INVADERS #31

"HEIL FRANKENSTEIN!"
Guest Writer & Artist: Don Glut & Chic Stone | Inker: Bill Black
Letterer: Tom Orzechowski | Colorist: George Roussos
Editor: Roy Thomas

The Plot: During some downtime at Falsworth Manor, Spitfire stumbles across an oversized Nazi officer's hat. Captain America appears and relates to her an early, untold Invaders adventure: the Human Torch and Toro went to the Alps to investigate possible Nazi activity. When they failed to report back, Cap, Bucky, and Namor followed. There, they found a mob of villagers who reported a monster sighting, as well as the Torches' arrival and disappearance inside the nearby Castle Frankenstein.

Cap and Bucky infiltrated the castle while Namor stayed in the village. Within the castle, the heroes found several Nazis, in league with a paraplegic scientist named Basil Frankenstein, his partner and lover, Doctor "Kitty" Kitagowa, and their creation: a lumbering behemoth of a monster. The monster overcame Cap and Bucky, and Frankenstein and Kitty made plans to transfer Frankenstein's brain into Cap's body. Meanwhile, they also drained the Human Torch's android energies to enlarge their monster.

When the castle lit up due to the latter procedure, Namor flew in to investigate. Together, the Invaders battled the monster until it was electrocuted, which shorted out the brain control device Frankenstein and Kitty had implanted. With its free will restored, the monster grabbed its creators and leapt off the castle, killing all three of them. When the villagers then prepared to destroy the castle, the Human Torch forced them to leave it standing as a memorial to the fallen monster, which he considered a kindred spirit.

Continuity Notes: This is a stand-alone story with no footnotes or continuity nods of any sort (see my thoughts on this below), save a reference to Basil Frankenstein's ancestor, Victor, who had created a similar monster many years before, as seen in MONSTER OF FRANKENSTEIN #1.

Opening narration states that it's been two days since the Invaders' last mission, though it's not specifically stated what that mission was (see my thoughts on this below). Also, the bizarre sight of noblewoman Jacqueline Falsworth dusting the house at super-speed is explained away as something the butler would normally do, but she's handling herself due to boredom.

(Why she's doing this in full costume, however, goes unexplained -- and brings to the forefront an oddity of this series: the Invaders are nearly always in costume, no matter what they're doing. I think we've seen Steve Rogers and Bucky in "civilian" garb -- actually their army uniforms -- one time in thirty-one issues, and the Human Torch likewise has only once changed out of his costume to blend in with the public. This series isn't much for secret identity plotlines. It's... weird, coming from a Marvel book.)

Spitfire is also ignorant of the Frankenstein mission, though she herself noted a couple issues ago that the Invaders keep a "combat diary" and that she had read it -- which was how she knew the team had not previously battled the Teutonic Knight. And that issue was written by Don Glut, too! (See my thoughts on this below. Sensing a pattern here?)

None of the Invaders so much as blink at the idea of a Doctor named Frankenstein creating a monster (I mean other than the fact that they're taken aback by the creature itself), suggesting that they're all woefully deficient in pop culture knowledge, or that Mary Shelley's book does not exist in the Marvel Universe -- which doesn't feel right, since I'm certain Frankenstein has been referenced as "a thing" in other comics I've read.

My Thoughts: I feel like this has to be an inventory story. We're a few months into the Jim Shooter era at Marvel, though our credits haven't yet reflected that. But Shooter took over as Marvel's editor-in-chief with the issues cover-dated May or June of 1978, and Shooter was known to commission inventory stories, intended to sit in a drawer until such time as an issue fell behind its deadlines and it could be published in order to save the readers from a reprint.

Now, I can't say for certain that's what happened here -- I mean, Shooter's only been the EiC for two or three months at this point. But this reads just like your typical inventory tale: a guest writer and art team, no references to ongoing continuity and nothing identifying when in the chronology it falls -- heck, it's even, for the most part, a flashback to the early days of the book, to keep the "modern day" stuff from being outdated by the time of publication. And yet it still manages to get one or two small details wrong, which is also not uncommon for an inventory story.

So my guess is that Don Glut had come in to do a couple fill-in (not inventory; there's a difference) issues with new regular artist Alan Kupperberg, and at the same time was tapped to write an inventory story for a different artist to draw. So this tale was created alongside issues 29 and 30, and -- wouldn't you know it -- Roy or Alan or somebody fell behind schedule so quickly that it was needed immediately after Glut's fill-in 2-parter! Again, this is all speculation, but it seems to make a lot of sense.

As for the story itself? It's not bad! I still think Glut is a good fit for this title, and I look forward to seeing him take over for Thomas when he departs the series. This is a nicely paced done-in-one with a fun premise. Chic Stone has never been my favorite artist, but that's due more to his interpretations of certain characters. His illustrations in and of themselves are fine. I'll enjoy Thomas's final story arc, but I'm also ready to bring on Glut for the final leg of the series!