"GOD SAVE THE KING!"
Writer/Editor: Roy Thomas | Artists: Frank Robbins & Frank Springer
Colorist: Don Warfield | Letterer: John Costanza
Writer/Editor: Roy Thomas | Artists: Frank Robbins & Frank Springer
Colorist: Don Warfield | Letterer: John Costanza
Alfie then departs and, from a secret waterfront lair, reports in to his superiors in Germany that the Crusaders have fallen into line. But Alfie has been followed by Dyna-Mite, who he tosses into the sea. Dyna-Mite escapes the water and makes his way to Falsworth Manor, where he warns the Invaders of Alfie's plan. The next morning, the Invaders -- less Spitfire, who remained behind to tend to Dyna-Mite -- arrive to stop King George from breaking a booby-trapped champagne bottle. The two super-teams come to blows, but when the bottle explodes -- harmlessly thanks to the Human Torch and Namor -- the Crusaders realize they've been had. Alfie makes a break for it and the Torch pursues, but Alfie drives off the Tower Bridge and his flaming car explodes in midair.
With Alfie dead, the control belt that provided the Crusaders with their powers is gone as well, leaving the group normal humans once more. They make peace with the Invaders, who then head back to Falsworth Manor -- where they discover that Spitfire, Lord Falsworth, and Dyna-Mite have departed on a secret mission.
Continuity Notes: Spitfire provides a brief recap of last issue's events, as usual without a footnote.
And phonetic accents are all over the place in this issue. Ghost Girl herself also says stuff like "dinna" (e.g. "You dinna have much to worry about..."), which I have no problem with. He has a lot of the "Cockney" type characters saying "yer" instead of "you" (something Scott Lobdell would do many years later with Chamber in GENERATION X, too). No issue there. He drops the "H" from words like "his", again for the Cockney-types. And I'm fine with all that. It's just those rolled "R"s that make me roll my "I"s (get it?) every time I see them! Thomas perhaps should've looked over at X-MEN around this time, where Moira MacTaggart had recently debuted, for an idea of how to write a Scottish accent in a way that wouldn't make readers cringe themselves into a fetal position on the floor.
Next week, we take a break from the series proper to check out the first (and only) INVADERS ANNUAL!
Just reread the issue and yes the accents - eek. Alfie seems to switch between Cockney and "Mummerset" (a generic West Country accent used by actors rather than locals) and other British characters are all over the place especially when swearing excessively (made even worse by attempts to substitute the words).
ReplyDeleteAnd just what is the King wearing at the ceremony? His regular naval uniform would have sufficed. The only images I can find of him launching a ship are the King George V battleship in early 1939 when in peacetime he wore naval uniform albeit with the outdoor overcoat rather than the dress jacket he's usually in photos (and in the car scenes here).
Which is a pity because this issue does touch on what was quite a serious theme during the war - the tensions between the British and the Americans stationed over here. There were a lot of misunderstandings and resentments and Alfie is playing on some very real feelings when he appeals to the Crusaders' patriotism. (And some of the attitudes continue to this day - watch out for when an American and a Brit start shouting their respective national myths about the war at each other with the Russians' role completely ignored.)
I believe I was in high school when I learned about the Russians' role in World War II. Up to that point, all I ever knew was that America joined the war and helped put an end to it pretty quickly. It was a bit of a shock to learn that everything would've gone very differently if not for Russia!
DeleteI recall reading someplace -- heck, maybe on his own blog -- that Jim Shooter did not like phonetic accents. And if all the Marvel writers did them like Roy Thomas, I would agree! I don't have issues with such accents when written subtly, but Thomas goes so over-the-top with them -- some of his German villains are basically caricatures of a German accent -- that it's hard to take the words seriously.
I think this stretch might have been when kid me finally went "okay that's enough patriotic superheroes during WWII, stop it" at the book. My interest dove off a cliff after this two issue stretch, though it does come back at a later point. In his career Thomas didn't just mine the veins of patriotic superheroes during World War II, he played the entire mine out and ruined the local environment for decades to come.
