroys the camp. The Soviet Army attacks, and the Hulk defeats them. He leaps away, finally coming to rest in Mongolia, where he changes back into Banner again. He is captured by a group of bandits, who contact the American government with their ransom demands.

A few days later, Glenn Talbot arrives at the bandits’ camp to pay the ransom and pick up Banner. However, rival bandits attack, allowing Banner and Talbot to slip away in the confusion. They are caught in an avalanche, and Banner turns into the Hulk and saves the unconscious Talbot. Leaving the major behind, the Hulk leaps away, finally returning to the New Mexico desert. After transforming back into Bruce Banner, he is arrested once again as a traitor.

Late May 1963 – Several days later, Major Talbot makes it back to the United States and has a special meeting with President Kennedy. Banner is released from prison and returned to Astra Island for the Absorbatron test. The Leader’s Humanoids attack again, but this time the Hulk is defeated. The Leader steals the Absorbatron and takes it and the Hulk to his secret underground lab in Arizona. The Hulk becomes Banner long enough to transmit an S.O.S. to the Air Force. Rick follows the troops as they trace the signal. The Hulk goes on a rampage and destroys the Absorbatron. The Leader escapes as the soldiers storm the base. As the Hulk is changing back into Banner, one of the soldiers shoots him in the head. The bullet lodges in his brain, and Banner appears dead, but Rick hijacks the ambulance and takes him to the secret underground lab. He turns Banner back into the Hulk via gamma ray bombardment, and he revives. However, he now has Bruce Banner’s intelligence once more.

The next day, the Leader’s giant Humanoid attacks Desert Base, and the Hulk fights him. Rick warns the Hulk that the military is about to launch their “Sunday Punch” super-missile at them. They escape as the Humanoid is destroyed by the missile. However, the soldiers manage to track they Hulk back to his underground lab, where they destroy it completely with heavy artillery. During the bombardment, the Leader contacts the Hulk with an offer, and the Hulk allows the criminal mastermind to teleport him away, to the Leader’s base in Italy. That night, the Leader’s Humanoids stop the Hulk from escaping. The Leader discovers the bullet in his brain and dissolves it with a special technique.

Early June 1963 – Over the next few days, the Leader makes a detailed study of the Hulk, and puts him through a battery of tests. With the bullet no longer in his brain, the Hulk’s personality soon becomes dominant once more. Then, the leader makes the Hulk honor his part of the bargain and teleports him to a planet inhabited by one of the enigmatic Watchers. The Hulk fights off an alien champion and retrieves a globe called “the ultimate machine.” After returning the Hulk to earth, the Leader puts the globe over his head in order to absorb all the knowledge of the universe. However, it is too much for him, and he keels over, apparently dead. The Hulk takes the globe and heads into the Alps. He tries it on, and the Watcher allows the Hulk to hear Rick Jones’ thoughts as he waits in military prison. The Watcher retrieves the “ultimate machine” as the Hulk leaps away, heading for Washington, D.C., where he plans to seek help from President Kennedy. However, General Ross and his troops are waiting for him by the time he arrives, and they blast the Hulk with Banner’s “T-gun,” which creates a time displacement that transports the Hulk 500 years into the future.

Mid June 1963 – Rick Jones is questioned again by the military and then released, though Talbot keeps him under surveillance.

Mid July 1963 – Talbot follows Rick into the caverns, where he finally breaks down and tells Talbot that Bruce Banner and the Hulk are one and the same. As Talbot reports this revelation to General Ross, Rick tells his story to Betty, who is incredulous. The story soon leaks, and before long, all the world knows the truth about Bruce Banner and the Hulk.

Late September 1963 – The Hulk, who has been fighting with the Executioner in the distant future, finally rematerializes in the present day. Meanwhile, General Ross’s new chief scientist, Dr. Konrad Zaxon, reports for duty. The Hulk soon returns to the base and is captured. That night, Dr. Zaxon frees the Hulk in an attempt to use him to conquer the world, but his folly costs him his life. During his escape, the Hulk is hit with the Air Force’s new Orion missile, which is secretly filmed by an agent of the subversive organization called the Secret Empire.

The next morning, the Air Force tracks down the Hulk. He nearly wrecks a train during the fight – a train on which Hercules is traveling to Los Angeles. Hercules battles the Hulk and drives him off, carries the train across the damaged tracks, and continues on his way. That night, the Hulk is kidnapped by Tyrannus, who now needs his help in his subterranean war against the Mole Man.

The next day, when the Hulk proves uncooperative, Tyrannus kidnaps Rick, Betty, and Major Talbot. The Hulk goes into battle against the Mole Man’s forces, but changes into Bruce Banner again. Meanwhile, Tyrannus returns Rick, Betty, and Talbot to the surface, where they are attacked by an agent of the Secret Empire calling himself Boomerang. They are no match for Boomerang’s weapons, and he kidnaps Betty. However, Banner manages to transport himself back to the surface, despite becoming the Hulk again. He materializes in the middle of an artillery test, then fights off Boomerang and rescues Betty. That night, the Hulk brings Rick and General Ross to where Betty is waiting in the desert. Meanwhile, Boomerang tries to steal the Orion missile, but Major Talbot and the Air Force troops fight him off.

Early October 1963 – The Hulk arrives in New York City, intent on finding the Avengers. He passes the Sub-Mariner in a crowded movie theater, then wanders around the city for a few days. Finally, Rick Jones arrives in town while the Hulk is shambling around causing property damage. Meanwhile, the Orion missile is hijacked by the Secret Empire and aimed at New York. The saboteur is captured by the military, and the Hulk leaps aboard the missile, changing into Banner long enough to change its course and save the city. Turning into the Hulk before crashing into the ocean, he swims ashore. Rick finds him and they go into hiding. Meanwhile, the Secret Empire is defeated by S.H.I.E.L.D., and their surviving agents are all jailed.

Mid November 1963 – The Hulk is still lurking around New York City when Spider-Man comes looking for him. The Hulk tries to drive him away, and their fight takes them into a Gamma Ray Research Center in Manhattan. Hulk destroys an experimental device and is bathed in gamma radiation, which causes him to change back to Bruce Banner for a few minutes. Banner and Spider-Man have a moment to discuss his situation; and after he changes into the Hulk again, Spider-Man decides to leave him alone.

Mid December 1963 – The NYPD discovers one of the Leader’s abandoned laboratories, and General Ross is called in to take over. They find a dormant Humanoid built to take on the Hulk, and Ross orders it activated. Shortly after midnight, the Humanoid is brought to life, but it proves uncontrollable and goes on a rampage. The Hulk attacks it, and their battle rages through the night and into the next morning.

After daybreak, the Hulk suddenly transforms into Bruce Banner, and he quickly devises a plan to stop the android. After he changes back into the Hulk, his plan succeeds and the Humanoid is destroyed. Reporters are on the scene, and it seems the Hulk has saved the city a second time. Seeing the coverage on the morning television news, President Lyndon B. Johnson offers the Hulk amnesty, at General Ross’s discretion. However, Boomerang is lurking in the shadows and tricks the Hulk into causing a panic. As the Hulk leaps away, General Ross decides he is still a menace. Boomerang catches up to the Hulk at a dam as the Hulk heads west again. During their fight, Boomerang destroys the dam, but is swept away in the ensuing flood. The Hulk turns back into Banner and passes out. Hours later, the Stranger appears, intending to use the Hulk as his instrument to destroy the human race. He alters the Hulk’s mind with an alien machine, and sends him on a rampage. All that night, the Hulk heads west, wreaking havoc and destruction in his path, such as demolishing a bridge over the Mississippi River.

Finally, the next morning, the Hulk reaches Desert Base, where his transformation into Bruce Banner frees him from the Stranger’s influence. Desperate, Banner realizes his suicide is the only hope for humanity. He steals into his lab and sets the gamma ray bombardment machine for a lethal overdose. However, the troops discover him and place him under arrest. Unknown to them, a spy by the name of Emil Blonsky was hiding in the laboratory. Believing Banner’s device will make him super-powerful, Blonsky turns it on himself, and is immediately transformed into a scaly green monster, which will soon come to be called “the Abomination.” Seeing the Abomination from his prison cell, Banner turns into the Hulk and attacks him. However, the Abomination is too tough, and he knocks the Hulk out with a crushing blow to the head. The Abomination kidnaps Betty Ross and leaps away, and with the help of Rick Jones, the base personnel are able to revive the Hulk. However, the Hulk just wants to take off, but Rick begs him to stay and help rescue Betty. The Hulk calms down and becomes Banner again, and quickly devises a strategy to defeat the Abomination. He lures the monster back to the base and subjects him to a ray that weakens him. However, the excitement is too much for Banner and he turns back into the Hulk, wrecks the machine, and fights the Abomination to a standstill. Suddenly, the Stranger intervenes, having changed his mind about destroying humanity. He teleports the Abomination to his base somewhere in outer space. The danger passed and Betty safe once more, the Hulk wanders off into the desert – alone.


Notes:

Early January 1963 – There was something of a tradition with these Marvel split-books that a character about to be given his own series would guest-star in the lead feature the issue before it started. Thus comes this story from the Giant-Man series in Tales to Astonish #59.

Late April 1963 – The commencement of the Hulk’s solo stories, by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, from Tales to Astonish #60 and following.

Early May 1963 – The President of the United States is not clearly shown in these stories, as was often the case, and appears to be the sort of “generic” president often seen in fictional stories. Occasionally Marvel took this approach, and occasionally they made him look like the sitting president at the time the stories were published. These are what Marvel continuity pioneer George Olshevsky dubbed “topical references,” meaning they were based on people or events current when the stories were created, but can be discounted during chronological analysis as literary / artistic license. Watch for an upcoming post about the Presidents of the United States in the Original Marvel Universe.

Early June 1963 – While it is debatable, I don’t believe the Watcher depicted in this story is Uatu, the familiar Watcher who lives on earth’s moon, despite the listing on the Marvel Chronology Project. The trouble with the Watchers is that they all pretty much look alike.

November 1963 – The Hulk is hiding out in New York City when President Kennedy is assassinated. It is unclear how much of this time he spent as Bruce Banner and how much as the Hulk, for he was in the city for several months, keeping a low profile as best he could.

December 1963 – During this appearance, the President of the United States is actually drawn to look like Lyndon Johnson, courtesy of artist Gil Kane. This is one of the few times in the Original Marvel Universe that the President looks like the man who was in office according to the date on the timeline. As usual, it is pure serendipity.



Previous Issue: The Hulk: Year One

Next Issue: The Sub-Mariner Strikes!

A Brief History of Gallifrey

In the 26 seasons of Doctor Who, shown on the BBC between 1963 and 1989, a great deal was revealed about the Doctor’s mysterious home planet, Gallifrey, and the history of the Time Lords who inhabited it. However, that information trickled out in bits and pieces over hundreds of episodes, and I’ve never seen it all brought together in a simple, straightforward summary. I have here attempted to do so.

I watched all the available episodes and read transcripts (or at the very least detailed summaries) of the “lost” episodes, took notes whenever information on the Doctor’s background was provided, and then tried to piece it all together into a coherent narrative. In doing so, many previously hidden facts stand revealed.

I do not consider any of the numerous Doctor Who novels to be canonical, nor do I accept any film or television versions not originally shown on the BBC or not made as part of the original series production schedule. Therefore, this history is based purely on the episodes of the original television series.

Any conflicting accounts of the history of Gallifrey and the Time Lords are therefore non-canonical and speculative.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF GALLIFREY

The early inhabitants of the planet Gallifrey possessed formidable mystical powers, which they used to reach out into the depths of space in search of other life forms. They were successful in making contact with a number of non-corporeal entities, such as the Fendahl -- a gestalt creature consisting of twelve aspects around a focal point. The malevolence of the Fendahl was so frightening that it was forever remembered in Gallifreyan mythology. [1] The early Gallifreyan mystics were also able to contact another group of mystics on a nearby planet, the Sisterhood of Karn, which possessed an Elixir of Life that made them immortal. The Sisterhood jealously guarded the secret of their elixir, and not even the other inhabitants of Karn knew of it -- only the mystics of Gallifrey. [2]

Eventually, the Gallifreyans developed primitive space travel technology, and they began to explore their own solar system and those orbiting nearby stars. In time, they managed to reach the planet Karn, and while promising diplomatic relations with the Karn government, the Gallifreyan expeditionary force was actually looking for the Sisterhood and their Elixir of Life. Fearing exposure, the Sisterhood agreed to share the elixir with the Gallifreyans in exchange for their silence. However, the Elixir of Life did not grant immortality to the Gallifreyans, but instead triggered a mutagenic change in their body chemistry resulting in a twelve-regeneration life-cycle, thus granting every Gallifreyan thirteen lives. They would thenceforth use the elixir only in times of acute regenerative crisis. Possessed of such long life-spans, the Gallifreyans were able to develop their science and technology exponentially, and they soon advanced beyond any other civilization known to them. Only the secret of time travel continued to elude them. However, with this advancement came a high level of arrogance, and the Gallifreyans began to misuse their great power disgracefully. They set up an impenetrable force field around part of the wilderness of Gallifrey and constructed an ominous Dark Tower at its center, which was full of fiendish traps. They called this region the Death Zone, and collected sentient beings from across the universe via the Time Scoop, a long-range teleportation device, to fight and die in the Gallifreyan version of a gladiatorial arena. [3] Into this world was born the greatest single figure in the history of Gallifrey, Rassilon.

