Issue(s): Giant-Size Invaders #1, Invaders #1, Invaders #2, Invaders #3, Invaders #4, Invaders #5, Marvel Premiere #29, Invaders #6, Marvel Premiere #30, Invaders #7, Invaders #8, Invaders #9
Cover Date: Jun 75 - Oct 76
Title:
"The coming of The Invaders!: A Captain called America! / Enter: The Human Torch! / The Sub-Mariner strikes!" / "From the Rhine... a girl of gold! / A Valkyrie rising! / Beyond the Siegfried Line!" / "The twilight of the star-gods!" / "Blitzkrieg at Bermuda!" / "U-Man must be stopped!" / "Red Skull in the sunset!" / "Lo, the Liberty Legion" / "...And let the battle begin!" / "Hey, ma! They're blitzin' the Bronx" / "The blackout murders of Baron Blood!" / "Union Jack is back!" / "An Invader no more!"

Credits:
Roy Thomas - Writer
Frank Robbins / Dick Ayers & Rich Buckler / Don Heck - Penciler
Vincent Colletta / Jim Mooney / Frank Springer - Inker
Roy Thomas - Editor
Len Wein - EIC

Review/plot:
The Invaders, a WWII era super hero team retconned into existence in the 70s, are not a favorite concept of mine. I just like the idea that there were very few super powered people up until the explosion in the 60s (due to nuclear testing?).

This series also ruins the characterization of Namor quite a bit in comparison to the Golden Age books taking place at the same time. Namor was a much more ambiguous character in the actual GA stories. Here he's a bit grumpy at times but essentially a decent guy.

Furthermore this series really misses an opportunity with Captain America. At one point it is stated (by the original Union Jack) that Captain America was unanimously elected leader of the Invaders due to his fighting skills, but he's never shown to be a great leader from either a strategical or tactical point of view. More importantly, there's no character development showing Cap growing into a leadership role. He's just... sort of there.

There is some decent work done with the Human Torch - it's very heavy handed but at least it attempts characterization by showing him trying to come to grips with his artificial origins. The "irony" of the fact that he's called the Human Torch must be brought up every 10th panel.

The Giant-Size issue retells the origin of Captain America. Whenever there's a Cap origin recap you'll see me go through a little checklist. We've got the old lady guard who turns out to be wearing a mask. And a clarification on the Erskine/Reinstein name.

Cap is shown to drink a potion from a vial. No injections or vita-rays.

Erskine is killed by a Nazi infiltrator, Kruger.

This time there's also a Dr. Anderson, who is the instigator for the current issue's story.

And that's about as far as this origin gets, so we'll stop the checklist there.

The issue then shows the Invaders form at the request of Winston Churchill.

They got together to stop the new Nazi super-soldier, the Master Man, from destroying Churchill's ship. The Torch and Namor are told to put aside their squabbling for the duration of the war.

How's anybody supposed to fight with all these word balloons crowding around in here?

Master Man was created by a process derived from Erskine's formula, with the missing pieces filled in by a kidnapped Dr. Anderson. The extracting of information from Anderson is done by a mysterious "Brain Drain" and the process is overseen by a Colonel Krieghund.

The first three issues have the team helping to stop a German blitzkrieg on London, and then fighting a group of aliens that Brain Drain, a robotic Nazi super-scientist, has brainwashed into thinking that they are characters from Wagner's ring trilogy. The robot looks pretty cool before he takes his mask off...

Roy Thomas loves Wagner's ring saga. He covers it here, he covers it in his Thor run, and he did it again for DC in the late 80s. And that's just what i know about. The story here mercifully only runs for two issues, and i guess is at least useful for some genre-blending; in addition to the war genre we've got high fantasy and science fiction (since the characters are actually brainwashed aliens; well that and the brain-in-a-jar robot).

These aliens will later be determined to be part of the same species as the Four Horseman that will appear in Giant-Size Fantastic Four #3. They are listed as the Axi-Tun in the Deluxe Marvel Handbook. It's a nice consolidation: aliens that like dressing up like Earth's mythological characters.

