Marvelous Expansion (Marvel History Part Two)

   Yes I soon realised as I was writing the first post (Click HERE to read the first installment), that there is too dang much to fit into a brief space. So, I'm making this a trilogy, like all good things are. This is the second part and will take us right up to just before Avengers Disassembled, where my last post will cover the modern Marvel stories.

   A lot happens between the mid 70's and the late 90's so I'm going to take this character by character like I did last time.

Doctor Doom

The Inhumans

   For starters The Fantastic Four fought Namor the Submariner, their long time nemesis, scientist and magician Doctor Doom, mind controller the Puppet Master, the Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android, The Red Ghost and his Super Apes, Diablo and Dragon Man (who later reformed and joined the team in some capacity- more next post!), The Frightful Four a team of four villains with a changing line-up and Moleman a scientist who lives underground in tunnels with his monsters and molemen. Their space adventures also discovered The Watcher on the moon, a being from a race of many who watch and record major events of other species without intervening, the alien shape-shifters The Skrulls (who also later come back in a major way), and the space species the Kree whom 25,000 years ago during their long war with the Skrulls came to earth to experiment on us to one day allow us to join their war. They made a group of humans into super humans and they went into hiding first in the hidden city, Attilan, and later on the moon. They became known as The Inhumans and went on to include their King Blackbolt and wife Medusa, as well as Crystal whom had romantic entanglements with Johnny Storm and later Quicksilver of the Avengers. Crystal owns a giant teleporting dog known as Lockjaw.

Galactus the world eater and his Herald
The Silver Surfer.

   Other major F4 stories include the coming of Galactus, a being from the previous universe to our own who eats planets due to insufferable hunger, and his herald (and later, earth hero), Silver Surfer. While searching through a dimension known as the Negative Zone the team made an enemy in Annihilus an intelligent insect creature and also recurring villain.


   Nick Fury went on to become the head of Earth Security in the organisation known as S.H.I.E.L.D. which currently stands for Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.

   Spider-Man racks up an impressive rogues gallery for a lone hero including, perfect impressionist Chameleon, winged villain Vulture, 8 legged scientist Doctor Octopus, dusty criminal Sandman, a scientist who's self experimenting went wrong The Lizard (star of the summer film), shocking villain Electro, ex-special effects creator and illusionist Mysterio, Norman Osborn his arch nemesis Green Goblin, Kraven a deranged hunter, stinging tailed Scorpion, power suited Rhino, on again off again lover and later reformed hero, cat burglar Black Cat, another Goblin by the name of Hobgoblin, X-men villain Juggernaut and scientists The Jackal and Morbius the Living Vampire.

Spidey and Black Cat face off against The Sinister Tweleve! A team up of
spidey's worst foes.

The horrible moment when Gwen broke
her neck as Spidey attempted to
stop her fall.

  Important stories during this period include Peter's first love Gwen Stacy and her farther being shockingly killed off. His finding of an alien symbiote that became his costume for some time only to leave him and bond with others becoming the villain Venom and giving off more symbiotes that attached to worse minded individuals including serial killer Cletus Cassidy who became Carnage. Many different people assumed the mantel Spider-Woman. Kraven's last hunt where Kraven had one last no holes barred push to kill Spidey. After being framed for murder Spider-man went on to assume many new secret identities most of which were taken over by others after him. Peter Parker was cloned several times by the Jackal and many of which went on to become long running characters including one clone who couldn't be distinguished between the real one, leading to years of guessing. Ben Reilly as he was later known went on to take Spidey's place for a long while during which Peter took time off with his new girlfriend Mary Jane Watson. Ben Reilly eventually died, revealing he was in fact the clone.

   Peter went on to marry Mary Jane only to have this erased from history decades later as part of a deal with the devil to save his last living relative Aunt May. More on this in our next post about modern day marvel.

A small fraction of the X-men. Yes I said SMALL.