Rassilon was a young scientist when Gallifrey found itself at war with a race of space-borne Giant Vampires, each of which could suck the life out of an entire planet. [4] Believing themselves to be the only civilization advanced enough to destroy these monsters, the Gallifreyans launched an all-out space war, but found even their technology was not enough to destroy the Vampires. The war took a terrible toll on Gallifrey, and they began to fear all was lost, until Rassilon, working with a brilliant engineer named Omega and others, developed a living metal they called vallidium, which was in fact possessed of a crude sentience and geared toward one single goal, destruction. [5] Out of vallidium was constructed a fleet of dagger-shaped ships called Nemesis that sought out the Giant Vampires and impaled them through the heart, killing them. Only the Vampire King escaped, disappearing into another universe through a charged vacuum emboitment (CVE). The war was won, but sickened by the carnage, the Gallifreyans renounced violence forever. [6]

Hailed as heroes, Rassilon and Omega and their colleagues sought new peaceful applications for vallidium. They found its unique properties allowed them to construct the most powerful and sophisticated remote stellar manipulator the universe had ever seen. [7] They believed that, coupled with new developments in transdimensional engineering, [8] this technology could finally grant them mastery over time travel. They undertook a project to accomplish this, and Omega himself was selected to take the remote stellar manipulator to an uninhabited star and detonate it, creating a supernova. However, Rassilon knew Omega well, and recognized that the stellar engineer had an inclination to megalomania, and he feared Omega would use this new science to set himself up as a god. Therefore, he arranged it so that, whether he succeeded or failed, Omega would never return from his mission. The detonation was a success and the supernova was created, but Omega was thought killed, though he was actually thrown into the anti-matter universe. [9] The Gallifreyans used the energy generated by the supernova to power their first time travel experiments, which were successful. Rassilon then took the space fleet out to the supernova, recovered the remote stellar manipulator, and used it to convert the supernova into a black hole. To avoid Omega’s fate, Rassilon protected himself with what would come to be known as the Sash of Rassilon, a technological masterpiece that prevents the wearer from being sucked into another dimension. They then contained the nucleus of the black hole within a transdimensionally-engineered obelisk, which they brought back to Gallifrey. Rassilon was able to stabilize all the elements of the nucleus and set it in an eternally dynamic equation against the mass of the planet. He placed this obelisk within what would come to be called the Eye of Harmony, around which was built the enormous complex known as the Panopticon. [10] The doors to the Eye of Harmony were sealed with the Scepter of Rassilon, and its vast powers could be accessed only through the object called the Great Key.

With the power now available through the Eye of Harmony, Rassilon oversaw the construction of a fleet of transdimensionally-engineered time capsules, with which they could travel throughout time and space and conduct detailed surveillance of the various cultures they encountered. One of the first uses made of the technology, however, was to find the home planet of the legendary Fendahl and destroy it, creating an asteroid belt between two planets that would eventually be named Mars and Jupiter. [11] Rassilon and his associates were troubled by this act, and decided to take over the government and completely reorder Gallifreyan society. Rassilon declared that a new era had begun on Gallifrey and they had become Time Lords.

Rassilon and his associates drew up a new constitution that laid down the Five Great Principles, [12] and united the various domed city-states under a single government, which had two branches: a governing body called the High Council of the Time Lords, and an independent law-enforcement body called the Time Lord Tribunal. The city-states now became colleges or chapters, each one represented on the High Council. The oldest and most prominent of these, and the one from which Rassilon and his inner circle came, was Pyrdonia, traditionally represented by the colors scarlet and orange. The two other most important chapters were Arcalia, represented by green, and Patraxis, represented by heliotrope. [13] There were four lesser chapters, but each one had its own Academy of Time, at which young Gallifreyans would study in order to join the ranks of the Time Lords, the upper crust of the Gallifreyan social hierarchy. Rassilon himself sat at the pinnacle of that hierarchy as Lord President of the High Council. Under him was a Chancellor, then Cardinals representing each chapter as well as various Councillors. The seat of government was within the Panopticon building, near the Eye of Harmony, which sat at the center of the Capitol, flanked by the Archive and Communication Towers. The peace and order of the Capitol was maintained by the Chancellery Guard, an elite squad under the command of the Castellan. [14] The Capitol was itself located within a vast enclosed area called the Citadel, [15] roughly the size of a small continent, ringed by mountains on the southern hemisphere of Gallifrey. [16]

Under Rassilon’s guidance, the Time Lords began their explorations, and early on they encountered a planet called Minyos. The Time Lords decided to use their advanced technology to help the people of Minyos, who regarded them as gods. They provided them with medical and scientific aid, better communications and weapons, but the Minyons were not ready for such advancements, and a terrible war broke out that destroyed the entire planet. Realizing their mistake, the Time Lords adopted a strict policy of non-interference, pledging to do no more than observe and gather knowledge. [17] This was a very controversial decision, however, and it was debated and argued for a long time. Rassilon conceded that those opposed to the policy had a good point, that the Time Lords had a moral duty to protect less advanced civilizations. He also felt it was important to monitor other cultures that might themselves develop time travel technology. Therefore, he created a covert operations bureau under control of the Tribunal called the Celestial Intervention Agency. [18] The C.I.A. even came eventually to operate without time capsules, using instead Time Rings to move single individuals around the cosmos. [19] Rassilon also realized that, as word of the Time Lords spread throughout the universe, Gallifrey might be vulnerable to alien attack. Therefore he created a quantum force field called the Transduction Barrier [20] to surround and protect the entire planet, making the night sky a burnt orange from that time onward. [21] Even their own time capsules could not come and go while the Transduction Barrier was raised, which also made the unauthorized use of a time capsule nearly impossible.

The Time Lords began to amass so much information that data storage became a problem. Therefore Rassilon and his scientists created a vast organic virtual-reality supercomputer called the Matrix. All the knowledge, information, and wisdom of every Time Lord could then be stored within the Matrix for posterity. And when a Time Lord reached the end of his final regeneration, his mind could be scanned into a part of the Matrix called the Amplified Panatropic Computation Net, so that none of his experience would be lost. They then made bio-data extracts of every living Time Lord, color-coded by their chapter, to be kept on file within the Matrix as well. [22] It was decided that the sitting President of the High Council would have direct access to the Matrix through a cybernetic coronet, in order to help him rule more effectively. [23] However, absolute power began to affect Rassilon’s judgment as the centuries passed, and he began researching the only discovery that could outstrip the realization of time travel: the power to have one’s thoughts transform reality itself. An early test proved successful, the Coronet of Rassilon allowing him to control the minds of others. To cover up the nature of his research, Rassilon made a public display of creating his own tomb out of the long-abandoned Dark Tower within the Death Zone, all the while hoping to achieve immortality. Paranoid that others might seek immortality as well, Rassilon laid a complex trap to lure in and dispose of any who would seek to live forever themselves. [24] He also had a trusted associate create a De-Mat Gun, a dematerialization ray, powered by the Great Key itself. [25] His inner circle became concerned that Rassilon would want such a powerful weapon built, and they began to quietly investigate Rassilon’s research. They were dismayed when they discovered the nature of his experiments, and how far along he was in achieving his goal. They alerted the rest of the High Council, who deposed the now insane Rassilon and shut him up in his tomb in perpetual suspended animation. However, the High Council believed his inner circle knew too much, and they turned on them as well. However, Rassilon’s inner circle managed to escape, vanishing without a trace. To prevent future Presidents from gaining absolute power, it was decided that the Great Key would be hidden, the secret of its whereabouts charged to each successive Chancellor of the High Council. [26]

The truth of Rassilon’s fate was hidden as well, becoming the stuff of rumor. Officially, he was a hero to his people, and many of his personal items became revered artifacts, [27] such as the Sash, the Scepter, the Great Key, and his book The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey, which was stored in the Panopticon Archives. [28] The remote stellar manipulator was named the Hand of Omega, though it was eventually lost and nearly forgotten. His final research was collected and locked away, and would come to be known as the Black Scrolls of Rassilon. [29] Eons then passed as the Time Lords went about observing the cosmos. But the systems laid down by Rassilon allowed a creeping corruption that deepened over time, and the deceit and clandestine outrages committed by the High Council worsened, as is often the result of social engineering. Eventually, the High Council came under the leadership of Lord President Morbius.

During this time, another Time Lord named Salyavin found that he possessed the unique ability to project his mind into other minds. Not content with the mundane existence on Gallifrey, he decided to seek personal power, and developed a reputation for style, flair, and panache. [30] He finally unearthed the legendary Hand of Omega, intent on using it as a devastating weapon, similar to the doomsday device of the planet Uxarieus. [31] Salyavin was ultimately defeated and imprisoned on the planet Shada. However, possession of the Hand of Omega soon corrupted Morbius as well. He became a ruthless tyrant with a band of fanatical followers. He also formed a personal army of unscrupulous mercenaries and laid waste to several planets. Believing that the Sisterhood of Karn could grant him immortality, Morbius attacked and devastated the planet, wiping out the entire civilization. The Sisterhood survived, however, due to the last-minute intervention of the other Time Lords, who finally defeated Morbius and had him executed, placing his body in a dispersal chamber to be atomized. [32] These events led a group of Time Lords to reject their own society completely, and they ventured out into the untamed wilderness of outer Gallifrey to live a simple, tribal existence, calling themselves the Shobogans. [33]

Some time later, a young Time Lord would arrive on the scene who would one day call himself the Doctor. He belonged to the Pyrdonian chapter, and as such attended the Pyrdon Academy of Time, [34] after spending some of his youth in the mountains outside the Citadel. [35] At the Academy he met a disaffected mathematical genius who would eventually call himself the Master, [36] an overzealous neurochemistry student who would one day be exiled to the planet Miasimia Goria where she would adopt the title of the Rani, [37] a jovial technical whiz named Drax, [38] and a fatuous brownnoser named Roncible. [39] He would be taught idealism by Azmael [40] and pragmatism by Borusa. [41] After graduation, he remained active in Time Lord politics, feeling they had a moral duty to use their power to be a force for good in the cosmos, rather than passive observers. He made friends with an up-and-coming Time Lord named Hedin, [42] and a communications expert named Damon. [43] He also became very close to a young female who would eventually call herself Susan. [44] When the Doctor was 236 years old, [45] a crisis arose as the sitting Lord President of the High Council decided to use the Hand of Omega to prevent any other civilization from developing time-travel technology, and thus pose a potential threat to the dominion of the Time Lords of Gallifrey. The Doctor and the Master, still best friends, decided the time had come to take decisive action. They hatched a plan to steal the Hand of Omega and hide it away forever. They were successful in gaining possession of the device, but at the crucial moment, the Master betrayed the Doctor, wanting to use the weapon for his own ends. The two allies turned on each other, and the Master was captured by the Chancellery Guard. The Doctor, however, managed to steal an obsolete Type 40 time capsule from a repair bay, and he and Susan took the Hand of Omega away from Gallifrey. The Time Lords pursued them, able to track the Hand of Omega on their scanners, and the Doctor and Susan led a fugitive existence for some time. Finally, on some unknown planet, the Doctor discovered a large metal box that, when he placed the Hand of Omega within it, shielded the device from the Time Lords’ scans. They next materialized on Earth in the year 1963 and resolved to stay a few months and catch their breath. [46] The Doctor made arrangements to have the box buried in a nearby churchyard, but when his time capsule was discovered by two human schoolteachers, they left Earth, and his arrangements had to be completed by his future self, some 700 years older. [47] The Hand of Omega was then returned to Gallifrey, and the Time Lords called off their manhunt.

The Doctor was eventually forced to contact the Time Lords, however, and the Time Lord Tribunal arrested him, tried him, and sentenced him to exile on the planet Earth. [48] The Tribunal periodically enlisted the Doctor’s help in certain matters, both before and after his exile was remanded. The Tribunal granted him his freedom after he saved Gallifrey from Omega, seeking revenge from the anti-matter universe. [49] Also, the High Council found it useful to allow the Doctor to intervene in unjust situations on an unofficial basis, to keep opposition to the non-interference policy to a minimum. The Doctor and the Master both returned to Gallifrey on opposite sides of a plot to assassinate the Lord President of the High Council. The Master was driven off, but not before his tampering with the Eye of Harmony left half the Capitol in ruins, with countless lives lost. [50] The Doctor later returned to Gallifrey to defeat an invasion attempt by the Sontarans. [51] Omega made a second attempt to leave the anti-matter universe, forcing the High Council to bring the Doctor back to Gallifrey, where he discovered his old friend Hedin was acting on Omega’s behalf, believing the Time Lords owed him more than to leave him trapped in a state of semi-existence. [52] Still later, Borusa proved to have gone insane as well, and like others before him, sought the secret of immortality. He reactivated the Death Zone by patching it in to the Eye of Harmony, causing a tremendous power drain, and then used the Time Scoop to collect the first five of the Doctor’s incarnations to unravel the secrets of the Tomb of Rassilon for him. Borusa fell into Rassilon’s trap, however, and his life-force was absorbed into the tomb itself. [53]

The Doctor’s presence on Gallifrey becoming more frequent, the High Council feared his investigative nature would lead him to uncover more of their corruption, which had reached new heights under the presidency of Borusa. They therefore rigged another trial, hoping to put the Doctor out of the way once and for all, and to act as prosecutor, they enlisted an entity calling himself the Valeyard, [54] who was finally revealed to be some strange amalgam of the Doctor’s own darker thoughts, drawn from near the end of his life. Acting from his own motives, the Master revealed the nature of this conspiracy, at which point insurrection broke out on Gallifrey and the High Council was summarily deposed. [55] This scandal almost certainly led to a revision of the constitution and the formation of a new, more accountable government for the Time Lords.

_________________________________

[1] 15.3 “Image of the Fendahl.”
[2] 13.5 “The Brain of Morbius.”
[3] 20.7 “The Five Doctors.”
[4] 18.4 “State of Decay.”
[5] 25.3 “Silver Nemesis.”
[6] 18.4 “State of Decay.”
[7] 25.1 “Remembrance of the Daleks.”
[8] 14.5 “The Robots of Death.”
[9] 10.1 “The Three Doctors.”
[10] 14.3 “The Deadly Assassin.”
[11] 15.3 “Image of the Fendahl.”
[12] 17.6 “Shada.”
[13] 14.3 “The Deadly Assassin.”
[14] ibid.
[15] 15.6 “The Invasion of Time.”
[16] 18.4 “State of Decay.”
[17] 15.5 “Underworld.”
[18] 14.3 “The Deadly Assassin.”
[19] 12.4 “Genesis of the Daleks.”
[20] 15.6 “The Invasion of Time.”
[21] 1.7 “The Sensorites.”
[22] 14.3 “The Deadly Assassin.”
[23] 15.6 “The Invasion of Time.”
[24] 20.7 “The Five Doctors.”
[25] 15.6 “The Invasion of Time.”
[26] ibid.
[27] 14.3 “The Deadly Assassin.”
[28] 17.6 “Shada.”
[29] 20.7 “The Five Doctors.”
[30] 17.6 “Shada.”
[31] 8.3 “Colony in Space.”
[32] 13.5 “The Brain of Morbius.”
[33] 15.6 “The Invasion of Time.”
[34] 14.3 “The Deadly Assassin.”
[35] 9.5 “The Time Monster.”
[36] 9.3 “The Sea Devils.”
[37] 24.1 “Time and the Rani.”
[38] 16.6 “The Armageddon Factor”
[39] 14.3 “The Deadly Assassin.”
[40] 21.7 “The Twin Dilemma.”
[41] 14.3 “The Deadly Assassin.”
[42] 20.1 “Arc of Infinity.”
[43] ibid.
[44] 1.1 “An Unearthly Child.”
[45] 16.2 “The Pirate Planet.”
[46] 1.1 “An Unearthly Child.”
[47] 25.1 “Remembrance of the Daleks.”
[48] 6.7 “The War Games.”
[49] 10.1 “The Three Doctors.”
[50] 14.3 “The Deadly Assassin.”
[51] 15.6 “The Invasion of Time.”
[52] 20.1 “Arc of Infinity.”
[53] 20.7 “The Five Doctors.”
[54] 23.1 “The Mysterious Planet.”
[55] 23.4 “The Ultimate Foe.”