The third and fourth issues are the debut of U-Man, a super-powerful Atlantean who betrayed Atlantis to work for the Nazis.

This arc has a lot of silliness around Namor wanting to fight U-Man alone, except he lets Bucky come with him, and the remaining Invaders scramble to catch up with them, stealing planes from army bases and what-not. The important point to note is that this is the first time the Invaders are seeing U-Man (in contrast to the Marvels Project version). Namor at first seems to not recognize the guy at all, but soon cops to the fact that he was originally Meranno, an Atlantean that Namor banished for wanting to form an alliance with the Nazis.

The resolution to this story was bewildering to me when i first read it as it seemed to hinge on a plot point from the Marvel fantasy book Skull The Slayer. Not a good idea.

It really just seems that the German U-Boats ran afoul of the Bermuda Triangle and the rest is just a gratuitous reference; there's nothing specific in Skull the Slayer relating to the above scene.

Also note the brief appearance of Betty Dean, Namor's only friend, in the above scene.

Next we have a cross-over with two issues of Marvel Premiere that introduce the Liberty Legion, featuring Roy Thomas' pet characters the Whizzer, Miss America, and Red Raven along with an assortment of additional losers.

I like the Thin Man the best.

I also like these Nazis that the Blue Diamond is fighting. Between them and Brain Drain, i guess i'm a sucker for a Nazi in a hood. Probably has something to do with watching GI Joe cartoons as a kid.

Bucky forms the team in order to rescue the Invaders, who have been captured and brainwashed by the Red Skull.

The Red Skull's presence is definitely a step-up villain-wise.

Annoyingly, Miss America is at one point referred to by the Nazis as a "scarlet witch", reflecting the fact that the Whizzer and Miss America were supposed to be Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch's parents.

During a big battle at Yankee Stadium...

...Bucky is briefly replaced by the Yankee's batboy, Fred Davis. Davis will go on to be a replacement Bucky for a longer period after the original is (presumed) killed by Baron Zemo.

The last story arc is the best. It starts with the previously brainwashed Invaders being reluctant to kill German soldiers, due to the fact that they were once on the other side. This is a decent explanation for why the characters in this series use standard modern super-hero techniques of subduing foes whereas in the 40s they would gleefully fry their opponents to a crisp, machine-gun them down, etc. The only character who shows no remorse about killing is Bucky, since he hadn't been brainwashed. This coincidentally fits with his portrayal as an assassin in flashbacks during Ed Brubaker's Winter Soldier stories.

After defeating another German airfleet, the Invaders have a little downtime. The Human Torch goes off to mope about being a robot while Cap takes the two underage boys to "hit the GI spots" which i would assume means bars and brothels. Namor gets the @#$! away from the others as soon as he can. The characterization of Torch and Namor is pretty good.

The Torch hears a scream and flies off to find that a cute girl he'd been checking out earlier is being menaced by a spandex-wearing vampire.

Rightfully questioning the vamp on his choice of wardrobe, the Torch attacks, but is defeated when the vampire, Baron Blood, summons a windstorm. The vampire runs and the Torch drives the girl home to her mansion, where she introduces her father - the original Union Jack who fought in World War I along with some other corny looking guys (i'm assuming there was no such actual WWI era team).

The girl will eventually become Spitfire when she gets a blood transfusion from the Human Torch, which of course gives her super-speed (which i guess is easier than getting it from mongoose blood). And, at the end of the episode, after the rest of the Invaders also fight Baron Blood...

...and then stop by for dinner at the mansion, we will learn that her father's brother is Baron Blood - who disguises himself from the others with a pair of huge false teeth.

Luckily he's in comic-book Britain and doesn't look out of place. This is quite a family.

The Invaders are joined by Union Jack, who despite his age wants to return to adventuring. This makes Jacqueline understandably upset, especially at Cap who earlier seemed to assure her that he understood her concerns.

Then Blood captures Jacqueline and in the rescue attempt...

...Union Jack's legs are crushed by a boulder before the Baron is killed.

Blood indicates a tie with Dracula that will be expanded on later in the series.

