History Really Does Repeat Itself

Essential Captain America Vol. 4 (collecting Captain America Nos. 157-186)
Marvel Comics
Steve Englehart, Steve Gerber, Roy Thomas, Tony Isabella, Mike Friedrich and John Warner, writers
Sal Buscema, John Verpoorten, Frank McLaughlin, Alan Weiss, Frank Giacoia, John Tartaglione, George Roussos, Vinnie Colletta, Frank Robbins, Tom Orzechowski, Herb Trimpe and Mike Esposito, artists

These massive, black-and-white collected volumes — Marvel's Essentials line and DC's Showcase editions — can be a great way to experience classic stories at a reasonable price. Or they can be a bit cumbersome to get through if you don't really have an appreciation for the character, group or time period being presented.

This volume is one of the good ones. Despite the abundance of names listed above, the vast majority of this volume is the brainchild of writer Steve Englehart and artist Sal Buscema, and that helps this volume maintain a unified voice throughout. The books reprinted here come from the mid-1970s when the title featured both Captain America and the Falcon on the cover and the real-life America was in turmoil. The creators used those turbulent times as a backdrop for an identity crisis of sorts for Captain America himself.

This series of issues brings Cap and Falcon into confrontation with a villain named the Cowled Commander and then a new version of the Serpent Society. The heroes quickly thwart the villains' plans only to have one of the Serpent Society hatch a new plan to drive a wedge between the pair and discredit Captain America in the eyes of the public. That latest plot unfolds over several issues leading into a battle with a new group named the Secret Empire, which in turn leads to yet another incarnation of the Serpent Society.

Captain America and the Falcon aren't the only heroes in these pages. Various members of the Avengers make a number of appearances, along with Nick Fury and various agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., both named and unnamed. The Black Panther and the X-Men also show up for several issues each. And a number of villains, both old and new, also make appearances at various times forcing our heroes to keep on their toes. These nefarious figures include names like the Porcupine, Madame Hydra, Yellow Claw, the Tumbler, the Eel, the Viper, Stoneface, Lucifer and, of course, the Red Skull.

The stories collected in this volume are some really great reads, but it surprised me, reading through a number of these issues for the first time, how many modern ideas began here and how many themes explored in these pages have also been explored in more recent Cap stories. For instance, issue No. 170 is where the Falcon first gets his Wakandan-engineered wings. Before that issue, he used a rope to swing around the rooftops like other non-flying heroes. And while this earliest version of his wings merely helped him glide, they look quite similar to the modern pair he wore right up until he assumed the role of Captain America in the most recent Marvel Comics issues.

Cap's girlfriend in these pages is former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sharon Carter, the same as in current Cap comics, although her back story has undergone some revisions over the years. But Cap's former World War II-era love interest, Peggy Carter, is re-introduced in these stories and becomes a current agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., somewhat mirroring events from the modern "Captain America" films and the "Agent Carter" television series.

The conclusion of the confrontation with the Secret Empire — particularly the revelation of the leader of the terrorist organization — leaves Cap shaken in conviction and spirit. This is when Cap first decides to stop being Captain America and creates the identity of Nomad, the man without a country. The Nomad identity would return in several story lines since this time, but also, during this period when Steve Rogers is Nomad and there is no Captain America, a number of others try their hands at wielding the famous shield in his absence. The fates of these folks who try to be the new Captain America are quite different from any of those following the death of Captain America in Ed Brubaker's Cap run from a few years ago or of the Falcon assuming the mantle in the most recent comics, but there are also similarities.

These are really some great stories and some very key issues in the history of Captain America. Much of the credit for that goes to writer Steve Englehart, again the writer or co-writer on almost all of the stories from this era of the character. That single narrative voice allows the various story lines to weave in and out of each other and interconnect in a way that multiple writers would find harder to pull off. This book alone represents two-and-a-half years worth of Captain America comics at the end of Englehart's run on the title; he also wrote several of the previous issues, collected in Essential Captain America Vol. 3.

On a side note, one of the fill-in issues collected in this volume, No. 168, is a nice little diversion co-written by Roy Thomas and Tony Isabella titled "... And a Phoenix Shall Arise." This story, minus a few references to then-current continuity that dated the story, was turned into a Captain America Power Records book and record set, a copy of which I still own. If you aren't already familiar with Power Records, you should check out Rob Kelly's excellent Power Records blog (http://powerrecord.blogspot.com/) for more on these great little sets.

Switching to the art side of things, Sal Buscema lends his considerable talents to giving the look of these stories the same cohesiveness Englehart's writing does on the story side. Buscema had several different inkers on the issues included here, but the consistency in the pencils gives all of the characters distinctive looks throughout. Buscema's Cap is a strong, muscled defender of the American ideals and the quintessential silver age heroic ideal.


