It's Memorial Day - Here's to Beating the Nazis! Invaders 35-37

 The Invaders #35 (December 1978)
"Havoc on the Home Front!"
Roy Thomas-Don Heck/Alan Kupperberg/Rick Hoberg

The Invaders #36 (January 1979)
"Crushed by the Iron Cross"
Roy Thomas-Alan Kupperberg/Chic Stone

The Invaders #37 (February 1979)
"The Liberty Legion Busts Loose"
Don Glut-Rick Hoberg/Alan Kupperberg/Chic Stone

Doug: Nostalgia's a powerful thing isn't it? Even as an adult, I couldn't wait for the first Invaders issue not drawn by Frank Robbins and Frank Springer. Trouble is, around the time those arrived, Don Heck got the art assignment. And here's my obligatory "I am not being mean to Don Heck" statement -- love the man's Silver Age work; his Bronze Age stuff not so much. So anyway, I'm working out of the Invaders Classic series of trades on this one -- volume 4 has the same cover as issue #35 above. The Whizzer was great during his brief tenure in the Avengers, wasn't he? Why wouldn't I be drawn back to this issue? Wait -- it has the whole Liberty Legion in it as well? Sign me up! Ah, but therein lies some trouble -- as you can see, today you're getting a full-blown arc rather than a single issue. But is that your gain?

Invaders #35, with pencils presumably by Alan Kupperberg

Doug: I'll start you off with three 100-Word Reviews, and then I'll go into my usual format for thoughts on the story. Here you go:

Invaders #35 - The Invaders are called Stateside to deal with a saboteur who made a “withdrawal” from a munitions installation. Cap, Namor, and the Torch are in Times Square meeting an adoring public when the Whizzer suddenly arrives. He relates (for us) a brief history of the Liberty Legion, and why he needs the Invaders’ help. Miss America had investigated a German-American tavern when she saw a professor kidnapped by two German toughs. Trailing them, she encountered the Iron Cross and engaged him in battle. She was joined by her Legion teammates, who were soon trounced. Hence the need for the Invaders.

Invaders #36 - The kidnapped man is Professor Schneider, designer of the Iron Cross armor. The wearer of the armor is Helmut Gruler, Schneider’s childhood friend. Gruler says time and again throughout the story that he is not a Nazi, somehow distancing his intense jingoism from the darker aspects of Hitler’s Germany. Gruler needs Schneider to make “improvements” to the Iron Cross armor. Meanwhile, the Invaders (now in an Atlantean ship) follow the trail of the captured Liberty Legion. Namor is engaged by the Iron Cross in the Atlantic, and their battle rips open the U-boat in which the Legion is being held.

Invaders #37 - As water pours through the gaping hole in the U-boat, the Iron Cross grabs Professor Schneider and hightails it out of there. Aboard the vessel, the crew unsuccessfully attempts to murder the Liberty Legion. Thin Man heads out into the ocean to assist Namor in getting the sub to the surface. They accomplish the task and once everyone’s safe, a team of Namor, the Torch, Miss America, and Red Raven pursue Iron Cross. The Torch melts the inner workings of the mechanical suit, causing Gruler to fall into the ocean; Schneider tells that the blueprints were destroyed with the suit.

Invaders #35, with pencils presumably by Don Heck

The Good: As alluded to above, the art. It's not spectacular -- and actually, one might consider it rather middling in comparison to other Bronze Age luminaries, especially the young guns who were breaking out in the late 1970s: Byrne, Perez, Miller, et al. I think my impression of it is just clouded by my joy at freedom from depictions of ballerinas in the throes of rigor mortis. Anyway, the pacing is really solid, all of the players look exactly as you think they should look, etc. Namor has a certain haughtiness about him as he should, Cap is focused, the Whizzer a bit frantic -- it's all here. The most interesting aspect of Invaders #35, however, is that you can plainly see the panels where Don Heck did the pencils and those where Alan Kupperberg did so. I've provided a few samples to support this. Again -- nothing wrong here... it's just noticeable.