Next: A Brief History of the Master

OMU: Hulk -- Year One

The Incredible Hulk was a flop. I’m not talking about Ang Lee’s recent film – which, though it disappointed many studio executives, actually went on to do quite well – nor do I mean the Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno television series of the late 1970s – early 1980s, which garnered respectable ratings for most of its run. I’m talking about the original comic book series, which was ignominiously cancelled after just one year. The second of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s new line of superhero comics, it featured a grim, prickly scientist who transformed into a bad-tempered anti-social monstrous brute. Initially conceived as a cross between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Frankenstein, the series never seemed to get out of the experimental phase, as Lee and Kirby – and later, Steve Ditko – constantly tinkered with the premise to try to find a workable formula.

As a result, the overarching storyline of the Hulk’s earliest adventures is rather full of holes, many of which have never been closely analyzed or explained. The process of sorting it all out is greatly helped by plugging everything into a chronological timeline, for here some previously-unnoticed gaps in the character’s history become apparent, and the relationship between the various stories becomes a little clearer. Also, perhaps more than many other characters, the Hulk’s origin is tied in to the historical context of the Cold War nuclear arms race, and the story suffers when taken out of that setting. Thus, studying the first year of the Hulk’s existence in terms of the Original Marvel Universe reveals a great deal of behind-the-scenes detail.


Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding forward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale.) Some information presented on the timeline is speculative and some is based on historical accounts. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.


Now, in unprecedented detail... The True History of the Incredible Hulk!


January 1962 – Dr. Robert Bruce Banner readies the Gamma Bomb Project for testing at the top-secret Desert Base military installation in northern Catron County, New Mexico. However, Banner’s research assistant, Igor Starsky, is a Russian spy. The base commander, General Thaddeus E. Ross, nicknamed “Thunderbolt,” is impatient for the tests to get underway, but Banner is very cagey and secretive. The general’s daughter, Betty Ross, admires Banner, but has not yet been able to determine if he is interested in her. The gamma bomb test will be America’s first atmospheric nuclear detonation since 1958, and there is interest in the project at the highest levels.

Early February 1962 – Moments before the gamma bomb is to be detonated, Bruce Banner spots an old jalopy driving onto the test range. Telling Starsky to delay the test, Banner grabs a jeep and sets off to warn the intruder away. However, the murderous spy does nothing, and the bomb explodes. Having gotten the intruder, a rebellious local teenager named Rick Jones, into a protective trench, Banner takes the full brunt of the nuclear blast, and is bathed in wave after wave of powerful gamma radiation. As a mutagenic change is triggered in his cellular structure, something deep inside Banner’s mind breaks free.

Heedless of his own safety, Rick Jones drags Banner to the jeep and drives him back to the base, where they are both taken to the base infirmary. As night falls hours later, Banner is transformed into a hulking gray-skinned brute. He terrorizes the base all night, and is named “the Hulk” by the soldiers. Returning to Banner’s quarters, the Hulk discovers Starsky ransacking the place and pulverizes him. Then, at first light of dawn he changes back into Bruce Banner.

The soldiers take Starsky into custody, but he manages to transmit a report to his superiors in the Soviet Union through a concealed miniature radio. He will be brought up on espionage charges, tried, convicted, and sentenced to a long prison term. Meanwhile, the soldiers spend the day searching the surrounding area for any sign of the Hulk.

The next night, Banner changes into the Hulk again and frightens Betty Ross. However, he and Rick are kidnapped by the deformed Soviet scientist called the Gargoyle and taken to Russia. When the jet lands, it is daylight, and so Bruce Banner emerges instead of the Hulk. Banner agrees to help the Gargoyle become normal again using an experimental gamma ray treatment.

During the process, Banner is accidentally exposed to another massive dose of gamma rays, further altering his cellular structure. Now when he changes into the Hulk, his skin becomes green instead of gray.

The grateful Gargoyle sends Banner and Rick back to the United States in a special passenger missile. They are ejected before the missile crashes into the Gulf of Mexico and parachute down into the swamps of Louisiana. Each night, Banner transforms into the Hulk and goes on a rage-fueled rampage as he and Rick make their way back to New Mexico.

Mid February 1962 – Banner and Rick finally return to Desert Base, and General Ross is suspicious of Banner’s disappearance. Banner is checked out by the base’s medical staff, and it is confirmed that he is suffering from an unknown form of radiation poisoning. Banner quickly creates the ideal prison for the Hulk in a cavern underneath a nearby lake, outfitting it with a huge vault door.

While they are checking the hastily-installed vault, Banner and Rick are kidnapped by agents of a Tribbitite invasion fleet. The Tribbitite Empire believes it can succeed where the Skrulls have failed and score a tactical advantage. Aboard the space ship, Banner transforms into the Hulk as they pass over the dark side of the planet. The Hulk subdues the crew and considers using the advanced weaponry to attack the human race. However, a missile assault by the American military causes the ship to crash. It is still daylight where the ship lands, and the soldiers find Bruce Banner aboard. He is arrested and taken in for questioning. No aliens are found in the ship, as they managed to tunnel their way out before being discovered. They signal their fleet and the full-scale invasion begins. The Tribbitite king appears in a worldwide broadcast and announces that they are altering the moon’s orbit to cause it to crash into the earth. As night falls, Banner changes into the Hulk and busts out of prison. He goes on a rampage, attacking the soldiers and wrecking General Ross’ house. He kidnaps Betty and takes her to Banner’s lab, where Rick confronts him. The Hulk is about to kill Rick when a Tribbitite-caused earthquake strikes, demolishing the house and knocking them all unconscious. The sun rises before they wake up and the Hulk becomes Banner again. Hurriedly, Banner uses his experimental gamma ray weapon to repel the invasion fleet. The government convinces the public that the invasion was a hoax. All charges against Banner are quietly dropped. By nightfall, the Hulk is sealed in his vault deep inside the cave.

Mid April 1962 – Weeks pass and most nights the Hulk is imprisoned. Occasionally, though, Banner transforms before he can get to the cave and the Hulk goes on a rampage until dawn. Finally, General Ross convinces Rick to lure the Hulk into a rocket for a “test flight.” Rick does so, and the Hulk is launched into space. The rays of the sun transform him back into Bruce Banner, who is then bombarded with radiation in the unshielded capsule. Realizing he’s been tricked, Rick sabotages the controls, causing the capsule to separate from the rocket before reaching escape velocity. As dawn breaks, the capsule plummets to earth, crashing in the desert near the base. Rick fears that Banner has been killed, but, to his surprise, the Hulk emerges, stronger than ever. However, the Hulk has now fallen under Rick’s total mental domination. Exhausted, Rick soon learns that if he falls asleep, the Hulk will go on a mindless rampage. The vault door was wrecked when Rick freed the Hulk earlier, so he manages to stay awake all night. The next morning, Rick goes to his aunt’s house in the nearby town of Quemado to wash up and get something to eat.

That afternoon, Rick falls victim to the Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime, which has been on a looting spree throughout the Southwest recently, pursued by two FBI agents. They have been hitting towns along Route 60, planning to soon turn south and head for Mexico. However, Rick summons the Hulk, who busts the place up. The two manage to escape when the soldiers arrive to capture the Hulk. The FBI agents arrest the Ringmaster and his cronies.

Early June 1962 – The Hulk has not changed back into Bruce Banner since being launched into space six weeks ago, remaining under Rick’s mental control. Whenever Rick falls asleep, the Hulk terrorizes the countryside. Wandering west, the Hulk busts up a movie shoot, and even reaches Los Angeles before Rick, placed under arrest by the military police for Banner’s disappearance, summons him back. The Hulk rescues Rick and they return to Banner’s secret lab in the underground caverns. Rick bombards Hulk with gamma rays and he changes back into Bruce Banner at last. Banner has a brainstorm while semi-conscious and sets the machine so that he will retain his intelligence while in the Hulk’s body. However, his inhibitions are gone and his hostility keeps increasing while the Hulk. Now subjecting himself to regular doses of gamma radiation, he no longer changes at sunrise and sunset. His strength continues to increase with each exposure.

Then, the Soviets try to recapture the Hulk after piecing together what happened in the Gargoyle’s lab four months ago. They lure the Hulk into a trap posing as an alien invader. The now more-intelligent Hulk sees through the scheme and defeats them, but ends up getting blamed for the hoax.

Late June 1962 – With the Hulk now more or less under control. Banner continues his research. General Ross continues to push for new Hulk-busting weapons. Then, Betty Ross is kidnapped by the subterranean ceasar called Tyrannus and taken to his underground domain. The Hulk follows to rescue her, but is forced to work as Tyrannus’ slave for several days while Betty is held hostage. Finally, with Rick’s help, Betty is rescued and the Hulk seals Tyrannus in as they escape to the surface. Betty goes into shock and blocks the entire episode from her conscious mind. It takes her a month to fully recover.

Early July 1962 – Banner continues to change into the Hulk by gamma ray bombardment, reveling in his strength and power. He is almost captured by General Ross and his Hulk-busting weapons, but the Hulk has become too powerful. Hearing a radio report that the Communist warlord known as General Fang is threatening a Tibetan monastery, Banner decides the Hulk will put a stop to it. He and Rick travel to Tibet by way of Formosa and China, battling the Red Chinese Army as they go. Arriving in Tibet, they defeat General Fang and his troops, leaving him marooned on the island of Formosa, alone and hunted by American troops stationed there. The Hulk and Rick return to the U.S. aboard a cargo freighter.

Mid July 1962 – The military is on full alert for the Hulk after hearing of his attack on the Red Army in China. General Ross decides to bring in the world-famous adventurers the Fantastic Four. As they arrive at Desert Base, Bruce Banner and Reed Richards meet for the first time. The Hulk is being blamed for various acts of sabotage, but Rick discovers that the real saboteur is Banner’s new assistant, Dr. Karl Kort, a Communist spy. Attempting to rescue Rick, the Hulk has an inconclusive battle with the Fantastic Four. Then, the F.F. capture Kort, destroy his wrecking robot, and rescue Rick. The Hulk retreats to his lair and changes himself back to Banner. The F.F. are treated to full military honors before returning to New York.

Late July 1962 – Desert Base is attacked by a lone alien invader calling himself the Metal Master, who possesses the psionic ability to manipulate metallic atoms. The Hulk battles him, but the Metal Master knocks him out. The Hulk is finally captured by the military and imprisoned. The Metal Master then wreaks havoc around the globe while the Fantastic Four are off in space. Meanwhile, Rick and his gang of pals from Quemado form the Teen Brigade, a network of ham radio enthusiasts. The Hulk escapes his specially-designed cell, returns to his underground lab and changes himself back to Bruce Banner by more gamma ray bombardment. Banner and Rick quickly hatch a plan to defeat the Metal Master, with the help of the Teen Brigade. They assemble a mock weapon of non-metallic parts, which the Hulk takes to Washington D.C., where he challenges the Metal Master. The alien falls for the trick, and the Hulk intimidates him into undoing all the damage he caused and leaving the Earth. Thanks largely to the Teen Brigade, the Hulk’s role in the Metal Master’s defeat is made public, which even earns the Hulk a full pardon from President John F. Kennedy. Banner then returns to work, claiming to have been on a retreat in Bermuda the whole time. Although General Ross is suspicious, it is acknowledged that Banner has been ill since the gamma bomb explosion. Bruce Banner and Betty Ross finally begin to really date each other, as Banner now believes he has the Hulk under control, and for the next six or seven weeks, he resists the urge to transform himself.

Late September 1962 – Banner finally succumbs to temptation, and the Hulk is once again seen bounding around the desert. However, the Hulk is tricked by the Asgardian god Loki into wrecking a train trestle, and is blamed for trying to destroy the train. Worried, Rick Jones tries to use the Teen Brigade to contact the Fantastic Four, but Loki diverts the broadcast to Thor, hoping to draw him into battle with the Hulk. Unbeknownst to Loki, Iron Man, Ant-Man, and the Wasp also receive the message, and the four superheroes converge on the Teen Brigade’s headquarters in Quemado, New Mexico. The adventurers soon discover the Hulk hiding out at a traveling circus, pretending to be a robot. They attack him and the audience panics when they realize “Mechano” is really the monstrous Hulk. While Iron Man, Ant-Man, and the Wasp fight with the Hulk, Thor defeats Loki and reveals his trickery. The superheroes decide to band together as a team, which the Wasp names “the Avengers.” With Ant-Man, Iron Man, and Thor to vouch for him, the Hulk is cleared of any wrongdoing.

October 1962 – The Hulk and Rick Jones come to New York City with the Avengers and participate, perhaps halfheartedly, as the Avengers set up shop in Tony Stark’s Fifth Avenue mansion, doing organizational work and figuring out their by-laws in a series of meetings, as well as negotiating with the government for special “Avengers Priority” security clearance. Far away from his gamma ray bombardment machine, the Hulk finds he has no way to change back into Bruce Banner as, after months of regular exposure to gamma radiation, his body has become dependent on it.

Early November 1962 – At their first meeting for the month, the Avengers are goaded into fighting each other by the alien shape-changer known as the Space Phantom. The alien first impersonates the Hulk, thereby sending the real Hulk into the dimension called Limbo. Later, the impostor attacks Iron Man at Stark Industries, then switches out and lets the real Hulk and Iron Man fight. However, the Space Phantom is seen taking Giant-Man’s form and his secret is revealed. A huge fight breaks out in Stark’s weapons factory, and the Space Phantom is finally defeated when he tries to take Thor’s form, but is thrown into Limbo himself. Disgusted at the way the others have treated him, the Hulk angrily quits the team.

