The least of the first times I’m covering here is the first appearance of Agatha Harkness in Fantastic Four #94, “The Return of the Frightful Four” by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Not that there’s anything wrong with Agatha, it’s just that she’s not as much a landmark as the next two items.
It seems Stan and Jack have decided to get baby Franklin out the way — er, Reed has decided that Superman was right, having a kid gives their enemies an easy way to destroy them. Fortunately there’s a nanny Reed’s heard of who specializes in caring for kids like that.
The Frightful Four have decided this is a perfect opportunity to strike at their old foes unawares. Despite Medusa having fought and defeated them in Marvel Super-Heroes #15 —
— they’re completely shocked when she turns on them again (obviously Stan and Jack forgot the previous story). Nevertheless, the Frightful men capture the heroes only to have Ms. Harkness demonstrate how she earned her rep. Her magic fills all three with fear and takes them down, the Wizard flying in panic into a wall and knocking himself cold for example. At the end of the story Ben spots a book about the witches of Salem in her house and thinks — nah, that’s just ridiculous, right! While I’ve grown to hate stories that imply yes, there were witches at Salem (there weren’t. Just a bunch of innocent people murdered by judicial process) this is still a fun tale.
Next up, X-Men #65, “Before I’d Be A Slave …” by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams. It’s not their first time working together — that happened at DC the previous month (I’d have been writing about that this week but time got away from me) — but it marks the first resurrection of a dead character that I can think of. Of course there have been stories where someone apparently died, then came back immediately, like Superman dying of virus x — but Professor Charles Xavier died two whole years before this issue came out. Nevertheless, look who’s here!
As the Professor explains, Grotesk really killed the shapeshifting mutant Changeling. Terminally ill, he wanted to find some way to make up for serving Factor Three. Xavier explains that as he’s working to save Earth from the alien Z’Nox, he’d appreciate Changeling taking his place and running the X-Men so the professor can concentrate. Now he’s ready to have his team fight — not primarily physically but psychically, summoning up human compassion, a sensation utterly alien to the Z’Nox.
As a story, it beats O’Neil’s JLA work. Adams, of course, makes it more memorable.
From life to death — Iron Man #22, “From This Conflict … Death!” (Archie Goodwin, George Tuska, who also did the cover) marks the first death of a Marvel love interest, Tony Stark’s sweetheart Janice Cord (DC, of course, had already killed Steve Trevor in Wonder Woman).
Tony met Janice at the start of Goodwin’s run on the book. Her father Drexel Cord was a competitor of Tony’s who broke bad and sent his unstoppable robot, the Demolisher, against Iron Man to prove Cord was the better inventor. When Janice got caught in the crossfire, Cord sacrificed himself to save her and stop his creation. Tony, playboy though he was, felt unsure about hitting on Janice after that, plus their romance suffered the usual problems of Tony having to break dates to battle one bad guy or another. Finally, after Eddie March took over as Iron Man the previous issue, Tony felt free to turn his charms on Janice.
As I wrote at the link, Eddie had health issues that almost got him killed fighting the Crimson Dynamo. Tony got him to a hospital, then decided if Eddie could risk his life to be Iron Man, Tony could do no less.
In #22 Janice learns Alexander Nevsky, her top mechanic and would-be lover, is the Crimson Dynamo. As he explains it to her, he was the protege of the first Dynamo, Professor Vanko, whom Iron Man tricked into defecting (the flashback captions describe this as a slanted view but yes, Iron Man did indeed trick Vanko).
After learning about Vanko’s death, Nevsky set out to avenge him by becoming an armored superhero even greater than Iron Man. That will prove Vanko’s designs, upgraded by Nevsky, were superior to Tony Stark’s (it’s also close to Drexel’s motivation, though nobody points this out). He also intends to make Cord Electronics a more successful tech firm than Stark Enterprises. Janice accuses him of pursuing her for the same reason; Nevsky admits that’s how it started but it soon became real love (this confession is such a cliche, I laughed wildly many years ago when a sitcom character declared “At first I was using you but after a while, when I got to know you … well, I felt very sorry for you.” Ow.).
Alas, the Titanium Man has shown up to drag Nevsky back to the Motherland. When TM blasts his armored foes as they’re arguing over Janice, they survive but she dies. Iron Man proceeds to tear his old foe’s armor apart; when Titanium Man sinks into the ocean, Shellhead doesn’t try to save him (not the first time Iron Man’s played hardball). The Crimson Dynamo escapes, vowing revenge — a shame as the idea of him turning hero and tech-entrepreneur would have been more interesting.
While a good story, it lacks the punch of Gwen Stacey’s death in Spider-Man a few years later. Gwen had not only been around longer, she had a stronger personality — Janice never rose about “pretty and sweet.” I assume (but I don’t know) that Janice’s death never became the flashpoint the Goblin’s murder of Gwen Stacey did. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
