Sal Buscema (1936–2026)

What a mess. So this is where bad stories go to die. This run of Defenders seems to have been used as a clearing house to sew up crap plotlines canceled in other titles. Interestingly the more garbage that piles up the more the female Defenders come to the fore.
Sort of like how britain only elects female primeministers when their country is so far in the toilet that no man wants the thankless task of trying to clean the mess.
But still at least we have some female led storylines... except show more that i then noticed that not a single one of these female led plots ends well, in fact everyone of them ends in a disaster except when a male character literally swoops in to save the day. I can't tell whether its incredibly inept feminism or very efficient chauvinism, presumably the former :| .

Also the last storyline is almost the exact same plot used in Jessica Jones season1, (and presumably the comic book version but i havn't read that) including having Patsy Walker (aka Trish Walker) as the best friend, which isn't in the Jessica Jones comic from what i've heard. But with Valkyrie as Jessica and the Mandrill instead of the Purple Man (aka Killgrave). That part made an interesting comparison.

Anyway, so if its so bad why 3 stars you ask? Well 70s garbage can still be quite entertaining, its still done by writers who are clearing trying, this isn't like bad 90s comics. Also the sheer randomness coupled with occasional 70s political or social commentary is worth a look. show less

Having grown up reading black and white Marvel UK reprints, I love the Marvel Essential collection. It's great to read a series through in big chunks, filling in the gaps from stories I've read only partly before. Among my favourites in the series is Incredible Hulk. While other Essentials sit on the shelf for months if not years waiting for me to get round to reading them, I generally have to crack on with the next Hulk volume as soon as it arrives. As much as I enjoyed Peter David's show more psychologically challenging run on the character in later years... or the big dumb joyfest that is Jeph Loeb's current run... my favourite Hulk will always be the "Hulk smash!" one. I love everything about this character, despite the fact that his adventures follow a very predictable pattern. I'll let him explain...

"Hulk just wants to be left alone. If puny humans leave Hulk alone, Hulk will be happy."

"No, now puny humans are attacking Hulk - puny soldiers or stupid villains..." (who Hulk always gives a funny name to such as "Little Man", "Big Head", "Clock Man", "Stupid Magician", "Bug Man", "One Eye" etc. etc.) "...leave Hulk alone, puny humans or Hulk will smash!"

"Now Hulk is angry - puny humans think they are stronger than Hulk... but Hulk is strongest one there is - now Hulk will SMASH!"

In essence then, on completing Essential Hulk Volume 6, I have just read 26 variations on the plot above. And I love it. It's curiously cathartic.

Read the full review show less

ADVENTURE INTO FEAR #27-31

This arc opens the second volume of the Morbius Epic Collection. I wanna say it mostly wasn’t quite as good as #20-26, though it ended well in the last two issues with the vampire manor bloodbath and Martine as a vampire. But the preceding stuff with Hellseye was just weird in a less fun way than the previous arc.

Oh, and this arc is also way less horny, though there were flashes of brilliance in the dialogue at times.

VAMPIRE TALES #10-11, MARVEL PREVIEW #8

Well, show more aside from the last of the three, this was a huge improvement over the Vampire Tales comics from the first volume! It’s kind of like this and Adventure Into Fear swapped places in this volume in terms of quality. These had plenty of quality vampire carnage and moody pulpiness. Just a lot of fun all around.

MARVEL PREMIERE #28

Ghost Rider! Man-Thing! Morbius! Werewolf by Night (the guy who was called just “Werewolf” in Giant-Size Werewolf #4)! Avengers whomst?

It looked for a minute like they were gonna just straight up do the plot of the movie Volcano 20 years before it came out, but starring all these weirdos. I had no idea how it was gonna work, but I was here for it. Sadly they just sort of encountered a dude who is thematically positioned as being just as perfect and innocent as they were monstrous and depraved. Shrug.

Honestly, this is some of the weakest stuff I’ve read either volume of this collection.

MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE #15

This was so dumb and boring, and the Living Eraser is such a dumb and bad villain. Not even sure why they bothered including this.

SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #6-8

So-so arc. #6 is literally three new pages of framing narrative around a reprint of Marvel Team Up #3, presumably to reacquaint readers with him before his reemergence for this brief arc. #7 picks up from where we saw him last in Marvel Two-in-One #15, and then he and Spidey slug it out while Pete’s coworker Glory Grant is repeatedly imperiled to raise the stakes. It’s pretty easily the standout issue of the three. But we see throughout that Morbius is being controlled by some weirdo called the Empathoid, and Peter ends up possessed by him in #8 and has to go to some creative lengths to rid himself of his cranial stowaway.

Oh, and there’s like a bit of an overlapping arc with Flash Thompson I guess where he’s just gotten back from fighting in the Vietnam War? So that was… pretty weird, tbh, but we only get a tiny bit of it here.

All in all, a pretty alright arc, if unremarkable.

SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #38

I liked this one quite a bit! It’s set on Halloween, the Spidey vs. Morbius fight is pretty great, and we finally actually see the Living Vampire peel up that mask and sink his fangs into that Spider-twink’s juicy neck!

Oh the part at the beginning with the three teenagers was pretty hilarious, though. Like, them getting attacked by Morbius was a cool way to open the issue, and I especially enjoyed the explicit Halloween vibes, but the jock freezing up and the nerd with incel vibes being brave felt like a serious case of wish fulfillment for the writer lmao.

SAVAGE SHE-HULK #9-11

Seeing She-Hulk defend Morbius in court was pretty cool, but I’m not really sure this collection needed this. It was like 75% the unrelated stuff She-Hulk had going on. I guess it was cool to see Morbius get a sort of mini-redemption arc, but I don’t know, I just don’t really feel like this added a lot. Like, it was actually pretty good taken on its own merits, but I don’t really feel like it sated my thirst for Morebius as much as most of the other stories in these collections. show less

The promise of great stories eludes me. I wanted so much more, spoiled by more recent comics, wanting back stories, glorious beginnings, and splendiferous space and alternate realities. What I got was strained stories that were rarely brilliant in idea, and never in how it was pulled off. It was very hard to get through the old art, as well.

(Waits patiently until a fanboy froths at the mouth at me).

When it's good, it's very good. When it's bad, as most of the early stuff is, it's really bad. show more I cannot believe I got through it all. I found myself rewriting it all in my head as I plowed through them, paraphrasing much, and drawing out others. It was hardly worth the effort, especially since so much of the work had been done for me in more recent attempts.

The joke is on me, though, because I'm planning on continuing the tales to get to the tantalizing glimpses of those old epic tales I had missed. show less