SECRET AGENT CORRIGAN PART 5

OCTOBER 19TH, 1971 - JANUARY 30TH, 1971
FEBRUARY 1ST, 1971 - MAY 1ST, 1971
MAY 3RD, 1971 - JULY 31ST, 1971
AUGUST 2ND, 1971 - OCTOBER 16TH, 1971
OCTOBER 18TH, 1971 - JANUARY 8TH, 1972
JANUARY 10TH, 1972 - APRIL 8TH, 1972
By Al Williamson & Archie Goodwin

It may suffer the same issues of light continuity and no real stakes that I've spent the past few weeks complaining about, but Corrigan's next adventure does at least venture into some unique territory for the character! In this one, the U.S. State Department gets wind of a plane found in South America, belonging to a believed-dead scientist who the government would like to have back -- or at least, whose research they would like! Corrigan is placed on temporary assignment with the State Department to investigate -- but the Soviet Union has also learned about the plane, and dispatches an operative to team up with Corrigan in his search.

The Soviet operative turns out to be the beautiful Colonel Tanya Greb, and she joins Corrigan, his pilot Parez, and Professor Stone (an archaeologist from a previous Goodwin/Williamson arc) to investigate. Stone is along due to the fact that some dinosaur bones were improbably found in the plane, and carbon dating says that they're only a couple hundred years old. So as you might imagine, before long, the group finds their way into a land lost to time -- a prehistoric jungle in the rainforest, where dinosaurs still live!

The ensuing adventure sees our heroes locate the missing scientist, Professor Branveldt, work to repair their crashed helicopter while evading T-Rexes in the jungle, and eventually escape via raft as the entire lost world collapses around them. This arc is about as far from the standard law-enforcement procedural that we usually get from Corrigan, and veers far into high adventure territory -- and I love it for that. I don't think all of the strip's woes are suddenly solved here, but at least we have a nice diversion into some uncharted territory to liven things up for a bit.

AVENGERS: EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES S1x004

"THE MAN IN THE ANT HILL"
Written by Christopher Yost | Directed by Vinton Heuck

The Plot: Ulysses Klaw and a band of mercenaries attack a SHIELD installation outside of Wakanda, where scientist Hank Pym is working as an advisor. Pym shrinks to become Ant-Man and fights back. He takes out the mercs and sends Klaw packing. Later, back in the United States, Pym's girlfriend and "manager", Janet van Dyne (the Wasp) fights the super-criminal called Whirlwind. Ant-Man catches up with her to help take the villain out.

Later, Ant-Man and the Wasp drop Whirlwind off with Nick Fury aboard the SHIELD helicarrier. Fury tries to recruit the duo to his group, but Pym refuses. Fury reveals that Whirlwind was working for Klaw, trying to steal vibranium for him.

In Wakanda, King T'Chaka, the Black Panther, is challenged by M'Baku, the Man-Ape -- leader of the White Gorilla tribe. T'Chaka lays low his foe, but is sniped by a sonic cannon that throws him off balance and allows Man-Ape to win their duel. T'Chaka is killed, and Man-Ape seizes the Wakandan throne. T'Chaka's son, T'Challa, escapes and takes up the mantle of Black Panther. In the aftermath, M'Baku gives his ally, Klaw, some of Wakanda's vibranium.

SECRET AGENT CORRIGAN PART 4

SEPTEMBER 1ST, 1969 - NOVEMBER 15TH, 1969
NOVEMBER 17TH, 1969 - FEBRUARY 7TH, 1970
FEBRUARY 9TH, 1970 - MAY 2ND, 1970
MAY 4TH, 1970 - JULY 25TH, 1970
JULY 27TH, 1970 - OCTOBER 17TH, 1970
By Al Williamson & Archie Goodwin

Corrigan's next adventure begins as he and his wife, Wilda, vacation in the Riviera while he recuperates from a gunshot wound sustained in the prior arc. But the couple's romantic getaway is quickly interrupted when Kasim, the prince of a nation called Turistan, becomes smitten with Wilda and kidnaps her to become his bride (he needs to marry posthaste in order to ascend to the throne). Corrigan follows them back to Turistan in a chartered plane, but runs out of fuel and lands near the castle of Sarkhan, Kasim's sinister cousin. Phil is captured by Sarkhan, but a beautiful servant named Yasmina, secretly loyal to Kasim, helps him escape.

Meanwhile, Kasim has realized the error of his ways and wants to return Wilda to her husband -- but his palace is attacked by Sarkhan, plotting a coup with the aid of a mercenary troupe. Corrigan and Yasmina arrive, and Corrigan helps Kasim defeat his cousin, returning control of Turistan to its rightful prince, who finds in Yasmina the wife he had wanted.

It's a bit weird, but there's sort of a FLASH GORDON vibe in this one. Desert palaces were not an uncommon sight in Alex Raymond's run on that strip, and Wilda's predicament here echoes Dale Arden's periodic imprisonments by Ming the Merciless -- occasions during which he would typically dress her in skimpy attire and lust after her, trying to force her into marriage. But beyond that, there's nothing particularly special about this arc. We're getting back to the rut I noted a couple weeks ago, where there's no continuity to speak of and it never feels like anyone is in any real danger, which means the strip itself feels like it's going through the motions.

AVENGERS: EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES S1x003

"THOR THE MIGHTY!"
Written by Michael Ryan | Directed by Vinton Heuck

The Plot: Thor intervenes when the Wrecking Crew attempts to steal a Stark Enterprises gamma ray emitter. As soon as the battle is done, Thor is summoned to Asgard by Heimdall, who tells him the realm is under siege. Thor arrives to defend Asgard from Loki and the frost giants. Thor drives off the giants, but Loki ambushes him. However the Thunder God refuses to give in and defeats his brother.

