Gil Kane (1926–2000)

From this reprint of a short-lived comic book series from the late 1960s that was based on a toy line, it's easy to see why it was canceled so quickly. Bad scripts and mediocre art make it chore to read. The original letter columns are included, and it is amusing to see that some of the early reactions were pretty negative and that a couple of the letters were by eventual comic book professionals Martin Pasko and Klaus Janson.

Captain Action is archaeologist Clive Arno. He discovers some show more magic coins that were left on Earth by some aliens who came to our planet and were the basis of the gods of ancient mythology. As long as he holds some of the coins somewhere on his person, he can switch between the grab bag of powers they grant (super strength, super senses, weather manipulation, super speed, combat skills, etc. -- alas, there was no "I know kung fu" coin). He immediately creates an undercover headquarters outfitted with a fancy car and laboratory and becomes a superhero. He gives one coin to his son so he can be his sidekick, Action Boy. He fights evil villains while yelling, "Let justice be done!"

So let's see, we've got some Batman, Superman, Hawkman, Shazam/Captain Marvel, Dial-H-for-Hero, and Ultra Boy all lumped together with a sticky gruel of pure dumbness.

A perfect example of the sort of superhero dreck we used to accept as normal back in the day.

FOR REFERENCE:

Originally published in magazine form as Captain Action (1968) #1-5.

Contents:
• Introduction by Mark Waid
• Captain Action #1 cover / Art by Irv Novick
• Captain Action #1: "Origin of Captain Action" / Script by Jim Shooter, art by Wally Wood
• Captain Action vintage advertisement
• Captain Action #2 cover / Art by Gil Kane
• Captain Action #2: "The Battle Begins" / Script by Jim Shooter, pencils by Gil Kane, inks by Wally Wood
• Captain Action #3 cover / Pencils by Gil Kane, inks by Dick Giordano
• Captain Action #3: " . . . And Evil This Way Comes!" / Script and pencils by Gil Kane, inks by Wally Wood
• Captain Action #3 letters page / Letters written by Gordon Flagg, Jr. (Atlanta, Ga.) and Paul Wikander (Berkeley, Cal.)
• Captain Action #4 cover / Art by Gil Kane
• Captain Action #4: "Evil at Dead World's End!" / Script and art by Gil Kane
• Captain Action #4 letters page / Letters written by Carl Gafford (New Milford, Conn.), Harvey Sobel (Commack, N.Y.), Dave Truesdale (Bemidji, Minn.)
• Captain Action #5 cover / Art by Gil Kane
• Captain Action #5: "A Mind Divided" / Script and pencils by Gil Kane, inks by Wally Wood
• Captain Action #5 letters page / Letters written by Gordon Flagg, Jr. (Atlanta, Ga.), Martin Pasko (Clifton, N.J.), Klaus Janson (Bridgeport, Conn.), George Gambino (Levittown, N.Y.), Craig Battmer (Minneapolis, Minn.), Lee McMichael (Valdosta, Ga.), Preston Quade (Norfolk, Va.), Steven Sinatra (Brockton, Mass.), Mark Anderson (Highmore, S.D.), Rich Mrozek (Elmwood Pk., Ill.), Pat Moade (Mt. Carmel, Ill.), Warren Somers (Los Angeles, Cal.)
• Captain Action Gallery / Art by Kurt Schaffenberger, Chic Stone, Gil Kane, and Wally Wood show less

Gil Kane is one of my absolute favourite comic book artists, with an instantly recognizable style all his own.

That said, while the art is, as usual, top notch for a book that came out in 1967, unfortunately the story just isn't that great. Savage is, as Gil Kane states, basically a modern day Conan, and he's unstoppable.

Archie Goodwin's narration here is uncharacteristically overwrought. Yes, it's obvious they were going for a pulp feel, but it really started to get a bit old by the end of show more it.

As one of the world's first graphic novels, however, it's at least earned its place in history. show less

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #101-102

I didn’t realize that the whole “Spidey has 6 arms” plot being connected with Morbius’s emergence was actually a thing in the comics! But yeah, this is pretty straightforward stuff. And Morbius’s origin story as told in the flashback in the second issue is a bit more expansive than it is in the cartoon, actually kind of a bare bones version of what we end up seeing in the movie! Lizard’s involvement also spices things up a bit. The three-way fight show more at the beginning of #102 and Spidey and Lizard teaming up against Morbius at the end of the same issue were both pretty enjoyable, and to no one’s great shock I enjoyed Morbius’s stock villain dialogue about his superiority and everyone else being beneath him etc etc quite a bit.

MARVEL TEAM UP #3-4

This was also kind of true of the two previous comics, but: seeing Spider-Man using 70s slang was kind of adorably weird.

#3 was arguably a bit better since it had Morbius making another vampire to be friends with, which I really wish would happen more often!, but he’s a black guy in a 70s comic book with a speaking role so of course he isn’t long for this world. But also Spidey’s titular team-up in this one is Johnny from the Fantastic 4, so… eh. #4 starts out more Spidey vs. X-Men than Spidey teaming up with the X-Men, and then becomes X-Men vs. Morbius. The X-Men vs. Morbius parts were pretty good, Spidey stealing a kiss from Jean at the end for no particular reason was not.

GIANT-SIZE SUPERHEROES #1

This is probably my favorite story in the first collection! Morbius basically enslaves Man-Wolf and the pair of them just whale on Spidey, true I Want This Twink Destroyed style. This is pretty much exactly what I would want out of a movie with Morbius as the villain rather than an antihero.

