INVADERS #10 & INVADERS #11

"THE WRATH OF THE REAPER!" | "NIGHT OF THE BLUE BULLET!"
Writer/Editor: Roy Thomas | Artists: Frank Robbins & Frank Springer
Colorists: Don Warfield (#10) & George Roussos (#11) | Letterer: John Costanza

The Plot: (Issue 10) As the Invaders fly the injured Lord Falsworth and Jacqueline to London, Captain America reminisces about an adventure he and Bucky shared months ago back in the United States, against a Nazi agent called the Reaper.

(Issue 11) Soon after, the Invaders arrive at a hospital, where they turn the Falsworths over to the staff. Doctors begin to operate on both, but Jacqueline needs a special blood transfusion to survive. The Human Torch volunteers his android blood and the procedure begins. But power to the operating room goes out, leading Namor and Toro to restart the hospital's generator while Captain America and the Torch supply light for the operation to continue. Once the generator is back online and the operations finished, Cap and Bucky investigate its failure, learning that a Professor Gold is developing a special armored suit called the Blue Bullet, and his experiments cut the hospital's power.

Soon, the Blue Bullet goes on a rampage through the hospital. At Cap's order, Namor holds back against it to preserve the invention, but as a result, the Bullet plows through the Invaders. When it barges into the room where Jacqueline and the unconscious Human Torch are recuperating, Jacqueline grabs the Torch and escapes with him at lightning speed. Namor, refusing to hold back further, Attacks the Bullet at full strength and defeats it. When the Invaders open up the armor, they find not Professor Gold's surly assistant, Norris, who they expected, but rather the professor himself -- revealed as an undercover Nazi agent, inside.

In the aftermath of the conflict, Jacqueline reveals her powers to her father and declares that she wants to join the Invaders. But no sooner does she say so, than the Human Torch quits the team.

Continuity Notes: Issue 10 is mostly a reprint of CAPTAIN AMERICA #22 from 1943, illustrated by Al Avison and Al Gabriele. The story features no writing credit, but the internet seems fairly certain it was scripted by Stan Lee. Cap's thoughts make it clear (for reasons only Roy Thomas felt had to be explained) that Cap is reminiscing about the soon-to-be-published comic book version of the adventure and not the actual events -- though he refers to the comic as being "basically accurate". For the record, the story is called "Captain America Battles the Reaper! (The Man the Law Couldn't Touch!)" In it, the Reaper is sent to America to sow anarchy via radio addresses and public rallies, but Cap and Bucky thwart him in the end.

The reason for the reprint, as mentioned last week, is explained on the final page: Thomas and Frank Robbins were taken a bit off-guard by INVADERS switching to a monthly schedule, and so needed the extra time to catch up. Which is a pretty acceptable reason for falling to the "Dreaded Deadline Doom", unlike some of the other goofy excuses (when they were even provided) used by a lot of Marvel's young talent in the seventies.

Issue 10 features three bookend pages (two up front and one at the end) to set up the reprint. In this sequence, we see Bucky piloting Namor's flagship, as has become his default job among the Invaders, with Namor commenting on how well he handles the craft.

Early in issue 11, Captain America recaps the Baron Blood battle of issue 9 -- though without a footnote -- for new readers (or for those who forgot what happened during the previous month's reprint).

Following Lord Falsworth's operation, the attending surgeon states that he will likely never walk again.

When Jacqueline wakes up after her procedure in a hospital bed beside the Human Torch, her first thought is of Captain America -- causing the Torch to dramatically clutch his pillow in angst. At the issue's end, Jacqueline embraces a somewhat perplexed Cap, talking about how excited she is to join the Invaders alongside him -- which leads to the Torch departing in a huff.

As Jacqueline displays her powers for the first time, Bucky comments that she's as fast as a British "Spitfire" plane -- which will, in short order (as of next issue) become her superheroic codename.

Following his defeat, Professor Gold cryptically rants to the Invaders that whatever happens next will be on their heads, piquing Captain America's interest.

My Thoughts: The Blue Bullet is really a background element in this story; a threat to provide the Invaders' obligatory knock-down, drag-out fight for the month -- and a fine action sequence it is, with Namor initially withholding his full strength and getting clobbered, but then coming back in the end, after the other Invaders have done little more than evade the Bullet, to finish it off with his full strength.

And it suddenly occurs to me that Namor has not once, as far as I can recall, uttered his battle cry of "Imperious Rex!" in this series so far. Thomas did away with his "normal joe" speech patterns at some point -- a tidbit I failed to mention when it happened some issues back -- but he hasn't gone as over-the-top regal as I'm used to yet either. And he isn't yelling things like "Neptune's Trident!" or the afore-mentioned "Imperious Rex!" -- or even referring to himself as the Avenging Son. I'm not sure when all that became part of Namor's character, but I'm a little sad we aren't seeing any of it here!

Anyway, on with the main draw of this issue; the event which happens against the backdrop of the Blue Bullet fight: Jacqueline Falsworth's transformation into Spitfire. I'll start by noting that it's not really explained how the Human Torch's blood is able to save Jacqueline. Not that I want a biology lesson in my comic story, but still -- we're simply told that she needs blood from a "truly 'universal doner,' but there's no such [thing]" -- after which the Torch dramatically stands up and tells the doctors to use his blood.

Sure enough, whatever flows through his android veins saves Jacqueline's life and, somehow combined with Baron Blood's bite (at least, as speculated by the Torch), gives her the power of super-speed (and flaming hair when she uses it). She also appears to be flying at a few points in the story, but I don't believe that is part of her established power-set. I've only ever known her a super-runner, anyway. I guess we'll see how Roy Thomas and Frank Robbins originally handled her in upcoming issues.

Jacqueline's feelings toward Cap are all over the place in these recent issues, by the way. Initially, in her first appearance, she was openly smitten with him, hanging on his arm as she greeted him at Falsworth Manor and escorted him to dinner. Then she seemed relatively casual with him when they had a dawn conversation the next morning -- and that night, she absolutely hated him when her father joined the Invaders as Union Jack. But now she's back to fawning all over him.

I don't know if Thomas was going for the ol' Stan Lee "fickle female" archetype or if he just hadn't figured her out yet, but these pendulum-like mood swings are a little confusing! I hope to see him straighten her out and present her with a consistent characterization (and preferably one that isn't almost solely defined by her reactions to Captain America) as we go forward. Time will tell! But on the plus side, the Invaders are one member closer to that idealized version of the team I've mentioned in the past (they just need a permanent Union Jack, which they will get before long too), so I'm pretty happy!