Mid November 1962 – The Hulk returns to New Mexico, and Rick soon follows. He finds the Hulk and convinces him to return to his hidden lab in the cave. There, Rick gets him in front of the gamma ray bombardment machine and the Hulk becomes Bruce Banner again at last. However, repeated exposure to gamma radiation has further altered Banner’s cellular structure, and his transformation is now triggered by his stress level and the release of adrenaline. Tossing and turning in his bed, Banner’s stress and anxiety cause him to soon turn back into the Hulk. He smashes out of the secret lab and heads off into the desert. The Hulk’s personality is gradually separating itself from Banner’s again, and as it does so, the Hulk will lose much of his intelligence. This process will take about two months.

Rick summons the Avengers and they are soon battling the Hulk in the desert. However, the Hulk escapes on an eastbound train, then in a truck that dumps him into a river which carries him into the Gulf of Mexico. For days, the Hulk swims out into the Atlantic Ocean until he is exhausted. He is rescued by a passing freighter, but he soon abandons the ship when he spots a small deserted island. Swimming ashore, the Hulk is met by the Sub-Mariner. Namor convinces the Hulk to join him in an attack on the human race, and they form an uneasy alliance. They challenge the Avengers to a fight on the Rock of Gibraltar. The two super-powered misanthropes ambush the heroes, and the fight is going well for them until the stress and excitement unexpectedly causes the Hulk to change back into Bruce Banner. He flees the scene before anyone sees him.

Late November 1962 – Banner transforms into the Hulk and makes his way back to New Mexico. His changes come more frequently, and he does not yet understand what triggers them. After many days, he returns to his secret underground lab, but the Hulk smashes every bit of equipment within. Then, he decides to return to New York and take revenge on the Avengers. He goes on a rampage in Manhattan and is opposed by the Fantastic Four. The Hulk and the Thing have their first epic battle. However, the Thing gets tired out and the Hulk goes and attacks the Avengers in their headquarters. The battle soon moves to a skyscraper construction site as the Hulk confronts Rick Jones about his apparent “betrayal.” As the battle rages on with both the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, Rick finally gets the Hulk to swallow a gamma ray treated capsule which Banner had given him for emergencies. The Hulk dives into the East River, turns back into Bruce Banner, and drifts away.

Mid December 1962 – After a couple of weeks, Bruce Banner manages to make it back to New Mexico and tries to explain away his many long and sudden disappearances as due to his radiation sickness. He discovers his destroyed laboratory and slowly begins replacing some of the equipment with pieces he has stored in other caves in the area. Betty Ross is happy to have him back, but General Ross has a new problem to deal with. A strange, growing rock is pushing up through the ground and causing damage by emitting powerful sonic blasts. Ross assigns Banner to study the phenomenon, but the Avengers soon arrive and take over. They discover the rock is a weapon being used by the subterranean Lava Men. During the subsequent battle, the stress causes Banner to change into the Hulk again, and the Hulk immediately attacks the Avengers. However, they trick him into destroying the growing rock. The resultant implosion stuns the Hulk and he staggers off into the desert and collapses, turning back into Banner. Betty Ross soon finds him and brings him back to the base. Rick returns to New York with the Avengers and Banner gets back to work on his research.

Late December 1962 -- Banner continues to change into the Hulk whenever he gets too stressed out, and wanders the desert with increasing paranoia. A week or so after the battle with the Avengers, the Hulk is hiding in a network of caves when he encounters Spider-Man. Thinking Spider-Man has come to capture him, the Hulk attacks and drives him off.


Notes:

January 1962 -- There had been a moratorium on above-ground nuclear testing for several years at this point, which I think significantly ups the ante for Banner’s project. In the real world, such testing did resume later in 1962.

Early February 1962 -- It is never adequately explained why the Hulk appears gray the first two times he transforms, and then is green thereafter. The “Gray Hulk” was for decades written off as a printer’s error, until being brought back into continuity during John Byrne’s brief run on the book in the mid-1980s, going on to replace the “Green Hulk” for several years. I like the idea that something actually caused the change to occur, and since he was messing around with radiation in the Gargoyle’s lab, it is a sensible deduction that it occurred then. Reading the Hulk’s early adventures, it soon becomes clear that the gamma bomb explosion was only the first step towards creating the Hulk as he came to be known. It actually took repeated exposures to gamma radiation for the popular “Hulk smash!” incarnation to emerge. Upon returning from Russia in the Gargoyle’s “passenger missile,” the Hulk is next seen in a swamp, though how he and Rick got there is never made clear. Hence, I assume the missile actually landed in the Gulf of Mexico. The Hulk would have first come to the public’s attention during this trek from Louisiana back to New Mexico. General Ross and company might not have realized at first that these scattered reports of a “green monster” heading west are describing the same brute they are searching for.

Mid-February 1962 -- Although, strangely, it is never exploited in the comics, the simple fact that Banner was caught in the gamma bomb explosion serves as an all-purpose excuse for his subsequent bizarre behavior and frequent disappearances. The fact that he had some unknown form of radiation “poisoning” would be unlikely to arouse anyone’s suspicion that he and the Hulk were one and the same, since none of the other characters were even aware that the Hulk had an alter-ego. No one besides Rick knew what he was or where he had come from, until much later. The timeline makes clear that the Tribbitite – or “Toad Men” – invasion follows only about a month after the Skrulls attempted to invade the planet in Fantastic Four #2.

Mid-April 1962 -- The pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo that Stan Lee employs to explain Rick’s mental domination over the Hulk is unnecessary. It is more likely that it was merely that Rick was the first person the Hulk encountered upon emerging from the crashed space capsule. In his peculiar mental state, the Hulk could have fallen under anyone’s sway. If one of General Ross’s soldiers had gotten there first, the Hulk’s history might have been very different, indeed. The town where Rick was living was never named, but the Marvel Atlas Project gives the general location of Desert Base, and there aren’t too many towns in that area of New Mexico. Of the contenders, Quemado had the best-sounding name. Likewise, a look at a map of the area makes the Ringmaster’s plans more apparent. What else would he be doing out in the middle of nowhere?

Mid-July 1962 -- The Hulk’s first major crossover appearance, in Fantastic Four #12.

Late July 1962 -- From the last issue of the Hulk’s original series, Incredible Hulk #6. The only other heroes who could have opposed the Metal Master were the Fantastic Four, but they were on their week-long trip to the moon and back, as seen in Fantastic Four #13. I’ve speculated on how Banner would excuse his absences to General Ross in order to keep his security clearance. Things quiet down around Desert Base in the hiatus between the end of the Hulk’s series and his appearance in Avengers #1, and Banner has time to get back in the General’s good graces, as well as to get to know Betty. However, Banner’s fatal flaw during this period is that the raw power of the Hulk is just too seductive, and like any nuclear scientist, he is arrogant enough to believe he can keep that power under control.

October 1962 -- The admittedly-rather-boring organizational period of the Avengers was never detailed in any canonical story, but the presence of both the Hulk and Rick, as the more serious-minded heroes do all the drudge work of getting an official super-team off the ground, might make for an amusing character-driven anecdote. Obviously, Iron Man and Ant-Man were the driving forces behind the writing of the Avengers’ charter and by-laws.

Mid-December 1962 -- This takes us up to Avengers #5.

Late December 1962 -- The Hulk makes a surprise appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #14.


OMU Note: The Hulk’s final canonical appearance was in Hulk #377.


Next Issue: The Incredible Hulk, Year Two!

Tony Television is Family Television

As we all know, Sunday night is family TV time, and nowhere more so than at the Tony Television Network! That’s why we’ve put together three family-friendly shows, which are still so daring and inventive that the competition will hang their heads in shame!



8:00 – OUR WHOLESOME FRONTIER. Tom Wopat and Stephanie Zimbalist star in this heartwarming period drama about the trials and travails of a pioneer family who leave Baltimore and resettle in Angel’s Wing, Utah. Joining parents Jonah and Abigail are their three children, Timothy (Matthew Lawrence), Constance (Angela Featherstone), and Mary (Scarlett Pomers), as well as crusty old Grandpa (R. Lee Ermey). Upon arriving in their new home, they learn valuable life lessons from reformed drunkard Reverend O’Hooley (Reed Diamond), crafty Prospector Bill (John Collum) and cranky Mrs. Applebottom (Sharon Gless).


9:00 – SENIOR SLEUTH. Hal Linden returns to TV as retired psychology professor Randall Peterson, who turns to solving murders to alleviate the boredom of retirement. Florence Henderson stars as his wife, Florence, and Antonio Sabato, Jr. as his “right-hand man” Lance Parsons. William Katt also appears as Santa Gloria District Attorney Timothy Justice.


10:00 – TEX ARCANA: COWBOY SORCERER. Lee Horsley stars as a mystical gunslinger who uses the forces of magic to bring law and order to the Old West. He is joined by a transplanted New York banker played by Paul Provenza and a mysterious talking horse. In the pilot, they prevent an unscrupulous cattle baron (John Beck) from tearing down a small community church.


You want a positive and uplifting end to the week? Watch the Tony Television Network!!!


Previous: More Tony Television

Next: Tony Television Gets Real

OMU: Black Widow

One of my favorite characters from the Original Marvel Universe was always the Black Widow, partly for her flowing red hair and sexy black catsuit, and partly because her backstory was fascinatingly complex and intriguing. A former Soviet spy turned high-tech crimefighter, she moved in and out of other characters’ titles, appearing at times in Avengers, Champions, Daredevil, and Marvel Team-Up. She only rarely was granted solo stories. Her history was like a jigsaw puzzle, its pieces scattered all over the place. Thus, she made an attractive figure for chronological analysis. As I was constructing my Black Widow Chronology, I was excited to see several “untold tales” presenting themselves, as noted below.

The Black Widow’s backstory has unfortunately not been clearly laid out to date, stemming from an error made in her entry in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. It was stated that “her first major field assignment was to infiltrate Stark Industries in the United States and to assist her partner Boris Turgenov in the assassination of the defector Professor Anton Vanko.” While this was certainly her first published appearance, it had previously been established (in various comics) that she had undertaken major field assignments long before this. By the time she and Turgenov went to Stark Industries, she was a seasoned agent. This error has since been cut-and-pasted all over the Internet and a major portion of her career has therefore been obfuscated.

Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding forward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale.) Some information presented on the timeline is speculative and some is based on historical accounts. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.


Here, then, at long last -- The True History of the Black Widow!


1934 – Natalia Alianovna Romanova is born in Stalingrad, U.S.S.R.

Late August 1942 – During the battle of Stalingrad, Natalia’s house is bombed and catches fire. Unable to escape, her mother drops Natalia off the balcony into the arms of a Russian soldier. The house collapses immediately after and all inside are killed.

Autumn 1942 – The soldier, Ivan Petrovich Bezukhov, keeps the young girl with him throughout the siege. Together they face grim conditions and experience the horrors of war firsthand. Natalia’s entire world is destroyed in fire and smoke. Ivan and the other soldiers call the girl by the nickname “Natasha.”

Winter 1943 – The German army is defeated and driven from Stalingrad. Picking through the rubble of Natasha’s home, Ivan Petrovich discovers she is descended from the Russian royal family, the Romanoffs.

Spring 1943 – Natalia Alianovna and Ivan Petrovich find themselves on the island of Madripoor, where the girl is kidnapped by Nazi agent Baron Wolfgang von Strucker. Ivan is able to rescue her with the help of Captain America and Logan. They return to Russia.

Summer 1943 – Ivan enrolls Natasha in the Leningrad State Choreographic School, the oldest and most prestigious ballet academy in Russia. He visits her whenever he is able, depending on his service in the Soviet army.

Spring 1945 – The war ends, and Ivan Petrovich is discharged from the military. His aptitude with electronics enables him to secure a position at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, and he becomes even more of a father figure to Natasha. She shows tremendous promise in ballet, and excels in all her subjects.

1947 – Natasha studies under the legendary ballet instructor Agrippina Vaganova, which she considers to be a great honor. She develops an especially close relationship with another teacher, the prima ballerina Oksana Bolishinko, and comes to look upon her as a mother figure. Ivan Petrovich Bezukhov marries a pretty blonde named Galina, although she and Natasha never become close.

1948 – Ivan’s son Yuri Ivanovich Bezukhov is born in Leningrad. Natasha is at first resentful, but soon comes to see him as her baby brother.

1951 – Upon the death of Agrippina Vaganova, Oksana Bolishinko takes charge of the ballet school. Natasha is her top student.

1952 – Natasha falls madly in love with a brilliant college student named Andrei Rostov, and it is to him that she loses her virginity. She struggles to make time in her hectic ballet schedule for their relationship.

1953 – Natalia Romanova graduates and becomes a professional ballerina in the famous Kirov Ballet company, garnering accolades for her gifted performances. She quickly becomes a source of pride to the Soviet establishment, and a celebrity in the world of ballet. Meanwhile, Ivan is contacted by two men he believes to be American agents, who attempt to bribe him into defecting to the West, arguing that Stalin’s recent death heralds the end of Communism. Ivan throws the money in their faces and says he is loyal to his country, despite its flaws. In retaliation, the agents murder Ivan’s wife and abduct his son, whom Ivan eventually decides must be dead as well. In truth, the “American agents” are Soviet military intelligence, and they take Yuri to an installation in East Berlin, where he is brought up to hate his “American” captors and all they seem to represent.

1954 – Natasha’s relationship with Andrei Rostov becomes strained as he has difficulty dealing with her newfound fame. Although they had talked of marriage, Rostov insists Natasha give up the ballet to be his wife, which she is unwilling to do. Rostov becomes jealous after Natasha develops a friendship with the handsome Soviet flying ace Alexi Shostakov, who is already considered a hero to the Russian people and understands the pressures of being famous. Ultimately, Natasha breaks up with Rostov and takes Shostakov as her lover.

1955 – Natalia Romanova marries Alexi Shostakov and they become something of a celebrity couple. As Natalia Shostakova, she continues to delight audiences with the Kirov Ballet, though she remains haunted by her wartime experiences.

1957 – KGB director Ivan Serov decides that the Shostakovs would make excellent operatives. Natasha is told that her husband has been killed in an explosion caused by American sabotage. She vows to do whatever she can to honor her husband’s heroic memory. The KGB recruits her to be a spy. She retires from the ballet, bids farewell to Ivan Petrovich, and leaves Leningrad. At the KGB’s infamous Red Room training facility, Natasha meets another agent-in-training, Melina Vostokova. Although they first develop a friendly rivalry, it soon becomes clear that Melina can’t match Natasha’s natural talent. Recognizing that talent, master spy Alexi Bruskin takes Natasha under his wing and supervises her training personally.

