A Matter of Necessity!

-

MARVEL PREVIEW — Issue no. 15, July 1978

Book: Marvel Preview

Issue No.: 15

Published: July 25, 1978

Title: “A Matter of Necessity!”

Cover Price: $1

Format: Digital scan

The “A” story in this issue of Marvel Preview magazine (which, as you might recall, is a black-and-white book aimed at older readers than Marvel’s standard color comic books of the 1970s) features Star-Lord. Star-Lord is pretty famous these days as a character in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, but this ’70s version of him is more of a solo hero.

Star-Lord’s partner in this story is “Ship,” his sentient space ship. We find out Ship’s backstory here, and it’s pretty wild. Before Ship was a space ship, she was a star. Not a movie star, but an actual star like the sun with planets and whatnot. But the star version of Ship was destroyed in some interplanetary war by some dudes with some kind of star-destroying bomb. Some time later Ship managed to recreate herself as a sentient space ship and join up with Star-Lord.

Ship’s backstory is relevant here as she and Star-Lord get involved in a different interstellar war. One party in that war has a planet-killing ship, and Ship wants to stop them from committing genocide. Ship just wants to destroy the aggressors outright, but Star-Lord talks her into a more merciful course of action. Ship and Star-Lord disable the would-be planet killers’ space ship and banish them to a primitive world.

A panel from this issue showing Star-Lord fighting some armored goons. He hits one of the goons, using a rifle like a bat. Star-Lord thinks, “I may heal fast — but I’m not invulnerable. And my personal shields only go so far.”

Next up is a prose piece called “Time Travel — the Fantasy of Science Fiction.” This is one of those magazine pieces that would probably be a Wikipedia article these days. Part of the article is making the pedantic argument that time travel stories aren’t real science fiction because time travel is really impossible, as opposed to stories about robots or interstellar travel or whatever. I like arguing about genre as much as the next nerd, but there’s nothing particularly thought-provoking here.

Most of the article is an inventory of time travel stories from books, movies, and TV shows. And I did learn about several time travel stories I was unfamiliar with. For example, Robert Heinlein has a book called “Time Enough for Love” about a dude who travels back in time so he can date his mom, which sounds super weird and super creepy. So maybe I was better off not knowing about that one.

Then there’s a second comics story — “Worlds Enough.” It’s not bad — it’s kind of like that TV show Sliders plus a little bit of the Time Cop movie.

Finally, there’s an opening editorial and two closing pages of fan-mail. As always with these 1978 black-and-white Marvel magazines, it’s a lot of entertainment for only (at the time) a dollar.

Next time — The son of Doctor Doom!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Jack of Hearts!

-
Image
MARVEL PREMIERE — Issue no. 44, July 1978 / As I understand it, MARVEL PREMIERE served, at least sometimes, as a try-out book. It was an anthology title, and it generally featured a different character each issue. Marvel’s editors could spotlight a superhero in MARVEL PREMIERE and, based on sales and reader mail, decide whether that hero might warrant their own title. Writer and Jack of Hearts creator Bill Mantlo states this all pretty directly on this issue’s fan-mail page (which, in this case, is more of an editorial and doesn’t feature any letters from fans), encouraging fans of Jack to write in with their thoughts. And to also maybe buy an extra copy of the book and gift it to a friend. Early in the book’s run, Doctor Strange and Iron Fist were both featured in multiple issues of MARVEL PREMIERE before getting their own titles. Book: Marvel Premiere Issue No.: 44 Published: July 25, 1978 Title: “The Jack of Hearts!” Cover Price: 35¢ Format: Original pap...
Read more

Stairway to Rage!

-
Image
MASTER OF KUNG FU — Issue no. 69, July 1978 / This issue of MASTER OF KUNG FU ends on a confusing note. It’s a literal note, at the bottom of the story’s last page — “See our letters page for news about next issue!” But there’s no letters page in this issue. So I guess I’ll have to wait till I read the next issue to see what it’s about. I was kind of confused for a lot of this issue, because it features several flashbacks, but I couldn’t remember if they were from MASTER OF KUNG FU no. 68 or if they were filling in some backstory. I finally figured out it was the latter. I think. After the multi-issue epic that wrapped up in the previous issue, this book features a one-and-done story. It’s a fairly straightforward (other than all the flashbacks) gauntlet type of story, with kung fu master Shang-Chi defeating a series of opponents to get to Skullcrusher. (This book really delivers on the kung fu, with the fights dynamically illustrated by the great Mike Zeck.) Skullcrusher (his...
Read more

Betrayal!

-
Image
THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN — Issue no. 115, July 1978 / The penciler of this issue of INVINCIBLE IRON MAN gets the biggest credit on the opening splash page — “And introducing the pulse-pounding penciling of… John Romita Jr.! Marvel marches on!” I’m familiar with Romita Jr. from his work on the early 1980s UNCANNY X-MEN book — Romita took over penciling duties on that series after Paul Smith left, around issue no. 175. As I’ve mentioned before, that X-MEN run is probably my favorite comic book run ever, so I’ll always have a soft spot for anybody who worked on it. I’m assuming that, based on the “introducing” credit, IRON MAN is the first book that John Romita Jr. was the regular penciler on (an assumption backed up by Wikipedia). Book: The Invincible Iron Man Issue No.: 115 Published: July 25, 1978 Title: “Betrayal!” Cover Price: 35¢ Format: Digital scan The penciler of this issue of Invincible Iron Man gets the biggest credit on the opening splash page — “And in...
Read more