INVADERS #33

"A TIME OF TITANS!"
Writer/Editor: Roy Thomas | Illustrators/Innovators: Alan Kupperberg & Frank Springer
Letterer: Joe Rosen | Colorist: George Roussos
Consulting Editor: Jim Shooter

The Plot: The Invaders fight Thor to save Stalin, but when the Thunder God summons a rainstorm, the Human Torch is rendered useless. Namor grabs Stalin and carries him aboard his flagship, and the pair takes off for Moscow. The remaining Invaders hold Thor at bay barely long enough for him to lose track of Stalin, then he departs. The Invaders board Stalin's train and head for Moscow, while Thor uses his hammer to speak with Hitler. The Nazi leader transmits the location of the Kremlin to Mjölnir, and Thor flies off to complete his mission. In Hitler's headquarters, Doctor Olsen suffers a heart attack and dies, leaving his assistant, Hans, to work with Hitler.

Meanwhile, the Invaders have reunited in Moscow. When Thor arrives, Captain America, Sub-Mariner, Spitfire, and the Human Torch head out to challenge him. But Thor is too much for them, and makes it into Stalin's office. He blasts the premier with a lightning bolt. Elsewhere, Hitler orders Hans to bring trolls from Asgard to Earth -- but Hans, revealing himself as Victor von Doom, refuses and blows up Doctor Olsen's machine. Von Doom departs, leaving Hitler behind in the wreckage of his lab.

However, before leaving, von Doom transmitted to Thor's hammer the ravings of Hitler, revealing that he had manipulated the Thunder God. At the same time, Captain America deduces that "Stalin" is actually Union Jack in disguise. Realizing he's made a mistake, Thor withdraws the lightning from Brian Falsworth, restoring him to life. Thor then tells the Invaders that they must forget this encounter until such time as he is ready to walk once more among mortals. Thor uses Mjölnir to erase the Invaders' memories of their battle, and then returns to Asgard.

Continuity Notes: A footnote on the first page reminds readers that when Thor arrived last issue, he announced his intention to kill Stalin. A few pages later, a footnote explains something which was established via dialogue last time -- everyone understands Thor in their native tongue on Earth somehow. And speaking of other languagues, there's a scene where Namor gets to practice some of his Russian fluency, also mentioned in the prior installment. (And it's presented in italics rather than brackets; an oddity for comics of this vintage in my experience.)

As mentioned above, there's a pretty big revelation in this one: Doctor Olsen's assistant, "Hans", is actually Victor von Doom in disguise! And this isn't Doom time-traveling; rather it's 1942's native Doom. Which... well, I'll discuss it below.

It's notable that Thor only explicitly erases the Invaders' memories of their encounter. It seems that Doom, Hitler, Stalin, and the various random soldiers who crossed Thor's path should all remember it! As should Thor himself, of course.

After being healed by Thor, Brian possesses a degree of electrical power due to the residual mystical lightning remaining in his body, apparently bringing to an end the brief sub-plot where he feels useless to the Invaders. I confess, I'm not sure why Thomas felt the need to do this. Unless he wants to differentiate Captain America and Union Jack more, I don't really think U.J. needs a super-power. He was created with a derivation of the Super Soldier serum, after all! (Though Thomas explicitly mentioned last issue that his version of the formula was not as powerful as Cap's.) But I suppose Thomas wants him to contribute something different to the team, and since Cap is already an acrobatic fighter and Namor already has super-strength, we wind up with electrical powers. Which, in my opinion, are a really wierd fit for a character who dresses primarily in black.

My Thoughts: So it seems like just last week that I was commenting on how only certain characters from the then-modern Marvel Universe could interact with the Invaders. And I specifically called out the fact that, due to the sliding timeline, I was pretty sure Reed Richards and Ben Grimm were no longer considered to have fought in World War II at this point. Yet here we have Roy Thomas trying to tell us that an adult Victor von Doom was wandering around in 1942!

Just how old does Thomas think Doom and his contemporaries, Reed and Ben, are? This Doom is alredy bandaged from the accident that disfigured him -- an accident that happened when he was a college student. So He's probably around twenty years old here. Which means that in the then-current timeline, thirty-six years later, he should have been in his mid-fifties. Likewise for Reed and Ben. And while it's not impossible for the three to be that age -- Reed's white temples, after all, speak to some level of maturity over most other heroes -- it's a little hard to swallow.

(About six years after this issue was published, in FANTASTIC FOUR #271, John Byrne "canonized", via the number of candles on his birthday cake, Reed's age as forty -- which, when I was younger, seemed too young to me. But now, as a forty-three year-old with temples that have been rapidly graying for a few years now, I have absolutely no problem with it!)

Incidentally, some quick internet research reveals that Roger Stern ret-conned this in the second issue of his short-lived MARVEL UNIVERSE series in the late nineties, revealing that this Doom is actually time-traveling from the modern day. Though I don't know how Stern reconciled that with the fact that Doom, via his own internal monologue in this issue, clearly beleives he is from the forties. I know I read at least the first issue of MARVEL UNIVERSE way back when, though I remember absolutely nothing about it. I really ought to give it another look.

Anyway -- beyond this weird hiccup, my thoughts from last week still stand. This is a very fun story!