Monday, October 16, 2023

Countdown to Halloween 2023 PROLOGUE: "Alliance Most Foul!" & "To the Death!"

Wow!
This scene from Marvel's Avengers #115 (1973) gives new meaning to "cliffhanger", doesn't it?
Amazing how cosmic-level villains have a moral code!
This short story lead into one of the earliest "Big Events" in comics history, crossing-over between The Avengers and The Defenders comics through the summer of 1973 (My Lord, that was a half-century ago, and I read it when it was brand-new!)as the two teams were manipulated into battling each other for possession of the parts of The Evil Eye!
In the conclusion, the baddies were revealed as they assembled the parts, and the groups joined forces against them...
...but even their combined might proved insufficient as they fell against the power of the deadly duo who began reshaping the multiverse with the reassembled Evil Eye...involving everyone from Spider-Man to Dracula to Nick Fury to Thanos as reality collapsed!
At the battle itself, only one remained standing, and in a classic final, desperate, gambit...
As the two teams pick up the pieces, The Watcher, who was standing around watching (and, surprisingly, not interfering), explains...
And that leads into this month's Rutland Parade entry involving Marvel characters, which you'll see...
TOMORROW!
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Avengers-Defenders War
The Complete Saga

Thursday, October 12, 2023

Countdown to Halloween 2023 DC SUPER-STARS "Phantom Stranger & Deadman in 'Chapter 3' " Plus "Story Behind the Story"

We Have Witnessed...

Cover art by Jim Aparo
...The Phantom Stranger, Deadman, and Doctor 13 all journeyed to Rutland, Vermont on Halloween and battled mystic menaces...but the threat isn't over...yet!
Bonus: here's a kool behind-the-scenes feature about the story you just read...

Be Here as Rutland Faces Yet More Halloween Horror...this time from one of the Marvel Multiverse's Non-Magical Menaces!

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Wednesday, October 11, 2023

Countdown to Halloween 2023 DC SUPER-STARS "Phantom Stranger and Doctor 13 in 'Wraiths in the Rain' "

While Deadman battled half-human/half-demon gargoyles, The Phantom Stranger has not been idle, and now he's about to be joined by another whom he's met before...under less than ideal circumstances!

Left to right: writer Carla Conway, husband Gerry Conway (who was shown in Rutland during the Beast/Justice League/Thor crossover we presented two years ago, and wrote the Thor story which wound it up!), writer Marty Pasko, writer/editor Paul Levitz, and artist Romeo Tanghal (who drew this entire story except for the caricatures of the real-life people which were done by Joe Staton)!
To Be Concluded...Tomorrow!
Trivia: The mystic Stranger and parapsychologist/skeptic Thirteen were created about the same time in the early-1950s, though they didn't encounter each other until the 1970s.

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(Which reprints this Story...but in Black and White, not Color)

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

Countdown to Halloween 2023 DC SUPER-STARS "Deadman in 'Hour of the Demon' "

We Have Already Seen...

The Phantom Stranger, already in the Vermont town of Rutland, is aware of the threat of a demon named Quabal and his minions...half-human/half-demon beings who look like classic gargoyles!

But another mystical character, the ghost known as Deadman, has also arrived...during the annual Halloween Parade...











The Mystical Mayhem Continues Tomorrow as the Phantom Stranger Joins Forces with Doctor Thirteen: Ghost-Breaker!
BTW, his real name is Dr Terence Thirteen.
It works for another guy you've heard of...Dr Stephen Strange...too!

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Monday, October 9, 2023

Countdown to Halloween 2023 DC SUPER-STARS "Phantom Stranger in 'Gargoyles' "

...with someone who attended it several years earlier...the Phantom Stranger, as shown HERE and HERE!
The "old bum" isn't quite what he appears to be.
To find out more, be here...
TOMORROW!
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(Which reprints this Story...but in Black and White, not Color)