Late 1958 – Natalia Romanova (using her maiden name once more, at the urging of the KGB) is sent on her first espionage mission outside the U.S.S.R. She meets an operative named Danny French at Los Angeles International Airport. They break into a secret installation in Nevada called Project Four. Their mission is a success, and they steal a mysterious sphere which the scientists had been working on. Natalia is then sent to upstate New York where she lives under the alias “Nancy Rushman,” a third-grade teacher. She succeeds with every mission the KGB gives her during the three years of this mission.

November 1961 – Natalia Romanova is now a top agent and new KGB director Vladimir Semichastny recalls her to Russia, where her service to the state is lavishly rewarded. She is given the code-name “BLACK WIDOW” and sent on various missions throughout the world. She usually passes as “Madam Natasha,” the former prima ballerina and wealthy daughter of the old Russian aristocracy. As an intelligence operative, she is devastatingly effective.

Early November 1962 – Alexi Bruskin stages a “rescue” of Yuri Ivanovich Bezukhov and returns him to Russia, where the boy continues his education, although he is permitted no contact with his father. His belief that his mother was murdered by American spies is encouraged, and his hatred for the West grows.

Mid-December 1962 – Madam Natasha is sent to Stark Industries in New York to assassinate the defector Anton Vanko and to steal secrets from Tony Stark, which brings her into conflict with Stark’s armored bodyguard Iron Man. Although Vanko is killed, so is Natasha’s partner in the operation, KGB hit man Boris Turgenov. Fearing the wrath of the KGB, Natasha goes into hiding for a few weeks.

Early January 1963 – Madam Natasha returns to Stark Industries and steals a new anti-gravity ray device. Iron Man foils her plan, but she escapes again.

Mid January 1963 – Natasha convinces her KGB superiors that she needs special resources to defeat a foe like Iron Man, and they agree to finance her plan to recruit one of the new breed of “super-villains.” While driving through New York City one evening, Natasha picks up a police broadcast concerning a masked archer who fled the scene of a jewel heist. Natasha comes upon the archer and helps him escape from the police. He is Clint Barton, who is starting his career as the costumed archer known as Hawkeye. Taking him to the laboratory-equipped mansion provided by the KGB, Natasha helps him develop some high-tech trick arrows and convinces him to attack Iron Man. However, Natasha is wounded in the fight and they escape. Natasha soon recovers from her injuries, and begins a torrid sexual relationship with Hawkeye, and he falls hopelessly under her spell. She convinces him that she is a rogue agent trying to maintain the balance of power between East and West, and that Stark’s advanced weaponry can only upset that balance, plunging the world into nuclear war. He agrees to help her.

Late January 1963 – Natasha convinces Hawkeye to break into Stark Industries. While he is out, however, Natasha is seized by Soviet agents and taken back to Russia.

February 1963 – Natasha begins training to become a costumed “super-agent.” She is given a new costume that enables her to climb walls, swing on a “widow’s line” and shock or kill opponents with an adjustable “widow’s bite” energy weapon. Her KGB handlers make it clear that if she fails again, she will be killed.

Late April 1963 – A desperate Black Widow returns to New York and tells Hawkeye a pack of lies, holds Stark employees Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts hostage, and draws Iron Man into battle again. Unfortunately, the Black Widow gets hurt and Hawkeye abandons the fight to rescue her.

Early May 1963 – The Black Widow is gunned down by Soviet agents for her repeated failures to defeat Iron Man and steal secrets from Stark Industries. She is badly wounded, but Hawkeye rushes her to the hospital and she survives.

Early June 1963 – Just as she’s about to be released from the hospital, Natasha is kidnapped by Red Chinese agents and taken to China, where she is brainwashed. For the first several weeks, Natasha is kept in chains, subjected to sleep deprivation and constant verbal abuse from her cellmates. Weakened by her stay in the hospital, her resistance soon begins to crumble.

Mid July 1963 – Natasha’s captors suddenly switch to more “lenient” treatment, but the slightest resistance warrants a return to the previous harsh treatment for a few days. Unable to withstand the round-the-clock thought control, Natasha eventually succumbs.

Mid-September 1963 – Her mental conditioning completed, the Black Widow is returned to New York to destroy the Avengers. She recruits the Swordsman and Power Man, as instructed. After a fierce battle in a remote chalet in the forests of Connecticut, the Avengers overpower them and they are forced to flee.

Early October 1963 – The Black Widow, Swordsman, and Power Man have a rematch with Hawkeye, but Natasha finally shakes off her conditioning and defeats her two cronies. Hawkeye and Natasha are truly reunited at last. They resume their tempestuous relationship.

November 1963 – Natasha is disturbed by the rhetoric of the Sons of the Serpent. She helps the Avengers discredit the group and reveal its leader to be a Communist agent. Then, Natasha is shocked by the assassination of President Kennedy, and fears the KGB may be behind it.

Mid-December 1963 – Natasha is furious when Hawkeye and the Avengers go off to fight the Living Laser in Costa Verde without her. She calls S.H.I.E.L.D. and talks to Nick Fury about working for him.

Early January 1964 – The Avengers object when Hawkeye puts the Black Widow up for membership. Nevertheless, she accompanies them to Transia where they battle Ixar and rescue Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. Natasha is instrumental in defeating Ixar aboard his flying saucer. Later, on her way to Avengers Mansion, Natasha is shanghaied by S.H.I.E.L.D. and taken to the Heli-Carrier. Natasha accepts a mission to Communist China and returns to Avengers Mansion to sever her ties with Hawkeye.

Mid-January 1964 – As part of her mission, the Black Widow breaks into a military base in Arizona and steals plans for a new atomic submarine. Then, she steals an experimental rocket plane from General “Thunderbolt” Ross in New Mexico. She returns to Red China to a secret weapons R&D installation in the western deserts. There, she is shown their secret weapon, the Psychotron. However, the Reds know she is a double agent and throw her into the machine and turn it on. She manages to resist its effects, but her escape attempt fails.

February 1964 – Natasha is held prisoner at the weapons base until Hawkeye and Hercules come to the rescue. Unfortunately, they are defeated by the Red Guardian. Natasha is shocked to learn that he is her husband, Alexi Shostakov, whom she thought dead these past seven years. The Black Widow passes a sophisticated lie-detector test and convinces her captors that she is a loyal Communist agent. However, the Avengers come to the rescue and Natasha seizes her chance to destroy the Psychotron. The Red Guardian is shot protecting her and mortally wounded. Then Natasha is shot as well and is badly wounded. The Red Guardian is killed when the base explodes, but the Avengers fly Natasha to a military hospital in Hawaii, where the doctors are able to save her life.

Late March 1964 – Natasha is finally released from the hospital in Hawaii, and returns to New York, having decided to give up her identity as the Black Widow. She and Hawkeye enjoy a wonderful night on the town with Hercules and the Scarlet Witch.

Early April 1964 – Natasha moves into the penthouse apartment on the 22nd floor of the Mammon Towers in Manhattan. She hires a Puerto Rican woman named Maria as her housekeeper. However, Natasha and Hawkeye soon have an argument, and she decides to take an extended vacation to California.

Late April 1964 – Natasha returns to New York to find the Avengers apparently killed, and the Black Panther is the prime suspect. He clears his name and rescues the Avengers from the Grim Reaper, the real culprit. Hawkeye and Natasha are reunited and reconciled. They attempt to rekindle their romance, but his feelings for her have since cooled.

July 1964 – Feeling neglected by Hawkeye, Natasha accepts a new assignment from S.H.I.E.L.D. and becomes the Black Widow again. She begins extensive S.H.I.E.L.D. field agent training. Under the auspices of S.H.I.E.L.D., Natasha is once again free to leave the country, and she begins to enjoy a lavish lifestyle as a member of the “jet-set,” making friends with people like Roman Polanski and Jackie Kennedy.

Early September 1964 – The Black Widow continues high-level S.H.I.E.L.D. training, working directly with Nick Fury. S.H.I.E.L.D. also replaces her Soviet-made wrist devices with more advanced versions.

Mid-September 1964 – The Black Widow is sent on a mission for S.H.I.E.L.D. to a small island in the Caribbean, where she infiltrates a high-tech facility that is producing killer androids for the Mad Thinker. Although Natasha sneaks into the main control room and gets the drop on the Thinker, she is overpowered by his android henchmen, gassed into unconsciousness, and taken prisoner.

Late September 1964 – The Black Widow is held prisoner by the Mad Thinker and his latest allies, the Puppet Master and Egghead. The three of them are hatching an elaborate scheme, and they transport Natasha to another facility in New York. Hawkeye, now using the identity of Goliath, comes to the rescue. After two days, the Black Widow and Goliath return to Avengers Mansion and meet Clint’s estranged brother Barney Barton. As the Avengers leave on a mission, Natasha goes to check in at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.

Mid-October 1964 – After completing a couple routine missions for S.H.I.E.L.D., Natasha receives word that Ivan Petrovich Bezukhov has been arrested by the KGB in retaliation for her defection to the West. Against Nick Fury’s orders, the Black Widow slips behind the Iron Curtain and rescues Ivan. They return to New York and Natasha, disgusted with the world of espionage, resigns from S.H.I.E.L.D. However, Nick Fury agrees to grant Ivan defector status and sets him up with papers under the name “John Peterson.” Natasha then goes to Avengers Mansion to finally break off her relationship with Clint Barton. Happy to be reunited at last, Ivan agrees to work as Natasha’s chauffeur and bodyguard, and moves into her posh penthouse apartment. He decides to drop his surname and merely go by the name Ivan Petrovich.

Late October 1964 – Natasha redesigns her costume, adopting a simple black catsuit, and tackles Spider-Man to test out her improvements. About a week later, the Black Widow assists her housekeeper’s son with setting up a free-breakfast program in Spanish Harlem, despite interference from a crooked politician and his cronies. A day or two later, on Halloween, Natasha is tricked by the Enchantress, who is posing as the Valkyrie, into joining an all-female group called the Liberators and attacking the male Avengers. After a fight at the Halloween parade in Rutland, Vermont, the Enchantress is unmasked, and the Black Widow and the Avengers return to New York.

November 1964 – Natasha continues her jet-set lifestyle as Ivan settles in to life in the United States. She continues intensive training while considering how to approach her new career as a crime-fighter.

December 1964 – The Black Widow fights a few small-time crooks in New York City while honing her crime-fighting skills. Then, on Christmas Eve, Ivan rescues a young man from a suicide attempt and brings him to the apartment. The kid tells them of how he fell in with a minor crook who called himself the Astrologer, and fled when the gang planned to rob the city’s main blood bank for an extortion scheme. The Astrologer’s goons attack, and during the fight the kid sacrifices himself to save the Black Widow. Natasha is distraught over the young stranger’s death. A few days later, Natasha and Ivan join the police stakeout on the hospital the Astrologer’s gang is planning to hit. However, the gang changes their plan and kidnaps a noted blood specialist, to hold for ransom. The gang steals the hospital’s helicopter and, in a moment of self-doubt, Natasha allows them to escape. She spends the night brooding, even stopping off at Avengers Mansion. However, she can’t bring herself to talk to Clint Barton again and slips out unnoticed. The next evening, Ivan gets a tip on the gang’s whereabouts, and the Black Widow goes into action once more. In a fight on the city’s docks, Natasha and the Astrologer fall into the Hudson River. The Astrologer tries to shoot her with his energy blaster, but being under water makes the weapon misfire. The Astrologer is injured and drowns, while Ivan manages to fish the stunned Widow out of the river. Afraid that she’s somehow “cursed,” Natasha has a miserable New Year’s Eve.

January 1965 – The Black Widow is lured to a remote hunting lodge in upstate New York, where she finds Ivan being held prisoner by a bizarrely-costumed man calling himself the Watchlord. Possessing the power to psionically transmute inanimate objects, he traps the Widow as well and sets fire to the lodge. Natasha and Ivan escape and track the villain and his henchmen through the woods to prevent him from blowing up a nearby lodge owned by the Soviet embassy. The Watchlord tries to kill the Widow by causing a huge boulder to fall on her, but she evades it. However, the resulting avalanche crushes the Watchlord. Natasha ponders whether this is another example of the “curse” she fears is following her.

February 1965 – While on her way to a financial consultation, Natasha and Ivan see a helicopter crash into the river, taking Daredevil with it. Natasha dives into the murky waters to rescue him. A few hours later, the Black Widow goes into action again as the criminal mastermind known as the Owl tries to rob the Treasury Building. Daredevil arrives and they team-up to defeat the Owl and his gang. Natasha is miffed when Daredevil makes no mention of her having saved his life earlier, since she was convinced he must have seen her face. However, at the conclusion of the battle, Daredevil collapses into unconsciousness. A few days later, Ivan is kidnapped by the Scorpion, and the Black Widow uses a miniature tracking device to locate him. However, she loses her battle with the Scorpion, and is used as bait to lure Daredevil into a fight atop a skyscraper construction site. During the ensuing struggle, the Scorpion appears to fall to his death, and a construction worker accuses the Black Widow of murder. The police arrive and attempt to arrest the Black Widow, but she flees. Daredevil goes after her and brings her in, confidant that she will be exonerated. Natasha reluctantly agrees to surrender, and she is taken into police custody. The next morning, blind attorney Matt Murdock offers his services to Natasha, and she hires him on Daredevil’s recommendation.

March 1965 – After spending two weeks in jail, Natasha’s murder trial begins, having been pushed through the court system by the strangely overeager district attorney Franklin Nelson. As the trial progresses, Natasha becomes increasingly afraid that she’s being railroaded. One night, however, a fight in the city morgue between Daredevil and Mister Hyde leads to an explosion that levels the building, and no trace can be found of the Scorpion’s body. Following this turn of events, Murdock moves that the case be dismissed, and, inexplicably, D.A. Nelson agrees. Natasha is set free, and disgusted with the American legal system, she leaves for an extended vacation is Switzerland.

April 1965 – While skiing in the Swiss Alps, Natasha meets a fellow Russian, who claims to have discovered a cure for blindness. She calls Matt Murdock, who she has felt strangely attracted to since her trial, and invites him to join her at the chalet. Murdock arrives the next day, and he and Natasha have such a good time that they end up in bed together that night. Later, after having mind-blowing sex, Murdock changes into his Daredevil costume and tracks down the mysterious villain who had been blackmailing Foggy Nelson, who was also posing as the Russian scientist. The Black Widow follows Daredevil, and together they battle the blackmailer, who is revealed to be an android from the distant future, who is ultimately defeated by more time-traveling androids. Exhausted and thoroughly confused, the Black Widow and Daredevil return to the chalet, where they spend the next couple weeks getting to know each other.