ReplyDeleteI did remember the accents, and how what was supposed to make Ghost Girl sound Scottish wound up making her sound like she was a cat girl. And, you know, actually, a Scottish cat girl would be hilarious.
ReplyDeleteWell, I absolutely loved these issues as a 6-year-old comics buff who couldn’t get enough superheroes.
For one thing, I had a Golden Age fixation, as previously mentioned. For another, I’ve always had an odd soft spot for the, like, fourth or fifth bananas — the Crusaders here, a group called the Elementals created for the Super Friends comics (far more obscure than the international heroes later absorbed into DC’s main continuity as the Global Guardians), the Champions of Xandar. For another thing still, I became aware that in a collision of the previous two things an unofficial Marvel/DC crossover was staged by introducing a group of Crusaders based on DC’s Freedom Fighters in The Invaders and a group of Crusaders based on the Invaders in, you’ll never see this coming, DC’s Freedom Fighters.
The leader of DC’s Crusaders was actually a supervillain known as the Silver Ghost masquerading as the new superhero Americommando. He was visually patterned on Captain America and joined by a sidekick named Rusty, with Barracuda, Fireball, and his partner Sparky rounding out the group. Americommando was the name of a Golden Age character previously called Mr. America, first seen as plain old Tex Thomson way back in Action Comics #1.
Marvel’s Crusaders mapped to the Freedom Fighters with Spirit of ’76 for Uncle Sam, Ghost Girl for Phantom Lady, Dyna-Mite for Doll Man, Thunderfist for the Human Bomb, Captain Wings for Black Condor, and Tommy Lightning for the Ray. Spirit of ’76 was visually based on one Golden Age character, Nedor’s Fighting Yank, while being named after another published by Harvey. The character for whom Dyna-Mite was named, junior partner of TNT, was later brought into the (relative) spotlight by Roy Thomas in Young All-Stars.
Obviously, I credit or blame my age for being forgiving of stuff like the accents, just as the Crusaders sidelining the Invaders and turning out to be pawns of a Nazi agent plunged a dagger into my innocent heart.
Blam, I went ahead and deleted your issue 14 comment from this page, since you posted it to 14 as well.
DeleteI agree with you on the "fourt or fifth bananas" -- since I was a kid, I have glommed onto characters with few appearances or lesser fan followings as "mine" -- the Sons of the Tiger, for example, who I mentioned last summer I became a fan of simply based on their OHotMU profiles coupled with their relative obscurity. Moon Knight was another; when I was in my teens, his presence had waned (pun very much intended), and I glommed onto him as an "obscure" character to call my own.
(Circa the early 2000s, I bought all of Moon Knight's appearances up to that point; I even found a copy of WEREWOLF BY NIGHT #32 in really nice condition for a bargain; as someone who has never had an eye for the pricier/rarer back issues, this remains feat I am proud of to this day).
Anyway, until Tim and now you mentioned it, I had no idea the Crusaders were based on a DC group! So I guess this makes two unofficial "disguised" crossovers between Marvel and DC in the 70s -- the Crusaders/Freedom Fighters and the JLA/Squadron Sinister.
While I was reading both Invaders and Freedom Fighters, the latter a bit more sporadically, only the Crusaders based on the Invaders were obvious to me then. They’re much easier to recognize, but their designs are also more basic and the Americommando one is terribly garish — which has me realizing a potential factor in my love of fifth bananas: good costumes. Even back then it was hard to come up with something fairly unique yet attractive. Frank Robbins, assuming it was him, did a bang-up job on the Invaders Crusaders; it’s borderline criminal most of them were just one-and-done (well, two-and-through, I guess).
DeleteSorry; I read ahead but didn’t see Tim or anyone else mention the “crossover” or I wouldn’t have detailed it.
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