I liked that we got a peek into the workings of the Stateside Liberty Legion, and to be perfectly honest wish we had been able to see more. I don't know if there was ever discussion of a spin-off WWII series featuring the Legion, but there should have been. Madeline Joyce seemed an able spy, and the angle that there would be an expatriate in New York who had built a weapon for Germany was a nice plotline. It is unfortunate, however, that as Miss America took the lead in the case she ended up being the one captured. "Helpless female" trope... You know, I look at the Liberty Legion the first time they are assembled in the story and there is really no reason they should not have been a successful launch on their own. The Whizzer and the Patriot do what Quicksilver and Captain America do, the Thin Man of course mimics Reed Richards, Red Raven = the Angel, Jack Frost is an early version of Iceman, and Blue Diamond would seem somewhat similar to Wonder Man. If we think of Miss America as the then-popular Ms. Marvel, then what's not to like? The Liberty Legion should have had the best of many corners of the Marvel Universe.

The flashbacks/recaps aspect of the story will serve as a segueway to my next section. While I think flashbacks are good for the month-to-month reader, let's face it -- this is no longer how we read comics. So while there was certainly merit in bringing new readers up to speed on the Liberty Legion's history, it did play out a bit long. Same thing for the origin of the Iron Cross armor. It wasn't bad -- just a bit cumbersome. I'm always torn about whether I liked the convention of one-page recaps that were en vogue when I stopped reading new comics (seemed a waste of a perfectly good splash page) or if I preferred the in-story rehashing of last month's details. I guess both have merit. 

The Bad: If Helmut Gruler had stated one more time that he was not a Nazi, I think I'd have screamed. But as a teacher of these sorts of issues, I did appreciate Roy Thomas's efforts. One aspect of the Holocaust that we strive to make clear with teachers we train at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is to use precise language. It's incorrect to make blanket statements such as "The Germans did..." or "The Nazis did..." simply because of issues of collaboration by non-Germans, and the point that Thomas makes with Gruler was true; it was certainly true that Gruler's nationalism could have existed without him being a member of the party. So while it became about as tiring as a Claremontian "I'm the best at what I do, and what I do isn't pretty.", I understood.

The Iron Cross was a somewhat formidable foe for our heroes, but really he was just a Titanium Man from an earlier era. And when you consider that Iron Man beat the Titanium Man by himself on numerous occasions, I never really felt like our heroes were threatened -- regardless of how much they got slapped around.

When the Thin Man ventured outside the damaged U-boat and attempted to repressurize it by pressing his body against the hull, I really had a difficult time suspending my disbelief. The pressure of the sea alone would have killed him. And with no breathing device? Pfah...

With such a large ensemble cast, it was tough for any of the heroes to get major face time. I thought the creators did a decent job of keeping everyone in character -- but such moments to shine were fleeting. Cap in particular seemed short-shrifted. I also felt like the Whizzer was pining just a bit too much for Miss America; given that she was arguably far more powerful than he, I'm sure she could take care of herself. She did, in fact, fight the Iron Cross to a standstill for several minutes, something Namor himself accomplished.

After giving some consideration to this story over several days, I'd suggest hopping in the wayback machine and running this tale as an annual. That would have pared it down a bit and probably made it read better. Just a thought.

The Ugly: The unevenness of the art could be jarring at times. I'd mentioned the panels that sometimes moved between Don Heck and Alan Kupperberg as lead penciler; I think the same thing happened in Invaders #37 between Kupperberg and Rick Hoberg. Additionally, the inks are incredibly sketchy at times in that issue. Sketchy like Vinnie Colletta hopped up on too much espresso. It wasn't bad art, per se; it just made me feel like I'd suddenly landed in a different book.

Invaders #37 - what's up with the scratchy inks in this portion of the book?

Time well spent? I won't say "no", because as I said at the top there was a definite sense of nostalgia and even love for these characters I followed in my youth. But fine literature? Uh, not so much. So let's just call it a nice diversion of four-color fun and leave it at that.

Guest Post - Recollecting on Collecting

Doug: Welcome to another guest post in what is becoming a long line of guest-writing here on the Bronze Age Babies. Karen and I are excited for not only what has gone before, but for posts already in the queue that will be winging your way in the not-too-distant future. Today we welcome Mike S., better known to friends and foes as Martinex1. Mike pens a love letter to comic books and comics collecting, and we're sure you'll want to discuss your passion for the hobby as he so eloquently does below. 

Martinex1: I was doing some reorganizing of my long boxes and comic art this past weekend, and as I came across certain books and original pages, it caused me to reminisce. I suspect that enjoying memories is a big part of collecting comics. Like all entertainment and art, comics are an escape. For me it’s a chance for my imagination to go places I never can, while at the same time thinking about childhood and the fun and growth of those days.