May 1965 – Natasha and Matt Murdock spend several days in London, England, before deciding to head home to New York City. However, their transatlantic flight is hijacked by the Gladiator and some goons he hired in London. Matt is able to use the confusion to cover his change into Daredevil, and together he and the Black Widow defeat the villains and foil their plot. The plane lands safely in New York, and Daredevil is able to keep his secret identity intact. However, while leaving the airport, Natasha and Murdock run into Matt’s old flame Karen Page. She throws herself at him and they kiss passionately. Natasha realizes that her relationship with Matt isn’t going anywhere after all. In the weeks that follow, Murdock tries to let Natasha down gently, saying that he and Karen were meant to be together. Natasha tries to let it go, but finds that she has developed deep feelings for him.

September 1965 – During the summer, Matt Murdock and Karen Page get engaged to be married, and Natasha tries to lose herself in her old “jet-set” lifestyle. She begins contemplating a change of scene, and decides to move to San Francisco. Before she is ready to leave, however, Matt and Karen break up. Ivan convinces Natasha that she owes it to herself to give Murdock another chance. Matt agrees to move to California with her. Over the next week or so, Natasha, Ivan, and Matt move across the country and settle into their new townhouse in San Francisco. Natasha plans to become a fashion designer to supplement her dwindling savings. Unexpectedly, Danny French turns up looking for Natasha while she’s out. When Ivan tells her about it, she becomes worried.

October 1965 – Natasha is distracted trying to track down Danny French to see what he wants after all these years. She finally meets up with him to talk about Project Four. Matt returns to New York briefly when the Hulk is brought to trial. After he returns to California, Natasha confides in Matt about the Project Four mission, then helps him defeat Electro and Killgrave, the Purple Man. They are attacked by Mister Fear and his fear ray, but Daredevil defeats him. Meanwhile, the Black Widow and Danny French are kidnapped by Damon Dran, the man who originally financed the Project Four experiment. Dran uses the power of the Project Four energy sphere to become the Indestructible Man, but Danny French’s heroic sacrifice defeats him before he can destroy San Francisco. Dran is left horribly disfigured and is taken into custody.

November 1965 – The mutated creature called the Man-Bull attacks Daredevil and the Black Widow. Although he is ultimately defeated, both heroes are badly injured. Natasha is nearly gored by his horns, and must be hospitalized.

December 1965 – Natasha recovers from her injuries by taking it easy at the townhouse. She takes the time to work on her fashion designs and do some networking in the local fashion industry.


Notes:

1934 – This assumes Natasha was about 8 years old in the flashback in Daredevil # 88. Any younger, and you really limit the story potential of her relationship with Ivan during the siege of Stalingrad.

1942 – The date of the Nazi siege of Stalingrad. Ivan Petrovich’s name has always been a bit of an enigma, since it was never made clear whether “Petrovich” was supposed to be his patronymic (which Russians use in lieu of a middle name) or his last name. Finally, during the 1990s, Bob Harras settled the issue by revealing his last name to be “Bezukhov.” Although I consider stories of that time to be non-canonical (occurring in secondary Marvel universes), I’m willing to accept occasional pieces of information such as this.

Spring 1943 – Chris Claremont set this story in 1941 (Uncanny X-Men # 268), but that doesn’t make any sense. It fits in nicely here, though.

Summer 1943 – Only the best for Natasha! The location of her ballet school was never revealed in any canonical story, but common sense suggests Leningrad and the best ballet school in all the Soviet Union.

Spring 1945 – It was established in Champions that Ivan was an electronics whiz. Where else would he get a job? Again, common sense suggests this famous landmark.

1947 -- Agrippina Vaganova was a real person, Russia’s premiere ballet teacher. Oksana Bolishinko was introduced in Solo Avengers # 7. Ivan’s wife was never named, but “Galina” is pretty and seems to suit her. So I went ahead and named her for my own convenience.

1948 – Erroneously called “Yuri Petrovich” in the comics, this would be his true name. He, of course, grew up to be the fourth Crimson Dynamo. The relationship between Natasha and young Yuri -- not to mention Galina -- has never been explored, and would make a great little character study.

1952 – Andrei Rostov makes his one and only appearance in Marvel Two-in-One # 10.

1953 – Revealed in a flashback in Champions # 10. Ivan mentions Stalin’s death to his wife before sending her into hiding with their son. The flashback also reveals that the family had a dog named Lenya.

1957 – Ivan Serov was a real person, head of the KGB at the time. Melina Vostokova was introduced in the Black Widow stories in Marvel Fanfare; Alexi Bruskin was introduced in The Champions.

Late 1958 – These are Natasha’s actual early missions, revealed in Daredevil # 88-91 and Marvel Team-Up # 82-85. By all accounts, she was a roaring success in the espionage game. Her years as “Nancy Rushman” are especially interesting to me, and hold the promise of several exciting Cold War era espionage thrillers that would make Sydney Bristow look like a piker.

November 1961 -- Vladimir Semichastny was a real person, head of the KGB at the time.

December 1962 – Here is where we first meet Natasha, in Tales of Suspense # 52.

January 1963 – A great deal happens behind the scenes concerning the Black Widow and her partnership with Hawkeye, between Tales of Suspense # 57 and 64. Also, watch for an upcoming post dealing with sex in the Original Marvel Universe.

Summer 1963 – I read up on Chinese brainwashing techniques of the period, and they weren’t pretty. This period of Natasha’s life would make for harrowing reading if told in detail.

November 1963 – This answers my initial research question (where were the Marvel superheroes when President Kennedy was assassinated) as far as the Black Widow is concerned. Naturally she would look for a KGB angle.

February 1964 – Although the location of the hospital is never revealed, Natasha was badly injured, and it’s highly unlikely the Avengers would have flown all the way back to New York, when Hawaii was so much closer. Again, common sense prevails.

April 1964 – Natasha’s apartment and housekeeper are actually introduced later in her solo stories in Amazing Adventures, but this is when she first moves in.

July 1964 – Natasha is seen messing around with a Roman Polanski type in Amazing Adventures #2. Clearly, names were changed to protect the not-so-innocent. She mentions knowing Jackie in the previous issue.

September 1964 – An obscure appearance, from Captain Marvel # 12. The Mad Thinker is not revealed as her captor until her next appearance.

Mid-October 1964 – This is my favorite Untold Tale of the Original Marvel Universe concerning the Black Widow. How and when Ivan came to America was never revealed in any canonical story. It would make a thrilling tale of espionage, loyalty, and danger. “John Peterson” is, of course, a literal translation of “Ivan Petrovich,” and this also explains the confusion over Ivan’s last name. This marks an important turning point in Natasha’s life, and it’s a shame the story was never properly told. But here it is, equal parts speculation and common sense.

December 1964 – The Christmas Eve story in Amazing Adventures # 5 was one of the best Black Widow stories ever published. I first read it in the oversized Giant Superhero Holiday Grab-Bag from 1974. Kudos to Roy Thomas, Gene Colan, and Bill Everett.

April-May 1965 – Natasha’s sexual relationship with Matt Murdock was, of course, glossed over in the original comics.

December 1965 – This takes us up to Daredevil # 96.


OMU Note: The Black Widow’s final canonical appearance was in Avengers # 339.



Next Issue: The Incredible Hulk -- Year One!


Jump to: The Black Widow -- Illustrated!

From the Bookshelf

I recently got to several graphic novels and comics trade paperbacks that have been waiting on my shelf, some for years. It’s not uncommon in my family to buy books and never get around to reading them. Buying books and reading books are separate endeavors controlled by distinct parts of the brain. For what it’s worth, here are my reactions and opinions.

Anyway, the first thing I read was Essential Super-Villain Team-Up, which demonstrates Marvel’s penchant for scraping the bottom of the artistic barrel in the mid-1970s. The book collects the entire run of SVTU as well as a number of ancillary titles and crossover issues to produce a sprawling narrative focusing on Doctor Doom and the Sub-Mariner. The main series was a mess from start to finish, with four or five writers on board during its brief run, and artists such as Happy Herbie Trimpe (in the twilight of his career – at least the first wave of it, before his bizarre comeback in the early 90s), Mike Sekowsky (very much an acquired taste – many swear by his DC work, but the stuff he did for Marvel is rancid!), George Evans (a golden-ager known for his “air aces” type work for EC), and even Jim Shooter did breakdowns for an issue facing the Dreaded Deadline Doom, which were inked by a third-rate scribbler named Sal Trapani. Things settled down toward the end under the undistinguished pens of Bob Hall & Don Perlin.

On the brighter side, the book kicks off reprinting Doctor Doom’s solo series in Astonishing Tales, the first few of which were penciled and inked by the legendary Wally Wood. Even though many observers said that old Wallace was “burned out” by this time, it’s still a treat for those who appreciate the classics. And the last issue of that run featured some gorgeous work by Gene Colan & Tom Palmer (one of Marvel’s all-time greatest teams).

SVTU met a bizarre end, in that, after 14 issues they wrapped up the Doctor Doom storyline, announced it was the last issue, and suspended publication. Then, a year later, they published # 15, which reprinted a “Doc Doom vs. Red Skull” story arc from Astonishing Tales. A year after that, they published # 16, an all-new story by Peter B. Gillis and Carmine Infantino featuring the Red Skull and the Hate Monger, as an Israeli secret agent tries to escape the slave pens on the villains’ island fortress. He ultimately fails and is dragged back to captivity while the bad guys gloat. No super-heroes appear, but they seem to be setting up some kind of storyline. Unfortunately, another year would pass before the release of #17, which again teamed up the Red Skull and the Hate Monger for a sequel to the previous story. The Israeli agent dies at the end, a victim of the Skull’s diabolical experiments, but his girlfriend (a minor character last issue), has escaped and leads a squad of anonymous SHIELD agents back to destroy the island. Nick Fury does not appear, neither does “Dum Dum” Dugan. Heck, even Jasper Sitwell is nowhere to be seen. The main thrust of the story, though, is actually the relationship between the Red Skull and the Hate Monger, who is, of course, really Adolf Hitler. Totally bizarre stuff. I was thinking, why are they even publishing this? I’d love to see the original issues to know if there’s an editorial or anything explaining what they’re trying to do with this oddly amoral storyline.

As soon as I finished that, I devoured Essential Silver Surfer, which reprints the classic Stan Lee / John Buscema series in its entirety. It’s Stan at his most faux-Shakespearean, and Buscema gives some of his most exaggerated poses ever to the Surfer’s many agonized soliloquies. It’s a really strange series, and not much even seems to happen in the stories. There’s no supporting cast, they’re all stand-alone stories, and even the guest-stars are kept to a bare minimum. Although Big John was clearly inspired during the early issues (the introduction of Mephisto is a feast for the eyes), by the end he was clearly phoning in his breakdowns for people like Dan Adkins or Chic Stone to finish up. The last issue marks a 180-degree turn as Jack Kirby plays guest-penciller and pits the Surfer against the Inhumans (naturally), and ends with the Surfer declaring total war on the human race. Well, the title was cancelled and the storyline was summarily dropped. I think it was eventually explained away. The Surfer turned up next in the early issues of Defenders.

Next, I decided the time had come to finally read Kyle Baker’s The Cowboy Wally Show, which had been gathering dust next to my copy of Why I Hate Saturn for many, many years. It was amusing, not so much a story as a collection of interrelated comedy skits, like something one might expect to see on SCTV. During an interview, the no-talent celebrity Cowboy Wally recounts the rise and fall of his media empire. Baker’s sketchy cartoon line-drawings are fun, though there’s quite a bit of sliding between the realistic/cartoonish poles that could be annoying if you’re not into it. The jokes are generally funny, and he even works in a spoof of a French Foreign Legion movie as well as a production of Hamlet staged by four guys in a prison cell. Not as accomplished as his later work, but an amusing diversion.

Tired of the Black & White scene, I moved down to Death: The Time of Your Life, by Neil Gaiman and Chris Bachalo & Mark Buckingham. A somewhat disappointing sequel to The High Cost of Living, which I thought was great. Bachalo shifts to a much cartoonier style here that I didn’t feel suited Gaiman’s story of two lesbian lovers being driven apart by one’s devotion to her budding career as a pop singer. It wasn’t helped by the fact that Bachalo was replaced halfway through by Buckingham, who tried to imitate him for the rest of the story. The earlier work is far superior, and frankly, I wouldn’t waste money on this one. Luckily I bought it many years ago, so it doesn’t matter anymore.

I had an afternoon totally free for some reason, so I took the opportunity to read Selina’s Big Score, a tale of Catwoman by Darwyn Cooke, which I bought last spring. It was great, and I would highly recommend it, because it owes less to Batman comics and more to “heist” films like Ocean’s Eleven or whatever. Selina doesn’t really appear in costume, no one displays super powers. In fact, you don’t need to know anything about the Batman mythos to enjoy it, but it’s a fun, colorful yarn about a couple of crooks trying to rob a train full of mob money. If they had filmed this instead of that Halle Berry garbage, they’d have had a hit film, I’ll wager. It’s drawn in the cartoony style of the Bruce Timm school – much like the various animated shows of late, though somewhat rougher and sketchier. I thought it worked, though, and I probably wouldn’t have bought it if it was in the typical “representational” style. It’s a bold, thick-brush approach to the art that makes for an engaging quick read – time that would be less well-spent watching most recent movies. Far and away the best of the bunch I’ve discussed here.

Lastly, I finished Essential Daredevil volume 2, featuring more of the Stan Lee / Gene Colan run on the book. Gene’s art really blossoms during these issues, and he starts getting into more and more crazy panel lay-outs. Unfortunately, his style is often hampered by journeyman inkers like John Tartaglione and Vince Colletta. George Klein (of Avengers fame) is a relief by the time he shows up late in the book. It’s a shame that he died around that time, because he was quite a good inker. As I’ve said before, nobody captured the essence of Colan’s work like Tom Palmer. Stan’s work is unusually uneven here, especially as he tries to convince us that Stilt-Man and Leap-Frog are formidable villains. He puts a merciful end to the whole “Mike Murdock” farce, which went on way too long, and struggles unsuccessfully to pit DD against any really fearsome world-beater. (The best he can do is the derivative Jester.) However, perseverance pays off in the second-to-last issue (#47), which is an offbeat tale of Daredevil helping clear the name of a cop who was blinded during his tour of duty in Vietnam. It shows our hero doing as much in the courtroom as Matt Murdock as he does in his red tights, and the story of the luckless Willie Lincoln is strangely compelling. Stan gives full voice to his social conscience, and for a change the theme takes precedence over the plot. A really nice change-of-pace, and an underrated classic of Stan Lee at his best, with strong visuals by Colan & Klein.

