INVADERS #4

"U-MAN MUST BE STOPPED!"
Writer/Editor: Roy Thomas | Artists: Frank Robbins & Vince Colletta
Colorist: Janice Cohen | Letterer: John Costanza

The Plot: Captain America, the Human Torch, and Toro break onto a U.S. Army Air Corps base and steal a plane to pursue Namor and Bucky, who are themselves in pursuit of Winston Churchill, aboard an American plane bound for Bermuda. And in Bermuda, a group of reporters awaits Churchill's plane. But the reporters are attacked by U-Man and his warriors, and taken prisoner. The lead reporter, Betty Dean, escapes and warns off the plane, which takes off again just after nearly setting down.

But U-Man has grabbed hold of the plane's pontoon and is attacked by Namor as the craft rises back into the sky. Captain America and the Torches show up moments later to challenge U-Man's men, while Namor fights U-Man himself. But Churchill's plane is suddenly caught in a bizarre energy warp, which knocks out all aboard. Namor saves the plane from crashing, but U-Man escapes. Churchill decides to fly home intead of taking a boat, and bids the Invaders farewell.

Continuity Notes: At this phase in their careers, Captain America and the Human Torch remain urban legends in some circles, to the point that the army attacks them when they try to commandeer a plane. It seems like maybe the president should've handed down orders to the armed forces that this "Captain America" character is A) real, and B) on our side.

A footnote reminds us that Captain America was nearly killed during the skirmish with Namor last issue, but that the Human Torch saved him. Soon after, Namor reveals that he knows who U-Man really is: an Atlantean scientist named Meranno who Namor exiled for his Nazi sympathies, and who has somehow augmented his size and strength since last they crossed paths.

Betty Dean was a supporting character/love interest in Namor's 1940s comics. Originally a policewoman (mentioned in passing during this issue), she is now -- as described above -- a reporter. Interestingly, the modern-day Betty was killed off in SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP #2, which was on sale at nearly the exact same time as this issue! The SVTU story was cover-dated December, 1975, while this one is January of '76.

The energy vortex that affects Churchill's plane is plugged via footnote as being part of Marvel's new SKULL THE SLAYER comic -- a series which, as I understand it, was sort of a pulp homage about a hero trapped in the Bermuda Triangle. Churchill, the only occupant of the aircraft to see anything inside the vortex, spots a Tyrannosaurus Rex out his window before passing out.

(I actually unboxed Marvel's SKULL THE SLAYER trade paperback, reprinting the entire series, six years ago, but I've never gotten around to reading it. Maybe after I finish INVADERS...?! It's only something like eight or nine issues in total.)

My Thoughts: Sometimes you find yourself reading a Marvel comic -- and for whatever reason, this sort of thing felt especially prevalent in the seventies -- and you feel like the writer is treading water (no pun intended as relates to this issue's villain). And it's always something like the heroes engaging in a random, easily avoided fight to open the issue, simply to kill a few pages. In this case, we start things off with six pages of Cap and the Torches storming a U.S. air base to grab a plane, simply because the Torch accidentally incinerated their special FBI clearance papers.

I'm not sure if this is a by-product of the era of the seventeen/eighteen-page story, but I imagine it must be. Like, I figure Roy Thomas had an idea for this U-Man tale which would've filled one normal issue of a twenty-two or so page comic -- but since he instead has four or five fewer pages with which to work, he needs to stretch the adventure across two issues, which requires a little padding. I make this assumption because you also saw the flip-side of these padded stories a lot in the seventies: adventures that feel over-compressed to fit a shorter-than-typical runtime.

But the result is that, over two issues, the Invaders come home, learn about U-Man, have a big fight among themselves, Namor leaves, Cap and the Torches fight the army, we meet Betty, then the Invaders reunite to battle U-Man. I feel that a typical twenty-two pager would've shortened the Invaders' inter-team skirmish and entirely cut the fight with the army, and we would've had a nice done-in-one adventure.

That said, I do like this story. Like I said last time, part one was a great introduction to the Invaders and, in a perfect world, should've been the actual first issue of the series. And part two, while unnecessarily padded, is a fun follow-up. It's not bad by any means; I just think it could've been presented in one single, slightly longer, issue.

(And indeed, depending on how far in advance Thomas was plotting these things, it occurs to me that it's entirely possible this was originally planned as GIANT-SIZE INVADERS #3 before word came down to convert that double-sized quarterly into a regular monthly comic!)