COVER STORIES for 11/05/2006
COVER STORIES INSTALLMENT #78
All right, faithful readers (and also those of you reading this column for the first time), welcome to another edition of "Cover Stories!"
This week, I'm revisiting a theme I actually just covered in July... "Goin' to the Chapel," featuring wedding covers!
Here's Patsy Walker 79, and as you can see by the cover... Buzz Baxter and Patsy are eloping... or are they?
Before getting into the actual comic, let me remind you of what happened to Patsy and Buzz when they were integrated into the Marvel Universe in later days! Patsy turned out to have previously met the Beast, and followed him into the Avengers, where she donned Greer Nelson's old Cat costume to become the Hellcat (Greer, of course, had given up her Cat identity to become Tigra, the Were-Woman). Hellcat served with the Avengers for a time, and then later joined the Defenders, where she married Damian Hellstrom, the Son of Satan, then after that, she died, but then got better again!
Buzz, on the other hand, became a super-villain... Mad-dog or something like that.
It turned out that in the Marvel Universe, the Patsy Walker comics were all made up by Patsy's mother, using Patsy and her friends to base the stories on!
Anyway... back to Patsy Walker 79! This was the November 1958 cover-dated issue... and that's about all the info I've been able to dig up about this issue! Sadly, the Grand Comics Database is woefully lacking in details about it.
I can well imagine that Buzz and Patsy don't actually elope... heck, if it was a Superman comic, you just know that this would be some kind of hoax to capture some criminals, or done to teach someone (Lois Lane or Jimmy Olsen, as likely as not) a lesson... but for this book? Who knows?
Speaking of Superman...
Here's the cover of Action Comics 206, cover-featuring "Superman Marries Lois Lane!" You know, there were probably way too many Superman Marries Lois covers, but I only know of two where he actually, permanently marries Lois (and one of them had the wedding of the Earth-2 Superman and Lois... the other, of course, being the Superman Wedding Special, which is way beyond the usual scope of this column!).
This matrimonial cover image was by Win Mortimer, who did a nice job, eh?
Inside this issue: Superman Marries Lois Lane, with art by Wayne Boring, a Shorty filler by Henry Boltinoff, a Binky PSA by Jack Schiff and Win Mortimer, Tommy Tomorrow in "Destination: Future" by Otto Binder and Jim Mooney, a filler called "On the Set" by Boltinoff, and Congo Bill in "The Mystery of the Jungle Monuments" with art by Ed Smalle.
Now... about the story in this issue... Hey! It's time for a crossover here at WF Comics! Because you see, way back on October 24, 2004, my good buddy Tony Isabella posted a column featuring this cover (you can read it at www.worldfamouscomics.com/tony/back20041024.shtml) -- and the reason that he posted it, as you can read for yourself, is because I had posted this very cover (as well as the aforementioned Earth-2 Superman/Lois wedding cover) on the Yahoo Group DC History as part of... yes, you guessed it, the theme of "Going to the Chapel!"
So... first I posted this cover on DC History (probably around September or early October 2004)... then Tony wrote about it here at WF Comics... and then about two years later, I'm writing about Tony writing about it!
Is this what people mean when they refer to something as being "Meta"?
Anyway, in case you have the bad taste not to see what Tony had to say... the cover story is a dream that Lois has.
Moving on... how about another Marvel wedding cover?
Here's the wedding of Ned Leeds (the future Hobgoblin, believe it or not) and Betty Brant... and like with all Marvel Comics weddings, you just know that a super villain or two had to crash the wedding! In this case, it's just one villain, Mirage, plus his goons, naturally.
The short version of the story is that the wedding is taking place at a big hotel, and Mirage and his goons plan to rob all the weddings that are taking place there, but Spidey breaks it up. And Mirage has light-based abilities, mostly hologram projection.
And Spider-Man's spider-sense is portrayed completely screwed up the entire story.
The cover for Amazing Spider-Man 156 was done by John Romita. Inside, "On a Clear Day, You Can See... The Mirage!" was written by Len Wein, with art by Ross Andru, Mike Esposito, and Dave Hunt. The story was reprinted in Marvel Tales 133, and likely will be in a volume of Essential Spider-Man pretty soon, if it hasn't already!
Last cover for this column... and it's from Avengers 60!
Yep, this time around it's the wedding of Yellowjacket and the Wasp, and the Circus of Crime decides to crash the party, with art by John Buscema and George Klein! Inside, "Till Death Do Us Part" was by Roy Thomas, Buscema, and Mike Esposito. This issue was reprinted in Marvel Super Action #21, Marvel Treasury Edition #7, and in Essential Avengers Vol. 3.
Details? You want details about the story? Previously, Yellowjacket had made his first appearance in The Avengers, claiming to have killed Henry Pym/Giant-Man, and gets Janet Van Dyne, the Wasp, to agree to marry him! Despite this, in this issue, the wedding is going ahead as planned, and just about every Marvel super-hero makes at least a cameo appearance (the Invisible Woman and Crystal, I believe, help Jan with her wedding dress). The Ringmaster and the Circus of Crime decide to attack, infiltrating the wedding by disguising themselves as caterers. Naturally, their plot is defeated, and in the process, Yellowjacket realizes he is really Henry Pym, and had suffered a temporary case of split-personality thanks to a lab accident of sorts! And so, at the end of the issue, Henry Pym and Jan are man and wife!
So that's our wedding covers for this time around... time for me to get a broom and clean up all the rice that's everywhere!
Join me next time for another installment of "Cover Stories," which will be the next installment of "1-10," featuring Forbidden Worlds! -- and in the meantime, you can check out my blog at http://waffyjon.blogspot.com for other musings and ramblings by me, or email me with comments about this column at !
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