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.
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