Obsessively putting our comics in chronological order since 1985.
| 1975-11-01 00:03:25 |
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Marvel Two-In-One #12
Issue(s): Marvel Two-In-One #12
Cover Date: Nov 75
Title: "The stalker in the sands!"
Credits:
Bill Mantlo - Writer
Ron Wilson - Penciler
Vincent Colletta - Inker
Review/plot:
"Gary Lahm" is given special thanks for "help and enthusiasm" although it's not said what he did.
The story has the Thing and Iron Man facing Prester John.
I'm not sure why you would use Prester John at this point. He's a weird one-off character in his first appearance. Sure, use his Evil Eye as a McGuffin for the Avengers/Defenders War, but unless you have something specific to say about a knight stuck in the present, why use him? And at this point, he had already returned to his own time period in Defenders #11, so bringing him back here just extends the amount of time he was in the present without really doing anything with him.
Having him face the Black Knight, or at least writing a story where his past as a knight is was relevant, i could understand. But in this he plays a more or less generic villain role.
He has found a new weapon of great power, a Stone of Power...
...and it corrupts him.
The Thing eventually throws the Stone into space (he throws it so hard it enters the rainbow dimension, apparently)...
...and he's cured, and hopes that the Thing and Iron Man will take him somewhere to eat, but i suspect they refused and he took the hint and went home.
Quality Rating: C-
Historical Significance Rating: 1
Chronological Placement Considerations: For the Thing, the MCP places this between Fantastic Four #163-164. For Iron Man, i have this in a gap with a number of other Iron Man guest appearances, between Iron Man #81-82. This differs from the MCP's placement; they have it between IM #87-88, but that doesn't work because Iron Man still has his nose here; he de-noses in IM #85.
It was acknowledged in a later lettercol that Prester John's appearance here seemingly conflicted with his appearance in the Avengers/Defenders War, but Marvel accepted the No Prize explanation that Prester John travels back in time to appear in Defenders #11 after this issue.
References:
- Prester John was first seen in Fantastic Four #54.
Crossover: N/A
Continuity Insert? N
My Reprint: N/A
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Comments
There's another example of out-of-order panels in this issue. On the page after Prester John's single-page intro, the first two panels appear to be in the wrong order.
Hey Mark, how do the panels get out of order? Are they just drawn in the wrong order? Or are the pages sometimes collages? I'm thinking I really don't know how the sausage is made. I thought I did. I had How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way in the early 80s. Just curious if you could enlighten me,
I have no idea how the panels got out of order; when I first read about this kind of thing in that one Steve Gerber Daredevil entry, I couldn't guess how it could happen. Even so, the panels make much more sense if you read them that way.
In the Marvel method the pages were pencilled, scripted from the art, lettered (in ink), then inked. The lettering and inking were done on the same page as the pencils. Sometimes corrections to the art or dialogue were pasted on top of the finished page.
In the GIANT-SIZE INVADERS #1-INVADERS #9 comments AF pointed out a case of out-of-order panels in MARVEL PREMIERE #30. His post has links to images of the original art and published page. It looks to me like an editor (Roy Thomas?) decided to move the top tier to the bottom of the page and the other two tiers up, but his instructions were misunderstood. So instead of the tiers abc being rearranged bca they were rearranged cba. There are arrows directing how the tiers should be moved on the left of the original art.
So panels might end up out of order due to an editor's decision to make a change. How panels or tiers were moved I don't know. In the MARVEL PREMIERE #30 case they didn't cut up the original page. Maybe they rearranged a photocopy.
I've not read a full account of how the letterers were told where to put the dialogue.
I suppose there might be cases where dialogue was put into a wrong panel due to a mistake by the scripter, editor or letterer. That could cause the panels to read out of order. But I don't have an example of it happening.
RE: out-of-order panels and the like, is this strictly a '70s thing or can someone remember examples from later? Because editorial at Marvel in the '70s was a bit of a mess so those kinds of mistakes wouldn't be as surprising to me as something during the Shooter era or even later.
In Fantastic Four 333, there were a couple of panels that seemed out of order. Fnord noted it in the entry.
Thanks, Michael. After looking at it I remembered the panels in question. Not really surprising that a mistake would be made during an arc that is essentially a disgruntled employee (however justified) taking a dump on the desk before he leaves.
Apparently the dialogue was sometimes pasted onto the art. There's a page of the original art from HOWARD THE DUCK #19 at http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=309971&GSub=48241 . It's dialogue-less, and has glue-marks from where the captions and balloons were pasted. I don't have the issue, so I can't check it against what appeared.
