Keep in mind, we here at Supermegadio!!!!! love super-heroes of all types.* We recently ordered the trade to the left for our good friends over at supermegamonkey. It contains Giant-Sized Invaders 1, the first nine issues of the series, and a couple of cross-overs.** These are all written by the great Roy Thomas. I do love Roy Thomas. Really, I do. Sure he's overly verbose, loves exposition, and never saw a panel that couldn't be improved with two captions and five word balloons, but I love him for who he is.However, he loves adapting classic stories and little known pulp era stories to comics. Again, and again, and again, and again. Recently, we read Thor: The Celestial Saga V2 reprinting about a dozen issues of Thor from around 1980. It should've been a continuation of the Eternals/Celestials/Asgardians War.*** Instead, we got a near-faithful retelling of Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung saga told by a giant floating eye. Ugh. Thank god I wasn't getting this monthly.
Why do I bring all this up? Good question. When I cracked open this Invaders book, I thought I'd get some of Roy Thomas' patented WWII-era hero love.**** I did. The first story tells the Invaders origin.***** But, the very next story? Yup, some Ring of the Nibelung love.******
Damn you, Roy Thomas!
*Both Marvel and DC.
**It was originally supposed to be a Giant-Sized series, but Marvel cancelled the Giant-Size line.
***It did eventually, but with a different writer.
****What's interesting is that there's a text piece included that declares all of the Timely era Marvel stories NOT in continuity unless specifically declared so in a Marvel era comic.
*****The origin mirrors in some ways the JSA origin by Paul Levitz. I'm not sure which came first. It might be this one.
******And the art ain't too great either.
5 comments:
Ugh it is taking me so long to read this.
Is it the art, plots, scripting, or all three? I thought there were some good ideas in there, though the art and scripting hurts it. Maybe you need a three day time limit to finish it. I know that did it for me. Plus, Roy Thomas needs to relate this stuff to real life to a fault.
The Union Jack stuff was the best/most interesting.
I'm loving the Stern/Byrne Cap trade by the way.
And, remember, WWII era Cap is Hank Hill, and Bucky is Bobby Hill. It's much more enjoyable that way.
It's the scripting. And the inclusion of these Liberty Legion losers.
Unfortunately the Union Jack story was the one issue i already had so i have nothing to look forward to.
Yes, the Liberty Legion stuff was abysmal. However, I found the Whizzer/Miss America stuff vaguely interesting (because of their future/history) and felt that the Blue Diamond (reluctant hero bit) was the most interesting of the rest. Loved (in a it's so bad way) the "You're from an ancient hidden civilization? I'm from an ancient hidden civilization!" bit.
I didn't like when the nazis referred to Miss America as a "scarlet witch", since that the umm, Whizzer ("Don't blame us for the name, folks!" - yeah, how about just not using the character) and Miss America turned out to not be Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch's parents after all - thank god, because that was lame.
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