   X-men history is very hard to follow so here is the very basic pattern. After the second team was revealed many mutants are introduced and they sort of go on to multiply like rabbits. During the 80's a Canadian super team Alpha Flight is introduced as well as a new young team and class of x-men named the New Mutants. What with many of the previous members having graduated and the school not really teaching any more. The original X-men reformed in a team called X-factor, and a Brittish team called Excalibur emerged. The main team fights enemies including the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants headed by master of magnetism Magneto and lots of anti-mutant threats. Jean Grey became possessed by the Phoenix Force a God of rebirth, on a space mission. They introduce alien race the Shi'ar, their leader Lilandra and her Imperial Guard headed by Gladiator as well as the renegade ship and crew of misfits, The Starjammers, captained by Cyclop's father. Notable newcomers include Havok who is Cyclops's brother, his girlfriend Polaris, Shadowcat, Dazzler, Forge, Longshot, Psylocke, Rogue, Rachel Summers, and Jubilee.

The X-Statix, a recommended
read from me.

   In the 90's lots more mutant teams appeared including the new government funded X-Factor which later became pop culture and media obsessed X-Statix, a Cable lead team of X-force, a second main X-men team, another new class of mutants with Generation X, and solo characters Deadpool, X-man and Cable get time to shine in their own books. Notable villains include Apocolypse, Sinister and Mojo. Like I said this is a very brief overview as each year brought a brand new X-men crossover event between the multiple books being published. To go into detail or name every teams characters could take decades in istself.

Bullseye kills Elektra.

   Daredevil had tragedy as his on again off again lover, assassin Elektra died at the hands of his enemy Bullseye. He had many run in's as a lawyer in court and as a vigilante outside with the Kingpin of crime.

   The Avengers welcome to their elite ranks, over the next three decades: The Swordsman, the God, Hercules, African, Black Panther, the android known as the Vision, time lost Black Knight, Russian spy Black Widow, Mantis, X-men's Beast, Moondragon, Hellcat, time lost cowboy The Two Gun Kid, energy absorbing Wonderman, Ms. Marvel, Cap's team mate Falcon, Tigra, She Hulk, Captain Marvel, Starfox, Nova and Doctor Druid. They expand to have both a West Coast Avengers and often times laughed at Great Lakes Avengers. Adding Mockingbird, War Machine, The Thing from Fantastic Four, Moonknight, Firebird, US Agent, Quasar, Sersi, Spider Woman, Crystal from the Inhumans, Thunderstrike, Dark Hawk, Marvel Boy, Firestar, 3D Man, Jack of Hearts, a second Antman with Scott Lang in the suit and Lionheart a new Captain Britain.

A Small selection of Marvel's Avengers teams.

   The team up of Iron Fist and Powerman joined the Heroes for Hire. A team who worked for money on cases set by clients.

   Stunt biker Johny Blaze does a deal with the devil only to wind up being tricked into becoming his servant as the Ghost Rider.


   Ex-cop, Frank Castle's family are all killed by the mob and he starts a one man war on crime using extreme force as The Punisher.

The young pre teen, Power Pack.

   Lots of new teams emerged as Marvel's universe began to flesh out. The Defenders gathered the last of the none Avengers characters together in a separate team. Although originally it was started by a curse put on Silver Surfer, Hulk, Doctor Strange and Namor to come together when needed, others joined after. Guardians of the Galaxy were an Avengers-in-space premise that gathered the galaxies greatest heroes as apposed to Earth's. Including Nova of the Nova corps, a space police force. Seriously you are going to want to read up on them before more GotG movie news comes out. The New Warriors were a team of young super heroes who made videos and a reality show about their adventures. Power Pack a group made up of four young family members having got their powers from their Dad's failed science experiment by accident. Agents of Atlas were a team that were created recently and were fitted retro actively back into continuity so that they have been around since the 1950's in the stories (This style of writing backwards has become normal in comics story telling, as Stan Lee in the 60's wasn't writing plot lines to be resolved 70 years or so down the line). Same goes for a team known as The Illuminati. The Illuminati were formed after the Avengers joined the Kree/ Skrull war and the Skrulls got mad at Earth, so Ironman, Mr Fantastic, Professor X, Namor, Doctor Strange and Black Bolt started meeting in secret to try and save the Earth from major threats.

   And that's the end of that chapter. Next up: the last decade of Marvel stories in as much detail as I can muster, as it will be of utmost use to those of you considering picking up a new comic book.