The art throughout the series, all by Frank Robbins except for a fill-in and the Marvel Premiere issues, is pretty bad. It is sketchy and on the sloppy side. It picks up a little during the vampire issues, where the sloppiness almost passes for Gene Colan atmospherics.

    

Instead of really contributing in any significant way to the backstories of these characters, these issues really just fill up their history with mindless adventure stories. There is so much repetitious and poorly written dialogue that it is a real chore to get through.

But at least we get to see how Namor keeps moisturized:

Quality Rating: D+

Historical Significance Rating: 8 - First Invaders. First Master Man. First U-Man. First Liberty Legion. First Baron Blood and Jacqueline Falsworth (soon Spitfire). Introduction of Union Jack concept in the 'modern' MU.

Chronological Placement Considerations: The Invaders work out of England while they are waiting for the US to become fully involved in the war. Giant-Size Invaders #1 takes place two weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

References:

• Captain America and the Human Torch teamed-up previously to "rescue the boys from the Red Skull" in Young Allies #1.
  
• The Sub-Mariner references the German blitzkrieg on Atlantis and the fact that he is now the acting Emperor. These events occurred in Sub-Mariner Comics #1, which was reprinted in the original printing of Giant-Size Invaders #1 (but not my trade).
  
• Here is a link to the Skull the Slayer series. The reference is really pointing to the Skull the Slayer series generally to explain the weirdness of the Bermuda Triangle.
  
• Marvel Premiere #29 embeds little case files for all the Liberty Legion into the story, with footnotes to their origin stories, including:
  • Red Raven in Red Raven Comics #1 (they also mention his non-chronological appearance in Uncanny X-Men #44).
    
  • The Thin Man in Mystic Comics #4.
    
  • Whizzer in USA Comics #1. And he did get his powers from mongoose blood.
    

  • Miss America in Marvel Mystery Comics #49.
    
  • Blue Diamond in Daring Mystery Comics #7-8.
    
  • And Jack Frost doesn't get a full case file, but there's a reference to USA Comics #1-4.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? Y

My Reprint: Invaders Classic #1 TPB

All the Liberty Legion members were actual Golden Age Marvel characters. That doesn't necessarily preclude them from being losers, though.

Other characters appearing(usually for one panel): The Fin, Sir Steel, Silver Squire, Crimson Cavalier, Phantom Eagle. A few other Timely heroes are mentioned for the first time since the Golden Age, but not seen.

The Phantom Eagle had actually appeared in Marvel stories before--a solo story in Marvel Super-Heroes, the Kang-WW1 issue of Hulk, and as a ghost in Ghost Rider #12. He was a bit infamous as one of Silver Age Marvel's few complete flops, saleswise.

Forgot to add: Dracula(obscured for the most part).

yeah, i wanted to like the invaders but like you say, no real characterization and no golden age "feel" really. so much wasted potential and standard roy thomas dialougue.

This is the first I knew that Red Raven, who appeared in X-Men #44, was a GA character. WIkipedia says he pre-dated all the other heroes getting self-titled books in 1940, but only appeared once in the GA.

I always assumed the Invaders stories took place before D-Day, especially in 1942-1943 era. Any reason in the comics themselves why you placed them so late?

Giant-Size Invaders #1 definitely begins shortly after Pearl Harbor, and you'll note by placement of issues this run is before D-Day (the Howling Commandos are still training for D-Day in issue #14 of their series, which i have after this)(also see the note in Chronological Placement Considerations here).

The disconnect is that originally i just used 1944 as the Year category for all my Golden Age books (same as how i used 1961 for all my Monster Age books) without trying to tie events to a real historical year. But then as i added more Golden Age backissues i started adding more Year categories to make insertion of books easier for myself. I should probably do a clean-up to avoid confusion.

Understood. Instead of assigning a year, have you thought about just labeling it as the WWII era? Gives you more flexibility, and without needing to assign specific years.

Yeah, that's what i did for the Hero Gap. I don't remember why i didn't originally do that for the Golden and Monster ages as well. At this point i might as well just clean up the Golden Age year categories though.