Comics were interwoven in my life from a very young age. I grew up in the south suburbs of Chicago in a large family within a larger family. My six brothers and sisters and I had an extended family that seemed to poke into many neighborhoods. We were all very close knit, from my Grandfather who lived right next door to us, to the many aunts and uncles and second cousins and relations that lived in the sturdy brick bungalows in the city. On a fairly regular basis, our family of nine would load into our van and visit my great grandmother; she was a tiny woman of Polish descent who lived in a doily filled duplex and treated us to Pringles and Goofy Grape punch. Upstairs from her lived an aunt and uncle and their three older teenaged boys.  

My first memories of that house and those family members are from around age five, and they are some very vivid and happy memories indeed, particularly those around my cousin Joey. Joey was the middle son who lived upstairs; he was thin and wiry and soft spoken. He was about 18 at that time, but he always had time for us youngsters. Most impactful to me was the fact that Joey was a collector. Every dresser and shelf in his room had sports’ bobble heads adorning them. He had Bears bobble heads, and White Sox bobble heads, and hockey bobble heads.  My brothers and I would run around the room trying to get them all nodding simultaneously to his shouts of, “Cut it out. Cut it out”, and laughter.  Joey also had G.I. Joes, not the small ones that came out in the ‘80s, but the tall military characters.  He had their jeeps, and their weapons, and their space capsule as well. Joey had large plastic figurines of army men, and Vikings, and knights. They were similar to the small army men that you can purchase 200 at a time and appear in Toy Story, only these were about 4 inches tall and very detailed.  And Joey had comic books. Stacks and stacks of comic books were tied neatly in his closet with soft twine.  We could hardly ever touch them while we were there, but we could see the stacks and make out some of the books on top… Avengers, Fantastic Four, Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos. He kept them stacked nicely, all in their spot, all in order. The brightness of the covers, with the characters in their costumes in dramatic poses, called to us. Once in a while, one would be lying about free and the kids in my family would quietly page through it; I distinctly remember looking at a Sub Mariner comic as a graduation party carried on throughout the house.  But that was rare; Joey kept the comics tucked away for the most part. 

Joey was very giving. Over the course of our visits to their house, he would always give us something he no longer had need for, so the G.I. Joes, and their supplies, and the Vikings and knights were soon ours.  It was like Christmas whenever we went visiting, and I can remember countless hours playing at home with all of those toys.

After one of the family parties, in which the kids had their fill of Shasta soda pulled from large ice tubs, we climbed into the van and took our places. As my mom got in she loaded a cardboard box into our midst. What was it? What was it? I am sure all of our hearts leapt with the excitement. I was shocked.  It was a huge box of COMICS!

I can recall a lot of them, but I probably cannot remember most even today.  Some stand out in my memories; some are lost to the hazy clouds of time.   He gave us Avengers!  Avengers #s 34 and 35 with the Living Laser, #59 with Yellowjacket, #61 with the Black Knight and Dr. Strange, #69 with the Growing Man, #71 with the Invaders, #86 with that big headed Brainchild. Wow! And also Silver Surfer 2, Iron Man 21, Fantastic Four 87, Captain Marvel 17, and more and more and more. There were Archies, stacks and stacks of Archies:  PEP, Jughead, Lil’ Archies, Betty and Veronica. And Sad Sack, lots of Sad Sack. And Sgt. Fury, dozens of Sgt. Fury.  

A side note: with the G.I. Joes, army men, Sgt. Fury, Sad Sack, etc., it was obvious Joey had an affinity for anything related to WWII; his father was in the war and we knew of him as Uncle Jeep (because he drove a jeep in the war and the name stuck from those days when his buddies simply called him, “Jeep” instead of his given “Eugene”).  

Joey gave us so many comics, and being a collector today I know that those books were difficult to part with.

All of those comics were thrust into our little grubby hands.  And we read them over and over and over again until sadly the staples loosened and the covers fell off. I read them at the kitchen table while eating Honeycomb cereal. I read them during commercials while watching Sigmund and the Sea Monsters on Saturday morning. I read them by flashlight in a tent on a vacation stop at a KOA.   I read every inch of those comics. I didn’t even understand some of the words, but I read them.   And I drooled over the “Coming Soon” advertisements of future issues. And I wondered what happened in chapters that I was missing (IE. Avengers #60, the marriage of Yellowjacket and Wasp).  I read every checklist. I read every letter. I particularly read the Marvels until I memorized them.  And I loved every minute.  

