“I AM DEFEATED!”
So I was talking with customer Sean the other day (Sean you may know from his appearances in my comments sections here) about this odd coincidince from a couple of Marvel comics released in 1984.
First off was Fantastic Four #271, released in June of that year, featuring story and art by John Byrne. Featured is a tribute tale in the style of the old Stan Lee/Jack Kirby/Steve Ditko “pre-superhero Marvel” monster comics, in which a strange creature or ‘nother is menacing the Good People of Earth, and someone (sometimes one lone brave man who may or may not be a scientist) must find a way to defeat it.
In this case, the monster is Gormuu, attacks upon whom only seem to make him larger and more dangerous. Our hero of the hour is Reed Richards, in the years before he and the rest of the Fantastic Four were exposed to cosmic rays and gained their super powers. Here we see Reed decide on a course of action, to the shocked response of a pre-Thing Ben Grimm:
Anyway, Reed sets his plan into motion, causing Gormuu to grow, GROW, which is cool with Gormuu at first, until he notices…
…eventually expanding into nothingness, as while he was growing in size, he was not increasing his mass. As such, his atoms dispersed across the universe and Reed chalks up his first(?) kill.
Two months later, in Avengers #250 (by Roger Stern, Al Milgrom, and, for this section of the comic, Roy Richardson), the titular team find themselves in conflict with the villain Maelstrom, who is also absorbing energy to increase his strength.
Vision realizes Maelstrom’s devices and controlling the flow of energy to him and that flow must be stopped:
…but Starfox (Starfox?) sez, he sez that the energy must instead continue to flow, and while the Scarlet Witch is incredulous, Vision, who knows a little something about mass density, picks up what Starfox is puttin’ down:
And couple pages of shouting and punching later, the plan is in full effect, and Maelstrom finds the extra energy he was getting is now out of control:
…and as you can see, totally pulls a Grommu, in fairly similar panels, and also expands into that aforementioned nothingness.
Again, these comics were only released two months apart, so it was a coincidence that the conclusions were so similar, surely. Unless of coursre this was an elaborate practical joke by the creative teams. The big surprise is that while the books were produced by two different editorial offices at Marvel, so the similarities wouldn’t have been caught, Big Jim Shooter not catching this ahead of time seems like it would be unlikely, unless it was too far along in the process to change up the stories. I have no idea, and am not even sure if anyone at Marvel ever acknowledged this happened. Did this ever get mentioned in interviews or reviews of the day that anyone saw?
I was a regular Fantastic Four reader at the time, and had picked up Avengers #250 because I would pick up extra-sised/anniversary issues of pretty much anything whether I regularly read the book or not. I can still remember being taken a little off guard by that Avengers conclusion, thinking “didn’t I just see that same ending somewhere” and realizing it was just a couple of months prior. Again, a weird coincidence, and one I’ve thought about for quite a long time.
Mike:
Nice to see the artwork to go with the two comics you mentioned in your store a few days back. I dig Gormuu’s design–somewhere between Creature from the Black Lagoon and the Thing (even though this story is supposed to take place before Ben Grimm became the Thing).
I wonder if these stories’ plots–or Marvel Method pitch sessions–were handed in to various assistant editors at a time when Shooter was busy giving depositions due to various lawsuits…like Kirby vs. Marvel, Gerber vs. Marvel, etc., or maybe he was at San Diego Comic Con or some other major comic convention at the time?
Then, too, I wonder to what extent the increased mass/atoms dispersed shtick is a trope in Silver and Bronze Age comics in general? I mean, did The Metal Men ever dispatch Chemo in a similar way…or did The Challengers of the Unknown deal with Multi-Man using the same strategy? The Spectre would seem like a prime candidate for using this technique against some planet-sized demonic being.
Also, in that Avengers story, somehow it seems that it would have been more logical for The Vision to come up with the solution, rather than Starfox (Eros of Titan).
Lastly, I think it is great that Shooter always gave Ditko work (even at Valiant and Defiant) and respected him as one the founders of Marvel–even if his artwork had fallen out of fashion with the young Byrne boosters.
I was a regular reader of both at the time (7-11 Newstand editions for the variant hunters out there) and as a kiddo I thought they were deliberately tied in together and there would be some payoff later where Maelstrom and Gormuu would team up for revenge.
And alas it never came to be.
Maybe it’s because I’m getting to the “shouting at clouds” stage in my life, but so many of the writing tropes I used to just roll with back then stand out like the proverbial turd in the punch bowl now, and are just as appealing- case in point here, Maelstrom and Grommu conveniently explaining what’s happening to them as it’s actually happening to them.
And don’t get me started about the constant braggadocio in 60s-70s Marvels.. I’ve been doing a lot of rereading lately and it hasn’t been always easy…
@King of the Moon: Hopefully, their molecules will merge and they’ll come back as Maelgormuu.