The drawback to that consistency shows up to horrible effect in four of the last five issues collected in this volume when penciller Frank Robbins takes on the art chores. I don't mean to attack the man's skill; I am no artist myself, so I have little room to criticize. More importantly, I have seen some absolutely gorgeous Frank Robbins art in some other titles. But his work in these issues of Captain America looks very rough throughout and downright awkward in a number of action panels. I've included a couple of the worst panels. The one on the left shows Steve Rogers in his Nomad guise traveling across the rooftops in a very strange pose, and the right one shows one of the Captain America wannabes traveling in the same manner with the Falcon. Neither image makes the subject look very comfortable, natural or heroic. These images are not typical of Frank Robbins' art in other venues, but his art on these final issues is the only downside I see in an otherwise great Captain America collection!

To Know Her Is To Fear Her

Believe it or not, that fear tagline above was printed at the top of each issue of Spider-Woman, not some Marvel monster book from the 1970s. But reading the character's beginnings in Essential Spider-Woman Vol. 1, I learned that the character owes just as much to those great old Marvel monster books as she does to the spandex set.

Much has been made of the convoluted origin and back story of Jessica Drew, alias Spider-Woman. In recent years, writers such as Brian Michael Bendis have tried to streamline Jessica's back story and bring the character back to prominence in the Marvel Universe. So I knew, or thought I did, a little of how she was first introduced as a villain, an agent of the international terrorist organization Hydra, who later became a hero and was ret-conned as being always a hero, working for Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. as a double-agent planted in Hydra. That's an oversimplification, but essentially my understanding before reading this great Essential volume. Now, I see that it was waaay more convoluted than that.

Jessica does start life as a pawn of Hydra in Marvel Spotlight No. 32 (February 1977) dispatched by that organization to slay Nick Fury. In a tale written by Archie Goodwin and illustrated by Sal Buscema and Jim Mooney, Spider-Woman is revealed to be a secret weapon held prisoner by Hydra and brainwashed into being loyal to the organization. She fails her mission to slay Fury, being overcome by doubts about what she is ordered to do, and is betrayed by her fellow Hydra agents. Spider-Woman is left believing that she was one of the New Men created by a villain known as the High Evolutionary, who mutated various animals to make them more human-like. Spider-Woman believes she only appears human, but began life as a real spider. Also, her costume is slightly different in these early appearances, completely covering her head — except for the area around her mouth and chin — and sporting a black back.

Just a few months later, in July 1977, Marv Wolfman and Ron Wilson take up Spider-Woman's tale in the pages of Marvel Two-In-One Nos. 29-33. This book matched Ben Grimm, the Thing from the Fantastic Four, with other Marvel heroes. Initially, Thing and Shag-Chi, Master of Kung Fu, are battling Hydra, and Spider-Woman comes on the scene. At first, she is again a pawn of Hydra, but her encounters with the Thing again make Spider-Woman question her loyalty to Hydra, and eventually she breaks from the group and sides with the Thing and a modern-day incarnation of Modred the Mystic. With the Hydra cell finally defeated, along with some other criminals along the way, Modred agrees to unlock Spider-Woman's hidden memories to reveal her true origin, which he does off-panel.

Readers had to wait a few more months, until April 1978 and the debut of Spider-Woman No. 1, to find out what Modred revealed. It seems that Spider-Woman was born human and named Jessica Drew. Her father created a serum to help protect mankind from radiation by using the blood of a spider, since spiders are immune to radiation. Jessica's family, along with another scientist named Herbert Wyndham, moved to a place called Wundagore Mountain to complete their researches. The site was chosen for its rich uranium deposits, needed for the men's work, but which, over time, caused Jessica to become deathly ill. The only way to save the girl is to inject her with Dr. Drew's spider serum, but it works too slowly to save Jessica in time. Wyndham suggests also placing Jessica in his genetic accelerator to speed up the healing properties of the serum. After much time in the accelerator, Jessica is revived by the High Evolutionary (previously known as Herbert Wyndham), and her powers are put to use by him in his organization, Hydra.

Jessica has the spider-like ability to cling to walls and other surfaces. She is immune to most radiations, and becomes immune to any poison or toxin after a single exposure. She also is able to generate a bio-electric "sting" of varying intensity. Finally, her costume is made with light-weight filament glider webs which allow her to glide on air currents, simulating flight.

All of those powers sound like a typical superhero, but as I mentioned above, Spider-Woman's solo title tried to play up the horror aspects of the character at first. Jessica's natural pheromones were changed by her transformation, so that many people reacted to her presence with a strong sense of unease. Werewolf By Night, Jack Russell, made guest appearances in Spider-Woman twice in her first 25 issues. And the villains Spider-Woman tended to run into were of the creepy variety, too. She had more run-ins with Hydra, of course, but there was also a Kali-worshipping death cult, a serial killer made up like a circus clown, a flesh-devouring muck-monster and a pair of possessed "dolls" among her most troublesome opponents. She also had a confrontation with Morgan Le Fay and a recurring alliance with a Merlin-like sorcerer.

Aside from her earlier alliance with the Thing and her attack on Nick Fury, the only other superhero she crossed paths with early on was, of course, Spider-Man. But even that somewhat obvious match-up didn't occur until issue No. 20 of Spider-Woman's own title, more than two years after her debut. And she and Webhead didn't really even get along when they DID finally meet.

All-in-all, Essential Spider-Woman Vol. 1 was a great read and an interesting Marvel history lesson. Most definitely not what I expected when I bought it, but in a good way!