Just a note: i have taken Chris' advice here and simplified the Golden Age sub-categories into just WWII and post-WWII to avoid confusion.

Jack Kirby's cover to Invaders#5 was based on an Ed Hannigan sketch.

Something I forgot to mention: When "Hilda" reveals her name in #2, it's "Tekeli-Li", which was the sound the Shoggoths made in Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness"(and also may be an Edgar Allan Poe reference). She also gives her ship's name as Roman numerals, which translates to a specific year I can't remember.

@Mark: Was Hild's real name suggesting she was either a Tsalalian or servitor or captive of some cult or elder entities?

The year was 1941.

Wonder what her connection was to our Valkyrie?

I suspect it was just Roy Thomas being literary. The shoggoths in Lovecraft didn't have names(or apparently intelligence), but they were the earthbound creations of an ancient alien race that used them as laborers(and later got wiped out by the shoggoths after losing control of them). The shoggoths could change their shape(or at least Alan Moore thinks so) which I suppose is a similarity to the Axi-Tun's weird resemblance to Earth mythical figures, but no way were they smart enough to run or create a spaceship.

Would have been better to name the ship Grampus or Nantucket;)

great to see Detective Nathan Adler here. I was a sucker for 1995's "1. Outside"

Some things which shouldn't bother me but do about the Invaders are the groovy 70s haircuts for a 1940s setting, as well as Thomas's dialogue. I also think citing John Wayne westerns in 1941 is a little out of place. I remember Stan citing Tony Curtis in an issue of Sgt. Fury which is a bit out of place, time-wise. I really WANTED to like the Invaders. They had some great covers.

I had read Thomas' later All Star Squadron series from DC before Invaders.
I was expecting Invaders would be just as great, but Thomas did everything in Invaders over again, but a lot better with All Star, plus he included actual characterization there.

Well, at least this story had Red Raven. I love Red Raven. I found a copy of the X-Men issue where he returned for my collection, when I was a kid, and it made me a Red Raven fan for life. I like the concept of hidden races.
Thomas would use a story similar to Red Raven's at DC too, on Infinity Inc.

I remember having a couple of these issues, which I also came to, like ChrisKafka, after reading All-Star Squadron. Like Thomas, I have always had a fascination for the Golden Age characters, though A-SS works better, mainly because there's so much a larger range of characters to choose from, and also because Thomas had more time to work it all out. Thomas would also come up with a brilliant idea in that series as to why the heroes couldn't just rush in an win the war as well.

Forgot to add, I love the character of Baron Blood, but that's more, I think, because of how he would be used in Byrne's run on CA.

Marvel Premiere #30 was printed with a (pretty big) error.

The panels on page 8 are printed out of order.

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l291/Leeman13/Marvel%20Premier/MarvelPremier3009_zps3b497d2d.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j78/jephyork/MarvelPremiere30p08Heritage.jpg

Most notable in that Thin Man is seen answering Bucky's question from the other panel.

And it was only on the most recent reprinting (Invaders Complete Collection) that it was finally rectified.

The Invaders, Liberty Legion etc. Have some tremndous characters and should be part of an alternate Earth dimension or frequenct that is traversed in a "Fringe" like manner when services are needed etc. The timelines of the characters would not fall under a Golden Age label and would allow for some much needed interaction with the current Marvel Universe Dimension

Yeah, that would definitely pass as an original idea.

Roy Thomas conceived several of the Nazi super-villains in this series as fascist expies of the Justice League. Master Man is a Superman stand-in, Meranno the U-Man is Aquaman, Baron Blood is Batman, and the soon-to-be-introduced Warrior Woman is Wonder Woman.

