Jim MooneyRezensionen
Autor von Essential Godzilla
Rezensionen
Throughout the series, Timothy “Dum Dum” Dugan of S.H.I.E.L.D. plays the role traditionally held by the military in Toho’s Godzilla films arguing for the monster’s destruction, while Agent Gabriel “Gabe” Jones works alongside Japanese scientist Dr. Yuriko Takiguchi, his assistant Tamara Hashioka, and his grandson Robert Takiguchi to argue against destroying Godzilla, preferring instead to understand him and try to relocate him. Like the films that inspired the comics, the series offers some interesting environmental commentary. For example, writer Moench reveals in the first issue that Dr. Takiguchi was the lone dissenter to a Japanese nuclear test, while in the fourth issue, Dr. Demonicus references the OPEC oil embargo and General Motors’ dependency on foreign oil, using it as justification for his crimes. Another experimental weapons test in issue 10 frees Yetrigar, a giant Sasquatch-like creature who battles Godzilla at the Grand Canyon. Engaging in some social commentary, in issue four Dum Dum Dugan must also address his anti-Japanese prejudice, having fought the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II and now finding them allies both as part of the Cold War and as S.H.I.E.L.D. works to defeat or contain Godzilla. Marvel couldn’t license other Toho monsters, so when Moench wanted to pit Godzilla against other giant monsters he had to create his own. Some of these belonged to Dr. Demonicus (with one closely resembling Mothra) and others come from outer space in issues 12-14. He also adds a giant mecha in the form of Red Ronon, a battle robot piloted by Robert Takiguchi, the young grandson of Dr. Takiguchi. This further recalls elements of Japanese cinema, including Mobile Suit Gundamn, which premiered shortly before Marvel concluded their Godzilla series.
After Marvel lost the rights to use Godzilla, the mighty King of the Monsters appeared in comics published by other companies. Beginning in 1987, Dark Horse Comics published Godzilla comics and trade paperbacks for twelve years. Later, Trendmasters included a Godzilla comic with some toys in 1994 while Fox Kids Magazine featured two Godzilla comics as a tie-in to the animated series that spun-off from Roland Emmerich’s 1998 film. IDW published Godzilla comics between 2010 and 2016, while Legendary Comics published tie-ins to Legendary Studios’ 2014 and 2019 films. Few of these, however, so perfectly capture the Shōwa era of Godzilla films while also engaging in the type of storytelling that was only possible in the late 1970s. Fun for both Godzilla fans and those who enjoy this era of comic books!
I enjoy reading older comics, and seeing the differences between the writing style then and that of modern comics.
This collection is a rollicking read. A bit 'monster of the week' but with an underlying story arc about how Carol comes to terms (eventually) with her inner superhero, which is only truly resolved in the last few pages.
I also really liked the introductory article (included at the end of the collection) by Gary Conway, about how he came to write the series.
Altogether a very enjoyable read. Recommended.
This breezy and informative guide was the perfect launch pad to remember all the great books that were my welcome companions on many a rainy afternoon. Off to the attic to revisit some old friends.
Ghost Rider debuted in the try-out book Marvel Spotlight Vol. 1, #5 (the Aug. 1972 issue), appeared as a headliner there until #11 (the Aug. 1973 issue), served as a guest star in the headlining debut of another Marvel horror anti-hero, Daimon Hellstrom, the Son of Satan, in #12 (the Oct. 1973 issue), and then graduated to his own title with an Aug. 1973 cover date; as the launch of the Son of Satan in his own strip is a crossover in a lengthy Ghost Rider story arc, it too is reprinted here (as it is in Essential Marvel Horror, Vol. 1). It's rather puzzling that this volume does not reprint two crucial steps in GR's development from horror character to offbeat superhero: his appearances in Marvel Team-Up Vol. 1, #15 (the Nov. 1973 issue), wherein GR teams up with the flagship Marvel character Spider-Man, and GR's arch-nemesis (after SATAN, of course), the Orb, is introduced, and Marvel Two-In-One Vol. 1, #8 (the Mar. 1975 issue), which finds GR fighting alongside the ever-lovin' blue-eyed Thing of the Fantastic Four, against an old FF-baddie turned into an amped-up mystic, the Miracle Man; puzzling because Essential Werewolf By Night, Vol. 1 does include the first, abortive attempt to ease another of Marvel's horror characters into the realm of its superheroes, Marvel Team-Up Vol. 1, #12 (the Aug. 1973 issue), which finds Jack Russell's Werewolf battling Spider-Man, at the behest of a wigged-out minor mage called Moondark. This omission is likely to make readers new or relatively unfamiliar with Ghost Rider rather baffled by some of the developments in this volume -- say, Ghost Rider Vol. 1, #18 (June 1976), f'r instance.