@Johnny Bacardi: Not to mention the! constant! exclamation! points! I got a headache once from reading an old issue of Fantastic Four.
Johnny Bacardi: August Derleth is known more for publishing H. P. Lovecraft’s work, but he wrote his own…stories. Every horror writer can quote from “The Hounds of Tindalos”. I might be off a No noooo or two but here goes. I should say that this goon is typing.
“They’re coming through the door now! Oh no, it’s too late! Their wretched, wretched tongues! No, noooo.” And the story ends.
If that ever happens to me, man, I’m just going to talk it out, not type it out.
On the TVTropes website, the FF issue is listed for this trope. but not the Avengers issue.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoingToGiveItMoreEnergy
Stern & Byrne seemed to have a good relationship, so it wouldn’t surprise me if both of these stories came from a shared source or story seed.
The Stern/Byrne run on Captain America (no. 247-255) was cool and fun! I wish they had stayed on the title longer longer!
Byrne’s depiction of Captain America is in my top five– after Jack Kirby, and Gene Colan, but before Frank Miller, and Mike Zeck.
“Roy Richardson”
Every now and then, they’ll be a name in a Marvel or DC comic that I’ve never heard of. And that’s one of them! And I own and hav e read that comic!
Wayne Allen Sallee: ““They’re coming through the door now! Oh no, it’s too late! Their wretched, wretched tongues! ”
What were they, clones of Odie from Garfield?
Sean Mageean: “The Stern/Byrne run on Captain America (no. 247-255) was cool and fun! I wish they had stayed on the title longer longer!”
Me too!
“Byrne’s depiction of Captain America is in my top five– after Jack Kirby, and Gene Colan, but before Frank Miller, and Mike Zeck.”
I gotta give it to ZECK for hir art AND his iconic cover designs! Cap vs. Wolverine! Deathlok! Punishser shotting things! Punisher taking cover BEFORE he shoots things!
I was reading Avengers back then, but not Fantastic Four, so I never knew about this. It is a really common trope, probably the #1 most popular way of dealing with power-absorbing bad guys (Len Wein did a very similar bit with Libra in JLA, although in that case the villain did it to himself). So I can easily see it as being nothing more than coincidence.
It is odd that it got past Shooter, though, since this is exactly the sort of thing he was always on the lookout for. You’ll recall the notorious case where David Michelinie’s original plot for Avengers #200 was rejected because it was too similar to a recent issue of What If?, leading to…whatever the hell that was that saw print.
Snark Shark:
Yes, Zeck is totally underrated–and his Cap run and Punisher five-issue limited series run were both great! And it’s pretty amazing that one of his original art pages sold for $3.3 million–the first appearance of Peter Parker in the black symbiotic suit, from Secret Wars no. 8.
As for Frank Miller, that one issue of Marvel Fanfare (no. 18) had a Cap story that always stuck with me. I would like to have seen Miller do more Cap stories.
I suppose Sal Buscema and John Romita Sr. should also be on the list of iconic Bronze Age Cap artists for the issues they drew. And one of the more stylized depictions of Cap (and the Invaders) would be that of Frank Robbins, bringing the Milton Caniff/Noel Sickles approach to his drawing style.
https://bleedingcool.com/comics/mike-zeck-confirms-he-was-not-seller-of-3-3-million-spider-man-art/
Snark Shark: good answer, but Derleth’s stories were written in the 40s, so it would have to be Garfield sent baack in time with cloned Odies and of course it will be Per Degaton’s fault.
Derleth was much more successful at publishing his own imprint, Arkham House.
Wayne:
It’s always Per Degaton’s fault!
Especially when he gets hold of the Cosmic Cube, breaks time and space and travels the Multiverse to Earth MLJ to defeat the Golden Age Shield!
https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=838839
J. Kevin Carrier: “You’ll recall the notorious case where David Michelinie’s original plot for Avengers #200 was rejected because it was too similar to a recent issue of What If?, leading to…whatever the hell that was that saw print”
What saw print was a YIKES and an EEK.
Wayne Allen Sallee: “Garfield sent baack in time with cloned Odies”
Story titled “The Omnivorous Tongues of Odie” and it creates an alternate reality.
“…Reed chalks up his (first?) kill.”
He was an OSS agent during WWII, working behind enemy lines. This story is obviously set after that, as Reed interrupted his college education to serve, and he is depicted here with grey hair.
In other words, his hands were already dripping with blood before this story.
The Hounds of Tindalos is by Frank Belknap Long, not Derleth.
Sean Mageean: “And it’s pretty amazing that one of his original art pages sold for $3.3 million–the first appearance of Peter Parker in the black symbiotic suit, from Secret Wars no. 8”
HOLY HELL!