Scottish Television

While reading up on British broadcasting policy, I realized that Scotland has its own Channel 3 franchise, to supplement what is offered by the BBC. Unfortunately, they seem to be hurting for Scottish-themed programming, as the bulk of their shows come from the ITV network based in the south of England. I have sought to rectify this imbalance by devising an entire night of pure Scottish Television!


7:00 – 7:30 -- WHOOPSIE, I’VE GOT NAE UNDERPANTS! Billy Connolly hosts this rip-roaring game show, in which young strapping Highland lads must navigate a series of difficult obstacle courses in a kilt. Points are deducted should the contestant accidentally expose himself. The audience can place bets on which contestant will make it to the finish line while still retaining a shred of dignity.

7:30 – 8:00 -- HAGGIS MacBAGPIPES. Sylvester McCoy stars as the crotchety proprietor of an Edinburgh bus tour company, who considers tourists to be the bane of his existence. While not dealing with stereotypical foreigners from around the globe, he has his hands full with his unmarried daughter Morag, played by Shirley Henderson. Also featuring Sheena Easton as Fiona, the company’s sassy tour guide.

8:00 – 8:30 -- THE CAMPBELLS AND THE MacDONALDS. In this hilarious family comedy, two star-crossed lovers, Duncan MacDonald (Alastair MacKenzie) and Hannah Campbell (Dawn Steele) try to bring together their feuding families. With Brian Cox and Susan Hampshire as Hannah’s down-to-earth parents and Nicol Williamson and Phyllida Law as Duncan’s overly-cerebral progenitors. Michael Sheard and Ian McDiarmid face off as the grudge-holding grandfathers. Robbie Coltrane, Graham Crowden, Elspet Gray, Hamish Clark, and Valerie Edmond round out the powerhouse cast.

8:30 – 9:30 -- JAMIE AND JAMIE. In this light-hearted action drama, a female police detective from New York City, Jamie Wolchek (Jami Gertz), becomes a fish out of water when she takes a job as a consultant to the Inverness police. Sexual tensions arise when she meets her new partner, the rugged and outdoorsy Highland cop Jamie Macnaughtan (Tommy Flanagan). John Hannah also stars as the exasperated Detective Chief Inspector Crosby, and featuring Daniela Nardini as the tough and sultry forensic specialist Lorna MacTavish.

9:30 – 10:30 -- CAPTAIN CLAYMORE. Robert Carlyle stars in this romantic period drama, set in the aftermath of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1746, as the dashing and resourceful Captain Claymore. Believed to have been killed during the Battle of Culloden, he raises a ragtag army of misfits to strike back at the Hanoverian butchers. Also starring Kelly MacDonald as his long-suffering love interest Moira, Billy Boyd and Tony Curran as his able-bodied lieutenants, Laura Fraser as the scheming temptress Bess, and Angus MacFadyen as his implacable nemesis Major-General Buchanan.


Scottish Television – More Satisfying Than Stovied Tatties!!!

Considering Marvel's "New Avengers"

This month sees the debut of the Marvel Comics series The New Avengers, by Brian Michael Bendis and David Finch. In the wake of their “Avengers Disassembled” storyline, in which they put the kibosh on the original team – killing off a number of classic characters in the process – Bendis and Finch present an all-new line-up of heroes, led by Captain America, which includes Luke Cage, the original Spider-Woman, the king of “retcons” known as the Sentry, the ever-popular Spider-Man, and the ubiquitous Wolverine.

The move has been controversial, to say the least, especially the inclusion of Everyone’s Favorite Canadian Mutant, who, having just appeared in 11 different comics in November alone, is thought to be in imminent danger of over-exposure. Even so, as a character, Wolverine generally has a hard enough time being a member of the X-Men, in which he has a personal stake, so why he would care to associate with the Avengers is a question that will need to be addressed.

The real question in my mind, however, is whose idea was it, really? Despite any official line that might be put forward in interviews, press releases, and promotional materials, was this really a creative decision or was it a marketing decision? Marvel has been castigated by fans for its treatment of many characters and titles in recent years, and it is not clear to me how much of Marvel’s hare-brained decisions (like this one) are the fault of the writers and how much is editorial insistence. Did Bendis say, “I love Spidey and Wolverine so much, I’m going to put them in the Avengers, because that would be too cool,” or did the editor(s) tell him to stick Spidey and Wolvie in the Avengers to boost sales? The relationship between writers and editors is often tortuous, and how one influences the other to put out a creative work is rarely easy to understand.

I’ve been reading a lot of interviews lately of comics pros – old writers and editors, mostly – and this issue comes up again and again. It always has, from the early days. Roy Thomas wanted to make radical changes to The X-Men when he first took over, because the book was already faltering. He wanted to add some characters, shuffle things around, make the book a little more unpredictable. But Stan Lee wouldn’t let him. So Roy was a little resentful and that’s why much of his work on that title goes beyond uninspired to the truly lame. The opposite problem occurred years later with Wolverine, when John Byrne began playing him up as a homicidal maniac. Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter kept insisting that he and Chris Claremont had to show that Wolverine had no self-control, because if he did and he gutted somebody anyway, he’d have to be locked up. So Shooter kept telling them, “make Wolverine do something crazy!” And you’d get these bizarre little scenes that come out of nowhere and everybody is totally out of character. Byrne was so fed up with it, that he drew the bullying NSA agent Henry Peter Gyrich to look like Shooter with a buzzcut.

The main reason the original X-Men series was cancelled was poor sales. One of the reasons the comic had such poor sales was because the covers sucked. The main reason the covers sucked was because Stan Lee and Neal Adams had diametrically opposed ideas as to what made a good cover, and they argued about every cover Neal turned in. Stan won, because Stan always won, so Neal just did shitty “throwaway” covers. According to Roy, the few issues with non-Neal covers had noticeably better sales. For years, there was an unofficial injunction against using lots of green on covers, because Stan had made some offhand remark that he didn’t think a particular cover should be green, and this was interpreted as him saying “comic book covers should not be green!” Likewise, Iron Man’s faceplate had that funny-looking “nose” on it for several years, because somebody drew a cover where Iron Man’s face was too flat and Stan said, “Shouldn’t he have a nose?” – meaning shouldn’t Tony Stark have a nose under his faceplate – but the artist misinterpreted it and drew a triangular “nose” on his helmet. So in many ways, Stan, during the time he was editor-in-chief and no longer the main (or only) writer, was too powerful, and had a stifling effect on the creativity of those who worked for him.

After Roy Thomas took over as editor-in-chief, things changed, but they didn’t necessarily improve. There was still that tension between creative decisions and marketing decisions – but Roy didn’t want to impose his will on others, so sometimes things would get out of hand. A good example is Wolverine’s creation story, which is a mess, because so many people had a hand in it over several years. Dave Cockrum insists he was there first, having designed a character which he called “Wolverine” that he showed to Roy Thomas as part of a portfolio of character designs that went nowhere. A couple years later, when the decision was made to reinvent the X-Men, Roy says he felt bad that they sold so many comics in Canada, but had no real Canadian characters. So he suggested to Len Wein that they create a character called “Wolverine” since wolverines are known in both Canada and the northern United States (especially Michigan, apparently). Len devised a feisty little character, which they would “test drive” in an issue of Hulk. John Romita, as art director, designed the costume. Len wrote Wolverine as a teen-ager whose claws were housed in his gloves and his only powers were heightened “animal” senses. After Claremont took over, he decided to make Wolverine older and more mysterious, and also named him “Logan.” But Cockrum didn’t like Wolverine and kept him in the background. He did, however, show that the claws come out of his hands, not his gloves, because they felt that anybody who stole his gloves would then be Wolverine and that was pretty lame. Of course, Byrne loved Wolverine – since they were both Canadians, I guess – and gave him the healing factor and the adamantium skeleton. He also decided he should be like sixty years old, but his healing factor keeps him young. However, Byrne’s idea for Wolvie’s origin was that the healing factor didn’t work on his bones, and he was in a terrible auto accident right after WWII. His body appeared to heal right up, but when he stood up, his weight shattered his leg bones. So he became a recluse in a wheelchair and body brace living off by himself in the woods. Then he was found by James MacDonald (later James MacDonald Hudson), who said, basically, “we can rebuild you – we have the technology” and replaced each bone in his body with an adamantium casting (except for his skull and spinal column, which were just coated with the stuff). So the combination of having had Sabretooth for a father and spending decades alone all crippled up accounted for his attitude problem. Well, Claremont didn’t really like that idea, especially since Byrne could never adequately explain how, if his bones were solid adamantium, he could replenish his blood. So he made the healing factor work on bones as well as tissue, and described the adamantium as merely fused to his skeleton, and then cooked up his whole secret agent background. Claremont has said he never really got his own hold on Wolverine’s character until he and Frank Miller hashed out the samurai-themed plot for the Wolverine mini-series circa 1982. Then, Wolvie’s inner struggle to overcome his berserker rages satisfied Shooter, and he got off Claremont’s back about it, and the character really started to take off at that point. So, anyway, everybody involved had his own ideas about who this character was, and instead of ever sitting down and figuring it all out, they just kind of did their own thing and tried to get away with whatever they could. This actually set a precedent – a bad precedent, we might argue – so that by the time Cable was invented, even Rob Liefeld had no idea who he was or what they were going to do with him, and everybody was just making it up as they went along with no goal, destination, or even character arc in mind.

The comics industry has always been schizophrenic about whether comics are an art or a business, and of course it’s both – you just have to strike the right balance. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, it was tilted too much to the “business” end, which is why you had so much mediocre crap put out on strict schedules, and had to suffer through Sal Buscema drawing the same sequences over and over with slightly different characters inserted, or big “event” comics drawn by Al Milgrom, one of the worst pencilers ever to get steady work. I would say that now, it may be tilted too much in the other direction, where the “hot” artists and writers are given free rein to do the characters however they want, with no real regard for what’s come before or for what might come next. But all these various permutations of the characters being published simultaneously doesn’t make comics more accessible to new readers, but less – because they have no idea where to start wading into this bewildering morass of over-stimulation. So it actually hurts the business and drives it further into the arms of the speculative collector’s market, which is the death of comics. There must be balance, so that writers and artists can be creative and inject new life into old books without alienating the core audience.

But the problem may be that the editors, publishers, and bean-counters say, hey, the “right way” of doing Iron Man, for example, isn’t selling, so it must therefore be the “wrong way.” Let’s make Tony Stark nineteen years old so the audience can relate to him, or let’s make him hit bottom and embarrass everybody by showing up drunk at the United Nations or whatever. And the writer may be saying, “why don’t you just shoot me in the head instead” but because he’s being paid to write Iron Man, he goes along with it. Maybe that makes him a sell-out, and he should say, “if Iron Man is not selling, I take full responsibility and I resign, because I did what I thought was best, and I can’t cheapen myself by pandering to the chimerical whims of the fanboys.” But maybe being paid to write Iron Man is just too cool, and he can’t walk away. In the case of Brian Bendis, I don’t know, but I am prepared to believe the worst, because he falls on my Cleveland Animosity Scale somewhere between Michael Sangiacomo and Tom Batiuk. I remember the so-called cartoon strips he did for the Plain Dealer, and he will never redeem himself in my eyes. So, he may very well have sold Marvel on the idea that the Vision, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, Yellowjacket, and the Wasp are all lame-o characters who should have been dumped years ago and that a Captain America – Spider-Man – Wolverine team will blow all other comics out of the water, because Brian Michael Bendis is GOD and Stan Lee is and always was a no-talent hack and an obnoxious, loud-mouthed, egomaniacal imbecile. To which I would maturely respond, “takes one to know one.”

However, I’d be willing to bet that, within a year or so, the original team of Avengers will be back – again – for yet another re-boot and everybody will be even more confused than ever before. And we know they will, because they’ll want the Avengers comic to be cross-marketable with the upcoming Avengers cartoon series and toy line. Then we may just have Avengers and New Avengers and The Ultimates and Avengers Adventures and the Marvel Age: Avengers manga and whatever else they can flood the market with, because they’re desperate. And their desperation saddens me to no end, because they used to be so great. But that was a long time ago.

More Tony Television

Thursday night is home to the Tony Television Network’s most popular shows, featuring America’s most beloved performers! You’ve never seen anything like these gems! Each of these hilarious, heartwarming, and groundbreaking programs is a sweet syndication deal waiting to happen!


8:00 – DIDACTIC WOMEN. Four Boston women (Swoosie Kurtz, Patricia Richardson, Julie Kavner, and Jan Hooks) discuss politics and society while they publish a feminist webzine and ogle their sexy pool boy in this thought-provoking comedy.


8:30 – THE PIRATES OF MEN’S PANTS. Four gay tailors in San Francisco (Richard Benjamin, Jay Thomas, John O’Hurley, and Thomas Hayden Church) learn valuable life lessons as they discuss current events and their dominatrix landlady (Julie Newmar) in this razor-sharp sit-com.


9:00 – THE FUNNY JEW. The hilarious hijinks of young Avram Goldfarb (Liev Schreiber) as he tries to balance his job at New York Bank with the demands of his zany friend Jerzy Krinklestein (French Stewart) and his pawn-shop owner father Herschel (Jerry Stiller) and his matchmaking mother Anna (Anne Meara).


9:30 – EACHIT & DYE. Al Eachit (David Schramm) is a bottom-feeding ambulance-chaser who’ll do anything for money. His new partner, Yul Dye (Dennis Dugan) is a disgraced ethics specialist. Sparks fly when their identical-twin wives convince them to work together.


10:00 – DRAMA CENTER. A flamboyant “has-been” actor (Walter Koenig) teams up with a hard-nosed probation officer (Gerald McRaney) to help a group of troubled inner-city teens deal with their problems through the magic of theater. In the pilot, they save an abandoned movie palace from demolition, which then serves as their headquarters.



Don’t be a social misfit! Watch the Tony Television Network!!!