Thor brings Loki before Odin, who banishes the villain to the Isle of Silence. Odin announces that he is about to enter the Odinsleep to recharge his powers and orders Thor to protect Asgard, but Thor refuses and leaves for Earth instead, to defend it against the new and varied threats cropping up there.

The Enchantress watches Thor leave, then transports herself to the Isle of Silence with her ally, Skurge the Executioner. There, Loki tells them that all is going as he planned, and that no one knows what's coming next.

SECRET AGENT CORRIGAN PART 3

JULY 29TH, 1968 - OCTOBER 12TH, 1968
OCTOBER 14TH, 1968 - JANUARY 4TH, 1969
JANUARY 6TH, 1969 - MARCH 15TH, 1969
MARCH 17TH, 1969 - JUNE 14TH, 1969
JUNE 16TH, 1969 - AUGUST 30TH, 1969
By Al Williamson & Archie Goodwin

Last week I spoke a bit about the stakes in these Corrigan stories feeling extremely minimal. You go into every single arc knowing that not only will Corrigan win, nobody will die and the bad guys will all be captured, and he'll move along to his next mission the very next day. I suggested just a little bit of lethality to perhaps up the ante for our hero. I noted that otherwise, things might get tedious as we move along.

It occurred to me after I wrote those words, however, that there are other ways to break up the tedium, and Archie Goodwin's plotting may be part of my problem here. He writes every arc as straight and episodic as possible. There are no twists or turns. Corrigan shows up, finds out what the problem is, then solves it; the end, on to the next unrelated story. No wrenches are ever thrown into his plans. He never gets blindsided. And, while I have gone on record before as saying that I enjoy watching hyper-competent characters do their thing and succeed at everything, that's not exactly what this is. Hyper-competence is great, but it works best when the characters are using it to overcome serious obstacles. Corrigan tends to sleepwalk his way through every situation, because there are no obstacles that challenge him, and no villains he can't outwit in a very straightforward fashion.

I guess what I'm getting it is that I don't necessarily need to see anybody die to make these stories more compelling. I just need some better plots from Archie Goodwin! Sub-plots, twists, continuing continuity, and so forth. This was something Goodwin and Williamson did pretty well in the STAR WARS newspaper strip of the early eighties. They actually had ongoing plotlines outside of the current story arcs, and they had arcs that built upon one another (and sometimes led directly from one to the next) toward a narrative finish line. That is what I hope to see them bring to Corrigan! Otherwise, it just feels like going through the motions in every storyline.

AVENGERS: EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES S1x002

"HULK VS. THE WORLD"
Written by Kevin Burke & Chris Wyatt | Directed by Sebastian Montes

The Plot: Bruce Banner wanders into Las Vegas, where he is briefly chased by police before escaping. Inside a diner, he meets with "Crusher" Creel, the Absorbing Man. Banner believes that SHIELD is experimenting on villains inside the prison called the Cube, and he wants Creel, an escapee, to tell him about it. But when Creel reveals that he now has super-powers as the Absorbing Man, Banner transforms into the Hulk. Hulk makes fairly short work of the Absorbing Man, but is subsequently attacked by General "Thunderbolt" Ross's Hulkbusters after the fight moves outside city limits.

Ross is ordered to withdraw his troops when Black Widow and Hawkeye, agents of SHIELD, arrive. Ross, however, defies the command and attacks the Hulk even as he battles the two agents. Huulk saves them, but is injured by Ross's missile to the point that Black Widow is able to subdue him with her Widow's Sting. Banner and Absorbing Man are then taken to the Cube, where Hawkeye visits Banner, who tells the Archer that SHIELD has taken his blood and wants to make more Hulks.

Hawkeye watches as Black Widow sneaks into a medical wing and takes Banner's blood sample. Suspicious, he pokes around the Widow's hidden files and finds record of a communication between the Widow and Hydra, in which she promises the sample to the terrorists. Hawkeye follows her out into the desert, where he interrupts the drop. But when SHIELD arrives, Widow takes out her two Hydra contacts and accuses Hawkeye of being a double-agent. Hawkeye is taken to the Vault, while the Widow retains the blood sample and speaks once again with her Hydra contact.

SECRET AGENT CORRIGAN PART 2

SEPTEMBER 11TH, 1967 - DECEMBER 2ND, 1967
DECEMBER 4TH, 1967 - FEBRUARY 17TH, 1968
FEBRUARY 19TH, 1968 - MAY 4TH, 1968
MAY 6TH, 1968 - JULY 27TH, 1968
By Al Williamson & Archie Goodwin

So it turns out Phil Corrigan is married! Who knew? Certainly not me, so I Googled it after meeting his wife in the first of this week's story arcs. It turns out that during the 1940s, SECRET AGENT X-9 morphed a bit to feature some soap opera elements, and one of those was a romantic rivalry for X-9's affections between his assistant, Linda, and a mystery novelist named Wilda. In the end Wilda won Corrigan's heart and the two were married in 1947 -- meaning that by this point, they've been living in wedded bliss for twenty years of real time!

Anyway -- we meet Wilda here when Corrigan is assigned to investigate what made a government scientist go rogue and blow up his own missile defense system. As part of the investigation, Corrigan realizes that the doctor spent some time at a luxury resort, so he brings Wilda along for cover to spend some time there. And it turns out to be a good thing he went to the resort first (of all possible places), because that's exactly where our poor scientist was corrupted! It turns out the place is run by "Ma" Murkel and her three sons, a group of bumbling bad guys being paid by a foreign power to turn high profile U.S. scientists into traitors.

Corrigan eventually gets to the bottom of the scheme and, after rescuing Wilda -- held as a hostage by Murkel and her sons -- he arrests the goofball family and heads home with his wife.