Over the next couple of years, that was my exposure to comics. They were all gifts from Joey.  

When I was eight years old, my mom told me that Joey was sick; I can remember the conversation and I can remember not truly understanding. He had leukemia. It was discovered after a minor injury would not heal correctly. Within only a matter of months, Joey died. I can remember that conversation too; I can remember exactly where I was when I found out. I had to miss the wake and funeral because I had the chicken pox. I stayed home alone (in those days kids did that) and I read comic books and thought about my cousin. To this day, even as I type these words, I miss him tremendously.

Within a year or so, my mom bought me my first “new” comic. I was shopping with her at the local Jewel-Osco, and they had on a rack three bagged comics for less than a dollar. She let me pick one bag. It contained an Amazing Spider-Man, a Marvel Two-In-One, and an Invaders issue. I was ecstatic. I could not believe the Thing had his own series, and I saw more of what Captain America was doing back in WWII. I have to give my mother credit, because not only did she buy them for me, but she read them too. She was probably just checking to see if it was appropriate for me, but I distinctly remember her chuckling and saying, “It is very tongue in cheek”.

Not long after, I was venturing to the corner drug store and buying comics from the rack. My first purchase, using money from my part in a paper route, was Avengers #164. That is still my favorite comic in so many ways. To come in at the start of the Nefaria storyline with Byrne interiors and a Perez cover helped, but the issue brought together so many characters that I had known from the days my cousin shared comics. The Living Laser and Whirlwind were there; it had Black Panther and Yellowjacket too, but it also had some new guys I didn’t know yet like Wonder Man and the furry Beast. The continuity in the story and in my life just made sense; it made me happy.

Somewhere in my mind, even back then I wanted to collect everything that Joey had given me that as youngsters we had mishandled and destroyed. As I reached my teenage years, I set out to gather everything I could remember in that wonderful cardboard box. The first back issue I purchased was Avengers #47 with Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and Magneto.  It filled a gap. One down, dozens to go.

It has been easy for me, even 40 years later, to remember the Marvel Comics that I had to replace.   They had so extreme an impact. Honestly, I struggle to remember the DC issues, and I am sure I have not replaced them all in my collection yet. I can remember certain images or parts of storylines, but I have not been able to pin them all down. I recently came across a cover of the Flash that sparked a memory. Archies all started looking the same to me; I could remember some stories, but identifying the cover or issue I needed was near impossible. I’ve known for a long time that a gap is” Dennis the Menace Goes to Hawaii” but I have not made a purchase on that yet. 

 

There is also one issue that I know we had that I am afraid I will never be able to afford: X-Men #1.  Yes, unbelievable but true, I know we had it because I distinctly remember Iceman sliding down the pole on the first page and dressing like a snowman. I didn’t realize it until I read the reprint in Amazing Adventures much later. 

My preferences have always been superheroes and particularly Marvel characters, so my collection has grown in that way. I am sure my collection is far beyond anything Joey could have imagined, with plastic bags, and long boxes, and trades, and CGC, and original art. It has been fun to share some of it with my nieces and nephews and now my young sons, although they are more interested in Legos and Skylanders. That’s okay; maybe someday they will share the passion or maybe not. The main thing is that we share the imagination.

This all got me to wondering how the folks at the BAB site stumbled into comics, what their influences are, and what they think about comic collecting as part of their life.

So, how did your collecting of comics start? Did you happen into the local convenience shop or drug store to buy candy and have your eye caught by the four color magic on the spinner rack? Or were you led to the hobby by somebody you knew; did a family member or friend share the experience? What were your first comics and are they still amongst your favorites? Was it a Marvel, or DC, or Archie, or some funny animal book that first spiked your imagination? Do you still have that first book and how well do you remember it? Did you have a special book that was lost to the ages?

What makes your Bronze Age gold?

Discuss: War Comics

Doug: It's Veterans' Day here in the States; perhaps it's still called Armistice Day elsewhere (I'll confess my ignorance). So in honor of those who serve and have served, let's delve into a comics genre not often dealt with here on the BAB -- war comics, and the creators who wrote and drew them.

Half-Price Heaven, and Digital Comic Questions

Doug: Happy Sunday, friends! And for those of you here in the States who will receive a reprieve from work in celebration of Monday's observance of Labor Day -- awesome!