@Ben, Mark Drummond and others have advanced that theory, but unless there's some documentation, I don't buy it, for several reasons:
1) Thomas wasn't subtle with his knock-offs. For example, the Crusaders are exact analogs of the Earth X heroes. If Thomas was parodying the JLA, there'd be a Green Lantern and a Flash.
2) Most of the analogies are way off. Master Man doesn't have any of Superman's powers other than strength, and he's not from another planet. U-Man's not a hybrid, nor royalty. Warrior Woman is a scientifically powered German, not a magical outsider. Baron Blood has nothing in common with Batman other than a general bat theme.
3) If anything, the villains are based on the Invaders themselves. Master Man is the fascist Captain America, and U-Man is the fascist Sub-Mariner.
4) There are more organic theories for their origins: When you think Nazis, you think "Master Race" (Master Man and Warrior Woman) and u-boats (Meranno). And Roy Thomas had been itching to write a vampire story for a long long time, at least since he created Sauron in the X-Men.

@Andrew, it's been stated in print by Roy Thomas that those four villains were partially inspired by the Justice League members I listed. See his article "World War II Forever (But Only In Comic Books)" in Alter Ego #20 (January 2003).

Too bad we never saw a Squadron Supreme vs. Super-Axis encounter :)

The Crusaders were indeed analogs of the Earth-X characters, not the JLA. Thomas set up some kinda-sorta crossover with Bob Rozakis, writer of the Freedom Fighters. Thomas created a set of Crusaders that represented the Freedom Fighters, and at roughly the same time Rozakis used another set of Crusaders based on the Invaders.

Let's not forget that when All-Star Squadron ended and became Young All-Stars in 1987, Thomas once again created a JLA (JSA) Axis counterpart in Axis Amerika, filling in the void left by the "non-existence" Post-Crisis of the Golden Age Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman and Aquaman with Ubermensch, Grosshorn Eule, Die Fledermaus, Gudra and Sea Wolf.

Baron Blood has nothing in common with Batman other than a general bat theme.

There's also his secret identity as a wealthy layabout.

As to Master Man, his powers are perfect analogues to the 1938-model Superman, who really was just a strong, invulnerable dude who jumped rather than flying.

Unfortunately, the net effect of Master Man, U-Man, and Warrior Woman is that a ,to of the Invaders' enemies are just strongmen; it's a shame Thomas *didn't* create analogues for characters like Flash and Green Lantern, if only to add a little variety. (And later on, we'll get a couple of Iron Man knockoffs and an awful lot of villains who are essentially costumed athletes. Baron Blood really is the best of the lot)

I'm certainly not arguing that Thomas didn't make a career out of recycling other people's ideas; I just think Baron Blood is a long ways from Batman. Since I don't have a copy of Alter Ego #20 I'll have to take your word for it.

FYI, there was a movie titled BARON BLOOD released in 1972. Directed by Mario Brava, it was not considered one of his better films. And other than featuring a vampire it doesn't seem to have any connection to the Invaders' villain.

I've just reread Mavel Two-in-One Annual #1, with Sky-Shark and Slicer, who are clearly knock-offs of Blackhawk and Chop Chop, so I take back everything I said about the Invaders villains not being based on DC heroes. Roy Thomas never fails to disappoint.

This series is an example of the covers being really entertaining and engaging in a way the interior stories are not. One of my main issues with the Invaders is that as much as it's hit over our heads this is set in the forties, all of the characters have the latest 70s' hairdos.

One item that has left blisters on my frontal lobe is the Alex Schomberg Giant Size cover art. Is this or isn't this his last cover in the world of comics? The attempt to establish this as fact or fiction is always a bit slapdash and is always answered rhetorically at best when it is brought into a conversation with a seemingly fervent yes while the head is shaking no. Can anybody represent on this topic?

@rocknrollguitarplayer - you're thinking of Invaders Annual 1. Dave Robbins did the cover art for the Giant Size Invaders.

Yes Mark thanks that is the cover I'm referring to. Is this Schombergs last cover or last published comic artwork? Is it his last work on a Marvel comic?

I'm not sure if you'll reach this point with the read, but I'd list first Brain Drain since he's a recurring character in the Squirrel Girl book.

The Blue Diamond's power is that he's as tough as diamonds or some shit. Really.

Great pot-calling-the-kettle-black moment when Namor speaks of someone else having an arrogant bearing. Also, I'm a tad surprised that the Thin Man wasn't given a mustache and resembled William Powell.