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Exploring the Boundaries of the OMU

It was in 1991 that the editors at Marvel Comics decided that the characters had evolved too far from their beginnings and that not only was there to be no more character development, but much of the previous character development was to be undone. Therefore, Wolverine, for example, who had just spent 15 years overcoming his savage animal instincts to become a man with a deep sense of honor, was summarily retuned to square one – even being put back in his original yellow and blue costume (which he’d abandoned in 1980) – to symbolize the undoing of all character development! Now that’s just cheeky. Spider-Man’s marriage to Mary Jane Watson was busted up, because kids apparently couldn’t relate to a Spidey who had a wife and was a grown-up. Eventually they even made him 16 years old again. Torturous storylines were introduced to explain away inconvenient events, such as one in The Fantastic Four where Alicia Masters Storm – the Thing’s former girlfriend, now wife of the Human Torch – was revealed to be a shape-changing alien. The real Alicia knew nothing of this marriage, and hey, presto! – she and the Thing could continue the same tragic love affair that had long ago exhausted its story potential.

All this was a real slap in the face to the long-time readers. That’s when I stopped buying new monthly comics, and realized that Marvel continuity was in a tailspin. For every bit of character development that was undone, bizarre new storylines were introduced, taking beloved characters off on disturbing tangents. Soon, the various titles began being grouped into “families,” which highlighted connections to the two or three top-selling titles. If a comic wasn’t related to the X-Men or Spider-Man, it seemed doomed to cancellation. As the 1990s progressed, Marvel continuity began to fracture. Eventually, I decided to figure out when, exactly, the Original Marvel Universe had disappeared.

Clearly, 1991 was the starting point, when things really started going wrong. I began to sort out which I considered to be canonical and what were non-canonical stories, based more on the internal chronologies rather than arbitrary publishing dates. Most of the last canonical issues nevertheless came out in 1991, with a few storylines playing out into 1992. The last story set in the Original Marvel Universe is Excalibur #67 (July 1993), published more than a year after all the others had “ended,” and that’s because the writer/artist, Alan Davis, was a rather backward-looking fellow by temperament, and his last storyline wrapped up some dangling threads from the X-Men books. Plus his drawings were just beautiful, so I gave him a special dispensation.

So now that I had a finite number of canonical Marvel comic books, I began to look at this body of work in a different way. I realized that the Original Marvel Universe had stopped evolving, and so it could finally be analyzed with a fair amount of accuracy. I didn’t have to worry about any new revisions, retcons, revelations, or flashbacks changing what had already been established. With the help of various chronology-related websites, as well as the revolutionary concept of the Mile High Comics Internet Store, I began filling in gaps in my collection, buying Marvel’s line of “Essential” reprints, and piecing together the detailed backstories of my favorite characters.

Thankfully, much of the groundwork had been done for me. The pioneer in this field is George Olshevsky, who put together a number of “indexes” published by Marvel in the 1980s in which he tracked the early Marvel Universe’s internal chronology by using Spider-Man’s academic career as a guide. Around the same time, Peter Sanderson laid out the basic sequence of events in The Marvel Saga, a retrospective series published to celebrate the Marvel Universe’s 25th anniversary. Using the work of these scholars of Marvel continuity, it is possible to build a timeline and to keep track of the passage of time during and between the stories. Chronology buff Paul Bourcier has expanded on Olshevsky’s initial timeline, extending it to cover ten years in the lives of the Avengers. (His current focus is on more recent comics, all of which I consider to be non-canonical.) However, the nuts-and-bolts aspect of the timeline interested me less than what was revealed when it was analyzed. Untold stories began to emerge, fascinating plots that were never used, because nobody realized that they must have happened. Behind-the-scenes events that were overlooked because all the pieces weren’t there until much later, and nobody has bothered to put it all together.

First, however, I need to clarify the biggest issue in any such chronological analysis of the Original Marvel Universe: when you start the clock. Time passes at different rates for the characters and the reader. Twelve monthly issues may cover only a few days or weeks in the lives of the characters depicted therein. And so, the thirty-odd years of published stories I’m looking at contain only about half as much time in the lives of the characters. This has been dubbed the Marvel “sliding time scale,” meaning that, as time passes in the real world, the early stories become detached from their historical context and are dragged forward in time. This is because the comics publishers, and most fans, start the clock in the present day and work backwards. (The Fantastic Four formed 12 years ago, they’d say, and would then change the details in the original story to update it to the proper era.) I, on the other hand, would rather anchor the stories at the other end – in 1961 – and let it run at its own pace and see what happens when fictional continuity and historical fact collide. So instead we change the details of the later stories to set them in an earlier time. My approach to this was inspired by the cliché of people who were around in November 1963 remembering exactly what they were doing when President Kennedy was shot. I asked myself, how would the various Marvel super-heroes answer that question?

I realized that it was not enough to look at the November 1963 issues of various comics, because of the nature of the internal chronology. Stories that would fall into the November 1963 slot on my timeline were in fact published years later, some several months apart. The anchor point of my version of the timeline is November 1961 – the cover date of the first issue of Fantastic Four – which serves as the date of the team’s first adventure. Their origin is told in an extended flashback, which I set in August 1961 – the date the first issue actually hit the newsstands. Thus, proceeding from this point, stories published in 1963 – the introduction of the Avengers and the X-Men, for example – are pulled back into a 1962 setting. As a result of compressing the sliding time scale, stories published in the early 1970s fall into my timeline in the mid-sixties, and stories published in the mid 1980s end up being set in the mid 1970s. Although I haven’t gotten to the other end, I estimate that the last canonical stories from 1990-1992 would be set sometime around 1977 or 1978, possibly later. So it seems that the Original Marvel Universe spans a fictional time period of less than twenty years.

The implications of this are important, however. Spider-Man was established as being a sophomore in high school when he was bitten by the radioactive spider. If he was sixteen years old at that time, then at the other end of the timeline, he’d be around 35 years old, possibly pushing 40. Other characters would be approaching senior citizen status. Obviously, these are tales Marvel would rather not tell. They have a vested interest in keeping the stories going indefinitely, and so there comes a point where the continuity has to break down. The end of the Original Marvel Universe was, it turns out, inevitable. And in fact, it happened at pretty much the right time.

So, setting the early Marvel stories in the first half of the 1960s, I began to see some weird convergences. A story in which the X-Men fight an epic battle in Washington D.C. just happened to fall on the timeline in August 1963 – when Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Perhaps, after their battle, the X-Men attended this famous rally. Why not? In Fantastic Four #9, the team goes into bankruptcy when a sharp dip in the stock market wipes out their finances. This story fell on the timeline in May/June 1962 – coinciding with a real-world stock market crisis. Several election-themed stories worked their way into November 1964, which presented numerous intriguing revelations. There was enough such serendipity to keep my interest up. Plugging established Marvel continuity into a real-world historical context proved to be a fascinating exercise, one that added a completely new dimension to the history of the Marvel Universe – particularly at points of significant divergence. I’ll detail some of my findings in subsequent postings.


Next Issue: Untold Tales of the Black Widow

The Original Marvel Universe

The Original Marvel Universe was created in 1961 with the publication of the first issue of the comic book series The Fantastic Four, and it began a slow agonized death almost exactly 30 years later.

Martin Goodman, the publisher of the company that would soon become known as the Marvel Comics Group, saw that his main competitor, National Periodical Publications (now known as DC Comics), was riding a wave of success on a new line of super-hero titles. Extremely popular during World War II, super-hero comics had fallen by the wayside during the 1950s, and Goodman’s company had found a niche putting out various science-fiction and monster themed comics. Hoping to cash in on the budding super-hero revival, Goodman instructed his writer/editor, Stan Lee, to come up with something to compete with Justice League of America. Lee and his primary artistic collaborator, Jack Kirby, devised a family of squabbling heroes who had neither masks nor secret identities, which they named The Fantastic Four. The follow-up to this was The Incredible Hulk, which presented a bad-tempered anti-social monstrous brute as the protagonist.

Having grown bored with the hack writing of the formulaic monthly comics that Goodman preferred, Stan Lee was already considering a career change, and so he adopted a “nothing to lose” attitude toward these new projects. He decided to buck the conventions of the super-hero comic, which had seen little variation since their inception some twenty years earlier. The heroes he created with Kirby and his other main artist, Steve Ditko, suffered from self-doubt, romantic anxieties, and financial woes. They had distinctive personalities. Over the next year, their roster grew to include Spider-Man, Thor, and Ant-Man. Then, with relatively little fanfare, Lee, Kirby, and Ditko did something really revolutionary.

At the end of 1962, the various Marvel characters began turning up in each other’s stories, to a degree previously unheard of. In the first issue of his own title, Spider-Man went to the headquarters of the Fantastic Four and made a half-hearted attempt to join their team. That same month, in their own title, the Fantastic Four flew out to the deserts of the American southwest and encountered the Hulk. Suddenly, it was clear that all three inhabited the same fictional world. A few months later, the FF teamed up with Ant-Man as well. Then, the following summer saw the publication of the first issues of The Avengers, in which just about everyone made an appearance.

Cross-overs and team-ups of this type were very rare during the so-called “Golden Age of Comics.” The early super-heroes seemed to exist independently of each other, and even when they did happen to meet, little attention was paid to matters of continuity. However, Stan Lee seemed determined that all Marvel’s heroes should exist in the same internally-consistent fictional world. Soon the heroes were routinely battling each other’s villains, and certain supporting characters wandered from title to title, weaving all the stories together into what was eventually called “The Marvel Universe.”

As the years went by, and more and more characters were introduced, and more and more titles were published, the Marvel Universe grew ever more complex, but continuity violations were kept to a minimum, almost as a matter of pride – and when such violations were noticed, they were quickly explained away one way or another. Continuity became a guiding principle at Marvel, and it was that continuity that lifted super-hero comics out of the “juvenile literature” trap and captured the interest of college kids (and older) in the late sixties and on into the 1970s. People who were reading Tolkien and Asimov and the like discovered an even more complex, detailed, convoluted, and ever-evolving fictional universe in Marvel Comics. Additionally, readers could even write in to Stan Lee or Chris Claremont or whoever and actually exert some level of influence over the direction the stories would take. And the letters would often be answered in a public forum – decades before the Internet made that seem like a fundamental human right. Thus, the older fans of Marvel felt invested in the comics they were buying and the lives of the characters, who at that time were growing up, getting older, getting married – evolving as people – albeit very slowly. That led the fans who now run the various Marvel chronology websites – such as the Marvel Chronology Project and the Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe – to buy every “Marvel Universe” comic that came out, no matter how lousy the story and/or art or how ridiculous the characters were – because they were obsessed with this overarching continuity.

Unfortunately, that continuity has now been smashed, rebuilt, and smashed again more times than Hulkbuster Base. Numerous relaunches, revisions, and “retcons” (retroactive continuity) have garbled the characters’ histories to such a degree that all internal cohesion has been lost. And so, the Original Marvel Universe – the one devised by Stan Lee and built up over thirty years by the writers and artists that followed – has been long since abandoned.

As Marvel Comics – variously known as Marvel Entertainment, Inc. or Marvel Characters, Inc. – has grown bigger and bigger as a company, they have adopted other guiding principles, and continuity has fallen by the wayside. The end began in 1991, as, Stepford-like, the Original Marvel Universe was replaced by an overlapping second Marvel Universe – although nobody realized it at the time. In this world, the characters began to act bizarrely. The formerly demure Invisible Woman became a slutty exhibitionist. Wolverine devolved into a noseless caricature with gnarly bone claws. Spider-Man endured the much-maligned “Spider Clone Saga.” Iron Man suddenly became 19 years old again. The heroes of the preceding thirty years soon became all but unrecognizable.

That second version has also since been abandoned for the ever-changing “retcons” that have followed. Now there appear to be three or four simultaneous but mutually-exclusive Marvel Universes, and keeping track of what happens in which is well nigh impossible. It used to be that you could take an adventure the X-Men were having and figure out what the Fantastic Four were doing at the same time. Not any more. Now you have multiple versions of the X-Men being published every month. In fact, there is no “Marvel Universe” anymore, just a bunch of characters being published in various titles with splashy yet interchangeable covers. Now Marvel just publishes whatever the hell they want with no regard to what has come before. Sometimes this can be liberating, but sometimes it just makes the audience say “who cares?”

Digging down through the piles of crappy comics that have been shoveled on top of it, though, we discover that the Original Marvel Universe still exists, perfectly preserved, and like the site of any archeological excavation, is waiting to be explored, to see what secrets it may yet contain.



Next Issue: Exploring the Original Marvel Universe!

Great New TV Spin-Offs

Seeing the phenomenal success of spin-offs like AfterM*A*S*H* and Archie Bunker's Place, I've come up with four can't-miss shows for next season, bringing back some of America's favorite characters and examining their lives following the end of their previous series. Each one is a guaranteed ratings-winner!



AfterHomicide – Yaphet Kotto, Daniel Baldwin, and Jon Polito star in this half-hour situation comedy as three ghostly cops who have taken to haunting a Baltimore pub run by retired detective and conspiracy buff John Munch (Richard Belzer). In the first episode, the ghosts decide to help an annoying drunk (played by Barry Levinson) who won’t stop complaining about his washed-up career as a movie director.



The Misadventures of Sheriff Autolycus – Bruce Campbell reprises his famous role as the former Prince of Thieves, now the Sheriff of the Stygian Steppes, in this swashbuckling sword-and-sorcery adventure comedy. Ted Raimi co-stars as his loyal Deputy Joxer, and the late Madeline Kahn also appears as the mysteriously goofy Oracle of Lesbos, thanks to the magic of digital effects.



The X-Briefs – David Duchovny returns as Fox Mulder, who has found a new career as a trial lawyer in order to bring justice to the victims of paranormal phenomena. In the pilot episode, Mulder and his law partner Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) file a class-action suit against the government on behalf of the victims of alien abduction. Special appearance by Gillian Anderson as Mulder’s expert witness, Dr. Dana Scully, and Mimi Rogers as Mulder’s pesky ex-wife, Diana.



Chateau Picard – Patrick Stewart stars as the headstrong French vintner and Starfleet vet Jean-Luc Picard in this comedy/drama set in the late 24th century. With Geneviève Bujold as his love interest, Madame du Clairmont, and Vanessa Paradis as the extradimensional entity known as Mademoiselle Sphynx, who strives to understand human emotions and behavior. In the premiere episode, Picard attempts to stage a production of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, but ends up having to play all the roles himself.



Look for these sure-fire hits next season on the Tony Television Network!!!