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Roger Ash
by Roger Ash
Time machines have long been a staple of science fiction and fantasy stories. people have wondered for years what it would be like to travel as easily through the time stream as we can now drive to the grocery store. Yet science says this is an impossibility. This is a case where I think science is wrong because I have a time maker and I’m ready to bet you do too. let me explain. have you ever heard a song on the radio and flashed back to when you and your pals used to cruise to that song and belt it out at the top of your lungs? Or maybe a smell reminds you of spending the holidays with your family as a child. You just traveled in time. So maybe science isn’t wrong about time travel in the physical sense, but you can do it nonetheless.
So what does this have to make with comics? Well, there are certain books that when I re-read them, I feel like I did when I read them for the first time as a teenager. I’ve written about some of them in the past, like Steve Gerber’s Howard the Duck and Marv Wolfman & George Perez’s run on DC’s new teen Titans, so I’m going to focus on a couple different comics this time around, John Byrne’s run on Marvel’s wonderful four and Jim Starlin’s work on Marvel’s Warlock.
John Byrne’s wonderful Four
Fantastic four Visionaries: John Byrne
John Byrne pertained to prominence at marvel drawing the X-Men. The Chris Claremont/John Byrne run on X-Men is considered by lots of to be a high point of the series and defined the new X-Men of Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, and Kitty Pryde. Their death of Phoenix is a modern day classic. As much as I take pleasure in Byrne’s work on X-Men, my favorite work of his was his gig after X-Men, as both writer and artist of the wonderful four with issue #232.
The FF is one of the cornerstones of the marvel universe and while I liked the book, and I really took pleasure in The Thing, it was not one of my favorite comics. That all changed when John Byrne took over. He had a real affinity for the characters and brought them to life in a way I had never seen before. His run featured memorable stories such as the trial of Reed Richards, terror in a tiny town (a classic encounter Dr. Doom), the thing leaving the team for a while to be replaced by She-Hulk, and a excursion through the negative Zone. There were memorable battles with Dr. Doom, Terrax, Psycho man (which caused sue Richards to change her code name from the undetectable girl to the undetectable Woman), and Galactus.
Fantastic four #239 featuring Frankie Raye
A story that sticks out in my mind is the saga of Frankie Raye. Frankie was a girlfriend of Johnny Storm, the Human Torch. but there was something odd about her. One issue ended with her saying she had something to show Johnny and she opened her robe in front of him. I didn’t know exactly what was going on, my teen-aged, hormone loaded brain had some interesting ideas. In the next issue, we see that what she’s showing Johnny is a costume of some sort. She has no idea where it came from, but it’s soon revealed that she has powers like the Human Torch that were mentally blocked by her stepfather. now that she knows what she can do, she joins the wonderful Four. during an encounter with Galactus, she agrees to become his new herald and Nova is born.
But through all this cosmicness and adventure, the family dynamic of the heroes shone through. family is what makes them different from the Avengers or the X-Men. If you miss this, you miss what makes them special, and Byrne understood this and gave us well-rounded characters who were both family and heroes. Heck, we even get to meet The Thing’s oft-mentioned Aunt Petunia. and Byrne’s art throughout is gorgeous.
Marvel has collected all of Byrne’s run on FF in nine volumes of wonderful four Visionaries: John Byrne. These books are all highly recommended. If you’ve never read them, see why lots of (myself included) think Byrne’s run on wonderful four is second only to that the teams creators, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
Jim Starlin’s Warlock
Marvel Masterworks Warlock
Jim Starlin has written a number of stories with Adam Warlock over the years including Infinity Gauntlet and Warlock and the Infinity Watch, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m going back to his original work with the charter in odd Tales and his own title. I didn’t read these when they originally came out but was introduced to them a few years after their initial publication. The comics market in the late-70s/early-80s was a much different place than it is today. trade paperback or hardcover collections of old comics stories were pretty much nonexistent with the exception of books like Origins of marvel Comics and kid of Origins of marvel Comics. Instead, you would get monthly comics like marvel Tales which reprinted old Spider-Man stories,fantastic Adventures which reprinted classic X-Men tales, and fantasy masterpieces which reprinted Stan Lee & John Buscema’s work on Silver Surfer. It was in the back of fantasy masterpieces #8 that I first encountered both Jim Starlin and Adam Warlock and my mind was blown.
This series was just plain strange, warped, fun, and adult – not in a sexual sense but in the fact that it dealt with a lot more mature themes than a lot of other mainstream comics at the time. here was a person whose main weapon was a gem embedded in his forehead that could steal the souls of his enemies, a fact that tortured him. His major villain is the Magus, an evil future version of himself (or maybe the other side of his personality). There was sexual tension with the most hazardous woman in the galaxy, Gamorra, and her master, Thanos, had his own plans for Warlock. but the book wasn’t all angst, oddness, and adventure as Pip the Troll added some much needed comedy relief and a “common man” connection to the story.
Marvel Two-In-One annual #2
Jim Starlin’s art on the series is impressive and my favorite work he’s ever done. It can be naturalistic when needed and he easily switches gears to delineate the most bizarre scenarios Warlock faces. fantasy masterpieces ended with issue #14 but Warlock’s story was not yet complete. I had to know how it ended. I searched the back issue shelves of the comic shop I frequented at the time until I had both Avengers annual #7and marvel Two-In-One annual #2, which concluded the original Adam Warlock opus. I’ve read Warlock’s final battle with Thanos a number of times and I’m still not sure I completely understand it. but I’m ok with that as it’s a satisfying ending and a bit of mystery fits in nicely with what had come before. It would be years later that I discovered that this was not only the end of Warlock’s story, but also the end of Starlin’s first Thanos epic which he began in Captain Marvel.
If you’ve never read this story, it is available as a marvel Masterworks. I can’t recommend this story highly enough. just writing about it I feel the excitement it produced in me as a young reader and I want to go home and relive the magic by reading it again. This is an amazing story.
So, what comics or storylines take you back? comment below and give others the opportunity to discover stories that are your favorites.
Now, go read a comic!
Classic comic covers are from the Grand Comics Database.