ADVENTURE INTO FEAR #20-26

In a lot of ways this is the real meat of this collection. These issues of the Adventure Into Fear ongoing series were effectively Morbius solo comics, with all of their titles being stylized “Adventure Into Fear with Morbius The Living Vampire.”

The adventures Morbius gets up to in these are weird as fuck, and while the writing wasn’t always top notch I remained thoroughly entertained throughout. #20 sees Morbius escaping from the X-Men and enslaved by a hypno dommy Satanic cultist guy. He isn’t hot, sorry. But the dialog kinda is, as usual.

Oh, it’s worth noting that there’s a… kind of awkward depiction of a rabbi here? It’s not your usual brand of antisemitism, just… kinda weird? Like, they have him say “Isiaha’s beard” the way you’d have a wizard say “Merlin’s beard”? And I just don’t know what that’s about. Also his dying thoughts are that Morbius’s first name (Michael) is a Hebrew name, which is definitely what I’d be thinking as a vampire finished sucking the life out of my veins.

#21 finds our antiheroic vampire given the hard sell by a group of technologically advanced aliens called the Caretakers who are, I believe, approximately the zillionth powerful, mysterious force revealed to have influenced humanity’s evolution by Marvel comics. Morbius is loath to take part in their very eugenics-sounding scheme to “save” humanity not because of the principled opposition to eugenics you might expect from a scientist who accidentally turned himself into a vampire while doing genetic research, but because of some Social Darwinist Lite philosophy that he proclaims in a single throwaway line every time the subject comes up here and in future issues. I super hate it?

Anyway, Morbius goes to try to fight the Satanist hypnodom guy only to find out that he’s dating his ex or something, and then the hypnodom summons a catboy to fight Morbius because sure, why not. #22 finds that catboy trying to kill Morbius by just keeping him pinned to the ground until the sun comes up (the art is very horny), which won’t work because Morbius is a science vampire or whatever. Anyway, the catboy ends up getting summoned back to his world of catboys and the king makes up some bullshit about wanting Morbius around to thin the herd due to overpopulation when clearly he should just admit that all the subby catboys are horny for vampires.

#23 finds Morbius on a planet populated by humans, androids, and mutant aliens and it gets super eugenics-y and I kind of just don’t even want to dwell on it because ugh. #24 pits Morbius against Blade, and its coverart is actually used for the first volume of the Epic Collection even though it’s a super short confrontation, like it’s one of the least consequential things that happens in the entire collection. Personally I would’ve gone with the Morbius and Man-Wolf vs. Spidey cover from Giant-Size Superheroes #1 (which they did actually use on the back cover), especially considering that cover art would set the tone for how unbelievably horny a lot of the comics in this collection are.

#25 and #26 finish off this arc by having everyone (except for the actually-interesting catboys) come back and fight each other and switch sides a bunch of times. Probably my least favorite part of the entire arc tbh, but it gets the job done.

So, yeah! These are oftentimes terribly written, but the concepts in them are just so silly that I’m entertained wondering what will happen next. But the main thing that keeps me coming back is they are just super horny, with the lurid details of Morbius sinking his teeth into so many necks being lovingly presented both with vivid art and lovingly lingering narration. “Razor-sharp fangs part the smooth fur on the catwoman’s neck and plunge deep into her soft, warm flesh!” “The irresistible drive to feel teeth sinking into soft flesh, to feel steaming liquid on his tongue…” This is just vampire porn. Y’all wrote vampire porn. I’m not judging, it rules.

VAMPIRE TALES #1-8

The Epic Collection only includes the Morbius stories from these comics, which is a shame because a lot of the other stories sound rad as fuck ngl.

These were in black and white, which was usually fine (and even kinda fit the tone) but the last page of issue 7 had one really weird panel where they had black text on a dark background that was just kinda impossible to read and I don’t really get how that happened? (The best I can guess is the thing was originally done in full color and then printed in black and white, but like… why would you do it that way???) Issue 8’s first page is a literal reprint of that page with white text boxes around the offending narration, which seemed like the printing equivalent of an “oops, our bad.”

But, yeah. These stories vacillate between being wonderfully pulpy and being… kinda plodding and boring? I do enjoy the more indulgent elements when they come up, and honestly just when I was starting to lose patience with this series the aforementioned issue 7 has a scene where a demonic skeleton that is on fire who wears a cloak and rides a horse that is also a skeleton and on fire catches Morbius with a barbed-wire noose and drags him around for a minute, so like… consider me bought back in, obviously???

There’s also plenty of horny bloodsucking in these, which like, you know I’m totally onboard with.

GIANT-SIZE WEREWOLF #4

The Epic Collection closes out with this pretty straightforward issue pitting the very originally-named werewolf *checks notes* Werewolf against Morbius. Both Morbius and Werewolf are portrayed pretty sympathetically, and their fights are pretty decent. This also picks back up the storyline of Morbius’s ex-fiancee Martine from his arc in Adventure Into Fear, I’d actually say that their interactions take up the vast majority of the pages of this issue. show less

I find these Conan graphic novels far more accessible and amusing than the originals by Robert E. Howard. They are well drawn and plotted. The first story in this one, 'A Sword Called Stormbringer' is really an Elric story by Michael Moorcock, with Conan almost as a secondary character (the story is not necessarily the less enjoyable for that). Of course Elric and Conan fight and of course neither is the victor, though Moorcock does not go so far as to claim Conan as an aspect of his Eternal show more Champion. The rest of the stories involve Conan washed ashore on a mysterious island ('The Gods of Bal-Sagoth') and fighting as a mercenary on two sides of a holy/mercantile war. Very enjoyable. show less