Ghost Rider was conceived and created by former Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos scribe (and, briefly, back-up writer on the first X-Men series in the 1960s), Gary Friedrich (no relation to Green Lantern, Werewolf By Night and Iron Man scripter Mike Friedrich), with "aid & abetment [sic]" by Roy Thomas; his stories are easily the cheesiest collected here, often reading like a somewhat toned-down version of a mash-up of one of the biker and horror movies that American International Pictures released in the late 1960s. If your taste runs in that direction, then you'll likely be pleasantly diverted, although you might occasionally sigh when you consider what a better writer (and, arguably, a better comic book publisher) might've done with the concept.
While the Gary Friedrich-scripted issues weren't as bad as I'd feared -- once I'd firmly adjusted my expectations to a "B-list" title, most of them were goofily enjoyable -- for my money, the Ghost Rider strip didn't get really interesting until Tony Isabella, Marvel's go-to relief scripter supreme in the mid-1970s, took over the strip with GR Vol. 1, #6 (cover date June 1974); although -- and again, this is just my humble opinion -- Isabella didn't really hit his stride with the title until #12 (the June 1975 issue), wherein GR meets the ghost of a one-off Marvel hero, the World War I flying ace the Phantom Eagle, given that Isabella was obliged to play out the plot threads started by Friedrich. By then, of course, Ghost Rider was straddling the fence of horror anti-hero and misunderstood superhero (most people believed that Johnny Blaze's flaming skull and flame-based powers were special effects that he'd developed for his stunt-riding show), and would be a founding member of the short-lived Isabella-created superhero team The Champions, whose debut issue was cover-dated Oct. 1975; echoes of The Champions still faintly reverberate in present Marvel continuity, chiefly in the pages of the now-defunct The Incredible Hercules and Agents of Atlas (and, even more briefly, Atlas, as well as in the various Hulk titles, mainly in the course of the "World War Hulk" crossover).
About Isabella's continuing/concluding of said plot threads: Isabella, against Marvel's then-staunch policy of no character explicitly drawing his or her powers from the Judeo-Christian deity, never mind depictions of said deity or of any heavenly beings associated with same, introduced a suspiciously familiar-looking "friend" of GR (who is never referred to by any name except "Friend"), which was an eminently logical development of all the hoo-hah about SATAN slung about in both GR's and Son of Satan's strips; unfortunately, Marvel's editors had second thoughts about even the coy cognomen of "Friend," and Isabella's scripts were rewritten, against his will, to retroactively explain away said "Friend's" presence. This volume does not include Marvel's subsequent retconning of "SATAN" -- namely, that the being calling itself "Satan" in both Ghost Rider and The Son of Satan was not, in fact, the Christian personification of ultimate evil (no DC-style Judeo-Christian noodlings as in their Spectre character, thank you very much) -- so Daimon Hellstrom's father might well be named "Murray," or "Sidney," or "Ryunosuke" (Marvel would eventually solve the problem by having Daimon Hellstrom referred to by his last name, ditching the "Son of Satan" cognomen).
Sharp-eyed comics fans may get a chuckle -- or, alternatively, heartburn -- over the appearance of fictionalized versions of two real-world comic book writers/artists, Wendy and Richard Pini, the future creators of Elfquest and the publishing firm WaRP Graphics (which also published Phil Foglio's comic book adaptation of Robert L. Asprin's Myth Adventures).
This volume concludes with a two-part crossover with Daredevil, the Man Without Fear, a couple of years before writer-artist Frank Miller would reinterpret (with the initial assistance of writer Roger McKenzie) Daredevil as a grim-and-gritty masked avenger; Miller's run on Daredevil may be looked at as a trial run for his reimagining of Batman's persona in his highly-lauded, proto-Elseworlds mini series The Dark Knight Returns.
