Issue(s): Marvel Feature #3
Cover Date: Jun 72
Title: "A Titan walks among us!"
Credits:
Roy Thomas - Writer
Ross Andru - Penciler
Bill Everett - Inker

Review/plot:
Two astronauts return from a space mission and start acting a bit funny. They quit NASA and start a children's television show. One of them dresses up like a giant fuzzy polar bear with no mouth.

The television show becomes massively popular despite the acknowledgment of everyone that it is terrible. That's because the bear creature is really Xemnu the Titan, using his hypnotic powers. He's planning to bring the children of Earth into space to re-populate his planet.

Jim Wilson sees that something is wrong with this and seeks out Dr. Strange, who he knows about from talks with Bruce Banner (The Hulk is currently missing). Dr. Strange's method of investigation includes him pretending to be the Hulk...

...which attracts the attention of the real Hulk. Strange also summons Namor. The three of them defeat Xemnu.

    

After defeating Xemnu, the Hulk is attacked by the army. This seems to anger the Sub-Mariner as well, because he says that he's not going to respond to any more calls from Dr. Strange.

I assume that Xemnu was brought into this comic because someone (Roy) thought it was clever since Xemnu was called the Hulk in his Monster Age appearances (actually that's confirmed in a later lettercol). In this issue he's just 'the Titan'. He'll get his final name later.

If this comic was released more recently, i would have thought it was meant to be a parody of Barney or the Teletubbies. I don't know if there was an equivalent show back in 1972, but this was pretty good.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 2

Chronological Placement Considerations: Placing this between Hulk #156-157 and Sub-Mariner #51-52.

References:

• Xemnu appeared previously in Journey Into Mystery #62 and Journey Into Mystery #66. The footnote in this issue actually lists the reprints of those issues in Monsters on the Prowl #11 and #14.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

This is the first time Marvel ever brought an old Monster Age character into the 616 universe. It was pretty unique for the time, and set a precedent for other monsters, like Groot.

I know there were probably kids shows that still had furry mascots; not to mention "Sesame Street" had started in 1969 and obviously had a major impact on kids television from the get-go. So having Xemnu as a kids TV star at this point isn't too freaky.

Ataru320, you're sort of right. Thomas does mention Big Bird specifically in the intro to Defenders Masterworks. But he also mentions an EC pre-Code story "based on the popular puppet show, Kukla, Fran, and Ollie. In the climax of the EC effort, the puppet 'Allie Gator' turns out to be actually an alien that has taken over the puppeteer's hand - and mind - and, on being elected President of the United States (!) decrees that from now on everyone in the country will be taken over by one of his interstellar relatives." He remembered it for years and combined it with Big Bird for this story.

Thomas does pretty much confirm that he brought in Xemnu because he was the "Hulk" in pre-FF days as an in-joke.