Issue(s): Avengers #73, Avengers #74
Cover Date: Feb-Mar 70
Title: "The sting of the serpent" / "Pursue the Panther!"
Credits:
Roy Thomas - Writer
Frank Giacoia / John Buscema & Herb Trimpe - Penciler
Sam Grainger / Tom Palmer - Inker

Review/plot:
Herb Trimpe credit per Shar's comment below.

The Sons of the Serpent are back. This time they're not organized by a foreign dictator but instead by a pair of controversial talk show hosts, one black and one white. They aren't racists but are using racism to manipulate people in order to acquire power for themselves. I get the "a pox on both your houses" thing but it would have been a lot more effective if they just had the white guy as the leader.

The Sons of the Serpent soldiers wear head gear that looks a little like the Serpent Crown.

Monica Lynne, a singer who appears on one of the talk shows...

...gets dragged into the politics that she previously had no interest in. She also raises the fancy of the Black Panther.

In his earliest Avengers appearances, the Panther wore a costume with an open face mask, but now the question of whether or not BP is black becomes a plot point as the Serpents try to frame him in a rather confused scheme.

Yellowjacket is told by some kids that they can trade two of his autographs for one of Captain America's.

Goliath overhears some cute young girls mocking his He-Man outfit.

Issue #73 is a rare issue with Frank Giacoia, generally an inker, on pencils, and the artwork is not bad. There's a nice page with the Black Panther silently stalking around the city.

Here's one of the scenes Shar mentions below that was swiped from Avengers #59.

And here's a picture of the Wasp very similar to the one below (and both are similar to one from issue #59).

Despite the swipes, i still think Giacoia did a decent job with his pencils this issue.

And of course, Buscema/Palmer can't do wrong in my eyes. I love his faces. Look at this headshot of the Wasp. Yes, it's similar to Buscema's previous shot from #59, but he manages to convey the body language of her being in espionage mode, much different than her expression in the previous image.

And this a cool perspective on Yellowjacket and Goliath.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 4 - first Monica Lynne

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

The Sons of the Serpent first appeared in Avengers #32-33.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Marvel Super Action #34, Marvel Super Action #35

Frank Giacoia was a penciler for DC in the late 1940s/early 1950s, but he switched to inking because he was really slow.

The sons of the serpent. I dont think they have ever been led by an actual white supremist.

Yes, the irony of the Sons of the Serpent is that a minority is always to blame.

I presume what's going on here is that Roy Thomas (and I guess the readers?) was doin' okay in 1970 and so anyone who was rocking the boat too hard, whether white or black, had to be a villainous troublemaker.

You see this again in Avengers #83, starring the Lady Liberators. When women want equality, it's because they're suggestible dupes of an evil mastermind.

Roy Thomas later stated that #73 was full of art swipes, but he didn't specify where from(Steranko?).

In particular Giacoia seems to have used J. Buscema's work from Avengers #58-9 as a blueprint. One example: the Panther and Vizh on page 16 are identical to how they appear in a panel on page 5 of #59. And the Jan close-up is a obviously based on the last panel of #59.

btw, Trimpe penciled page 4 of #73. This was acknowledged by Marvel in a lettercol a few issues later.

Shar, thanks for this info. I've credited Trimpe and i've added the swipes that you've mentioned in this issue and the originals in Avengers #59.

Well, in Defenders #22-25, there may have been the twist that the Sons were getting *funding* from a black man (J.C. Pennysworth, Kyle Richmond's right-hand man), but the planning and leadership were in fact being handled by legitimate white supremacists. Collusion isn't control.

Dan Dunn, the white Serpents leader in this story, is pretty clearly a spoof of William F. Buckley, Jr.