The artwork collected here is a nice blend of the work of (then) up-and-coming artists (such as Mike Ploog [who also did yeoman work on Marvel's Frankenstein Monster, Werewolf By Night and Man-Thing], who was Ghost Rider's conceptual and initial artist, Tom Sutton, and at the end, a young John Byrne) and old-school veterans such as Syd Shores (who is Sutton's best inker here), Chic Stone, Jim Mooney, George Tuska, Bob Brown, Don Heck, Vince Colletta and, my personal favorite here, Frank Robbins, perhaps best known to Marvel's readers as the inaugural artist on their World War II superhero title, The Invaders. This impressive roster doesn't include cover artists such as Gil Kane (his version of GR is so good that one feels a pang of regret that he never drew at least a couple issues of Ghost Rider, as he managed to do with Werewolf By Night) and John Romita. Jim Mooney does surprisingly well on the GR issues that he pencils (setting aside his rendering of "Inferno the Fear-Monster" in GR Vol. 1, #8 & 9, wherein Inferno's fear-causing power is illustrated by having the word "FEAR" radiating from the top of his head two or three times, as though Mooney was drawing Inferno as part of an editorial cartoon from, say, the 1860s - 1920s); but his inks are too soft, too warm for a horror title: his inking works better on superhero and romance strips.
The Ghost Rider stories collected herein contain many laughable theological and demonological premises -- that SATAN HIMSELF (the title of the story in GR Vol. 1, #8) can be summoned on the very first attempt of a dilettante; that, once summoned, Satan will grant said petitioner awesome supernatural powers (so awesome, in fact, that Marvel spent much time in tweaking said powers so as to steer Johnny Blaze firmly away from DC's personification of the "Wrath of God," The Spectre); that the simple love of said Satanic dabbler's pure-hearted girlfriend, Roxanne Simpson (yes, Johnny Blaze hooked up with his nominal step-sister; I wonder why no Marvel editor balked at that plot element...), was enough to send SATAN HIMSELF scurrying back to the nether-regions; that, once Johnny Blaze actually defeats SATAN HIMSELF (again, not really...), he gets to keep his super-cool, bad-ass super powers -- but they serve as an interesting window into the fringes of Bronze Age Marvel: the real wonder isn't that a lot of Marvel's output in the first half of the 1970s was wildly uneven; it's that a surprising amount of it was so weird and, believe it or nuts, "adult" (and not in the sense of bare-breasted women, explicit gore and cuss words). This was back when Marvel was the most innovative of the "Big Two" superhero comic book publishers; unfortunately for this former "Marvel Zombie," DC stole a march on Marvel in the mid-1980s, and Marvel's been playing catch-up ever since.
Oh, and I should note in conclusion that the stories in this volume don't show Ghost Rider to be a flaming skeleton, but rather "merely" a flaming skull-headed human (see Ghost Rider Vol. 1, #1, page 13, panels 2-4); it was after the stories collected here that GR was shown to be a skeleton entire, as in, for example, Marvel Team-Up Vol. 1, #91 (the Mar. 1980 issue), where GR is shown buck-nekkid! to a breathlessly waiting world.
The original run of the series from the 1970's is cheesier than a fondue party. The artwork is reminiscent of a heavy metal album cover, or the doodles drawn in notebooks by high school aged metal heads that are forced to attend Sunday school on the weekends.
If any of that sounds appealing to you should pull on your leather chaps, grab a sixer of Budweiser, drape your mullet across the back of your lazy boy, and crack open a copy of Ghost Rider. ImI
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Doug Moench stayed incredibly faithful to the spirit of the Toho movies in these comics. It's got giant monsters, giant robots, Godzilla blowing stuff up for no reason, Godzilla saving lives for no reason, and, of course, the Japanese Kid With The Special Bond With Godzilla. But Moench doesn't stop there: he adds The Fantastic Four, The Avengers, SHIELD, time travel, a four-issue arc in which they shrink Godzilla, and a bunch of ridiculously-written cowboys.
After a while, the whole thing gets so blessedly ludicrous that you can't help but smile while reading. Or, at least, I couldn't.