SILVER AGE DEATH MATCH: Justice League of America vs. Fantastic Four
Fred Van Lente pays (another) birthday tribute to Gardner Fox — who was born 110 years ago on May 20, 1911 — with a new column concept…
Marvel hook-ups and DC mash-ups… Fred Van Lente’s COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH is back and better than ever! Now, as a monthly feature for 2024! See, Marvel this year is celebrating the 40th anniversary of 1984’s 12-issue Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars by re-releasing each installment as a Facsimile Edition every month. And of course, what is the DC event it’s always compared to? Why, 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths, of course. And that series is also being re-released monthly too. (It started in April.) It’s a great time to revisit two maxiseries that redefined comics for good and for bad. You can click here to find the previous entries, but right now the tally stands at 2-2. (The Secret Wars #5 Facsimile Edition is out this week.) Ring the bell, Fred! — By FRED VAN LENTE Secret Wars #5: “The Battle of the Four Armies!” Oh, silly Beyonder. What were you thinking? You bring Galactus against his will to a planet, he is going to try and eat that planet. I mean, would you tie Popeye up inside a spinach cannery? (OK, I bet one of Popeye’s enemies did, in fact, tie him up inside a spinach cannery at least once, but then Bluto never struck me as a mental giant.) Raymond Chandler once said the storyteller’s challenge is to make the events of stories seem both inevitable and surprising. Galactus not screwing around with Beyonder’s “kill your enemies and I will give you a vague but invaluable prize” and just summoning his solar system-sized space station to destroy Battleworld is simultaneously logical and unpredictable. Everybody freaking out about Galactus’ Alexander the Great-level solution to the series’ Gordian Knot gives room for various romantic subplots to flourish. In the bad guys’ camp, the first Jewish-coded supervillain couple I’m aware of, Woody-Allen-but-a-god Molecule Man and zaftik Volcana, go full Revenge of the Nerds on Wrecking Crew bullies. In the heroes’ camp, resident man-whore Johnny Storm has a groovy space-hookah session with alien hippie squeeze Zsaji (“Zah-Shee,” per Johnny) which, instead of giving you the munchies, gives you “Previously On” plot flashbacks. Convenient for a title written by the editor-in-chief who mandated every Marvel book carry such recaps. Over in Krakoa East (aka Magneto’s Base), Colossus pines away for Kitty Pryde, who got left behind on Earth to be the MacGuffin in a multi-part New Mutants...
Moving mountains and moving moments… Fred Van Lente’s COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH is back and better than ever! Now, as a monthly feature for 2024! See, Marvel this year is celebrating the 40th anniversary of 1984’s 12-issue Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars by re-releasing each installment as a Facsimile Edition every month. And of course, what is the DC event it’s always compared to? Why, 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths, of course. And that series will be re-released monthly too, starting in April! It’s a great time to revisit two maxiseries that redefined comics for good and for bad. You can click here to find the previous entries, but right now the tally stands at 2-1, in favor of Secret Wars. (The Secret Wars #4 Facsimile Edition is out this week.) Ring the bell, Fred! — By FRED VAN LENTE SECRET WARS #4: “Situation: Hopeless!” Back in Issue #1, Reed Richards, the Wasp, and Professor X, leaders of the Fantastic Four, Avengers and X-Men, respectively, unanimously handed leadership of the Battleworld-trapped heroes to Captain America, because that A on his forehead doesn’t stand for France, or something. Cap rewards their trust by promptly falling asleep on watch, then yelling at the rapidly dumbing Hulk for not waking him up. Of course Dr. Doom’s villain force completely gets the drop on them. Wait, did I say drop on them?! Molecule Man drops an entire mountain range on top of the retreating good guys; they’re only saved because Hulk drops the four heroes he’s carrying and catches the mountains with both hands in a Paul Bunyan-esque display of physics-defying strength. Bob Layton replaces Mike Zeck as the penciller for this issue and next. It’s a tough act to follow, but he immediately proves himself up to it by crafting one of the best sequences in the run. The trapped heroes will live only until Hulk’s arms give out, unless Reed Richards can craft an Iron Man-boosting device MacGuyvered together from Spider-Man’s web shooters and Hawkeye’s trick arrows. I try to drill into my students the idea that comics manipulate space similarly to how movies manipulate time. The more panels you add to a page, the more you drag out the action. It has the effect of slowing down time. The nine-panel page of Reed insulting Hulk’s intelligence to make him angry enough to keep holding up the mountain...
Fred Van Lente pays (another) birthday tribute to Gardner Fox — who was born 110 years ago on May 20, 1911 — with a new column concept…