Doug: I'd remarked on Twitter late Friday night that I hoped to get to a comic shop on Saturday that features 1/2 price trades and hardcovers. To give a little pub to the merchant, the name of the store is "Reader Copies", and it's located on Scatterfield Road in Anderson, IN. Sure enough, I was able to darken the guy's door for about 20 minutes ahead of our son's soccer match. And I came away with a nice haul. I told my wife, whose eyes were a little wide upon my return to the car, that hey -- since I didn't get to WizardWorld Chicago last weekend, this could be considered my convention haul for the year. I think that placated her... I got $168 dollars of brand new books for $83. What's not to love?

Doug: I'd mentioned in that tweet that I was hoping the fella would still have copies of the Marvel Visionaries volumes dedicated to Stan Lee and to Jack Kirby. Well, he no longer had those, but I did score the Chris Claremont book in that same series. As you might guess, it contains mostly X-Men stories, as well as those for associated mutant titles. However, there is a Daredevil tale, the first appearance of Sabretooth from Iron Fist #14, a book-length Star-Lord story from the Marvel Preview B&W magazine. As you may have seen on our sidebar, tomorrow I'll begin a series of reviews featuring the end of Superboy as we knew him. However, once October rolls around I think I'll feature Claremont in a series of reviews from this new hardcover.

Doug: So what else did I get, you may ask? Well, to be honest, the plundering could have been much more severe had I not put back 3-4 other tomes I had my mitts around. Left in the longboxes were two softcover Daredevil Marvel Masterworks, two Sub-Mariner MM (the entire Tales to Astonish run), and the first three volumes of DC's Crisis on Multiple Earths series of tpbs reprinting all of the JLA/JSA team-ups. I did walk out the door with the second volume of the Thor MM, the second and third volumes of the Hulk MM (reprinting the entire Tales to Astonish series, as well as Incredible Hulk #102), and the first volume of the Sgt. Fury MM. All of those volumes are the softcover versions. Five books of Silver and Bronze Age love -- yes!!

Doug: As most of our readers know, I am selling my comic book collection (slooooooowly...), and am beginning to become aware of the books I'd like to replace. Thor is one such title that I've always been sorry wasn't included in the Marvel DVD-ROM releases of the past decade. I'm generally not too wild about the quality of the first year-plus of Marvel's Silver Age classics. For my money, it was generally that second or even into the third year that I think Stan and "whichever artist" really got things moving. Of course books like Amazing Spider-Man would be an exception, but generally speaking I'd give you the first year or so of the Fantastic Four and the Avengers (and of the Ant Man/Giant Man Tales of Astonish series, and the Torch's Strange Tales run). I've looked at the issues included in the second volume of the Thor Omnibus, and it picks up right where the second volume of the MM leaves off. No-brainer, as I plan to get that Thor Omnibus (and will buy the third volume if/when it become available). I don't have the Hulk DVD-ROM, so the two Hulk volumes made sense -- I wish I could have picked up the two Namor volumes. And as to Sgt. Fury? Just curious. I have the tpb that reprints all of the Steranko SHIELD stories, so wanted to see how Kirby originally envisioned the character. If you have time, please revisit this post from a little over two years ago when we had this discussion. And that frames today's conversation, should one develop -- what books would you love to have, in total (at least by parameters set by you)?

Doug: Lastly, I want to do a favor for a friend of ours. Karen Williams writes the Between the Pages blog and has been a participant in the Super Blog Team-Up project. She asked several questions of us via Twitter last week, and I want to put them out to our readers for their answers. Karen is interested in hearing people's opinions on digital comics, and/or other alternatives to paper. I am going to copy from her questions of last week, with some minor editing for this format:

Karen Williams: Alternatives To Paper Comics: Comixology, Marvel Unlimited, Dark Horse, iVerse, scans...

The platforms for digital comics keep changing, so I’d love to hear your readers' thoughts.
As with many comics fans of a certain age, my eyesight has faded some, so I find reading paper comics hard. I love the zoom features in digital comics. But, the digital comics landscape is changing so fast, part of me wonders if buying digital comics are a wise choice.

Doug: So there you have it -- a few things to mull over in your mind this weekend. Join us tomorrow for my review of Legion of Super-Heroes #37, and the beginning of the end of the pre-Crisis Superboy. See ya then!