Marvel 1975.12 - Captain America #192

Captain America and the Falcon #192

Title: Mad-Flight!

Writer: Marv Wolfman

Artist: Frank Robbins

Villian: Dr. Faustus

So nnw we have Marv Wolfman as the writer? Sheesh! After Frank Warner, Tony Isabella and Bill Mantlo, he's the fourth writer in six months. The comic has been in a mess since Steve Englehart left.

Despite the comic's title, the Falcon doesn't appear in this issue. Captain America is returning from Los Angeles to New York in his civilian identity of Steve Rogers. Using his SHIELD A-1 priority card he's allowed to hitch a lift on a charter flight. What he doesn't know until he's on board is that the plane has been chartered by Dr. Faustus. He's taking a plane full of gangsters to New York to conquer the Island of Manhattan and steal whatever they can find. He has a stash of weapons that he's stolen from Stark Industries, including sonic depressors that can paralyse or destroy a person's brain.

The whole flight is taken up by battles which go backwards and forwards. As they approach New York a foolish gangster fires a bullet which depressurises the cabin. Dr. Faustus is ripped out of the plane and falls to his death. Seemingly.

Next month Jack Kirby will return to Marvel and take up writing the Captain America comics again. I appreciate Jack as one of the greatest comic book artists who's ever lived, and he did wonderful artwork in the 1960's, but I have mixed feelings about his second stint at Marvel from 1976 to 1978. He did excellent work on Captain America and Black Panther, but I hated "The Eternals". The artwork was pompous and exaggerated, and the stories themselves undermined the whole Marvel universe. I see "The Eternals" as a rebellion against Stan Lee, an attempt to overthrow his whole vision for Marvel. Good editors would have calmly forgotten the Eternals and the Celestials after Jack Kirby left Marvel, but they were allowed to fester as a cancer in the Marvel universe.

I'll probably return to Jack Kirby's Captain America series at some time in the future, but for now I want to remain in 1975 and continue with reviewing other Marvel series that I abruptly halted.