Captain America and The Invaders

I know this is just a little late, but Avengers: Endgame wrapped up a storyline from some twenty or so Marvel films across eleven years. It all started with 2008's Iron Man.

Marvel just announced the next phase of films. I'm excited for the Black Widow origin film and Taiki Waititi's sequel to Ragnarok, Thor: Love and Thunder. 

My wife, my friends and co-workers and I are all having a debate over the prospects of Love and Thunder. No one is excited about Natalie Portman's Jane Foster becoming worthy to wield Mjolnir. I stand on the fact that Ragnarok was the most successful film in the first Thor trilogy. I liked the first Thor film. My wife and I saw it for our anniversary. Kind of. The second Thor film was just okay, bordering on "Meh". I usually like Christopher Eccleston. But his character was a vague cipher bent on destroying ALL life. "Hey, there, Sparky... uh, what's next after you destroy ALL life in the universe?" Can't go to Disneyland. Why?! It's gone. See... You. Destroyed. Every. Thang. Waititi may have saved the franchise with Ragnarok. It may have felt silly and campy, with Chris Hemsworth channeling Adam West; it may have been a missed opportunity for Karl Urban's Executioner... Once again, the film put bodies in seats in the theater and made money. If he can do that again, and make Natalie Portman watchable... he will be my hero.

I'm excited for the Black Panther and Doctor Strange sequels, too. I'm not as into those characters as I am Iron Man, Captain America and The Hulk. Honestly, before the films, I thought Thor was pretty lame.

Yes, that's Thor. Played by the actor that went on to play Alan Hale, Jr./The Skipper in Surviving Gilligan's Island and then the dad on Good Luke, Charlie. The Return of The Incredible Hulk could probably have been better if it had featured the Ultimate Marvel version of Thor, like the films have gone with.

I'm glad Marvel and Sony have decided to share Tom Holland.

It looks like The X-Men and Fantastic Four will be part of Phase Five... maybe. I might get to see those films in my retirement years. Heh.

What I would really like to see, other than Robert Downy, Jr. back as Iron Man, is Chris Evans back as Captain America!

Remember that Easter egg in First Avenger, the pan shot of the World's Fair that showed the android? That's Jim Hammond, The Golden-Age Human Torch. I would love to see a fourth Captain America film, set during World War II, featuring his time leading Hammond; Namor, The Sub-Mariner, along with Bucky and Toro.

I would love to see Captain America and The Invaders! Yes, First Avenger told a complete story.

Captain America and The Invaders could tell another story. The Invaders was a '70's comic book written by the legendary Roy Thomas. Thomas had Churchill bring together Captain America, The Human Torch and The Sub-Mariner to defend England. They fought other Nazis besides The Red Skull. One of them was a traitorous vampire named Baron Blood! The trio also attracted colleagues such as Spitfire, The Whizzer and Union Jack. Yeah, Whizzer's kind of a goofy name for a WWII speedster. But The Flash and Quicksilver were already taken.

The only hiccup to this movie actually seeing the light of day is that Universal has the license for Namor, just like it has for The Hulk. There may be a way to include Namor, like The Avengers and Marvel films have included The Hulk - and Tom Holland's Spider-Man. Now that Marvel and Disney have access to the Fantastic Four, they may be able to use a Human Torch.

I'm a Golden-Age fan. I like The Invaders as much as I like the Justice Society; and, Roy Thomas' '80's All-Star Squadron.

A fan can dream! 

    

Timeless And Ageless

In June 1938, Superman, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster made his debut in Action Comics #1. What followed was an explosion of colorful, costumed "Mystery Men".

In October 1939, Jim Hammond, The Human Torch - the original, "Golden-Age" Human Torch - not to be confused with the Fantastic Four's Johnny Storm, created by Carl Burgos, made his debut in Marvel Comics #1. The same issue that featured the debut of Bill Everett's Namor, the Sub-Mariner. In March of 1941, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby's Captain America debuted in Captain America Comics #1. The legendary Bill Finger, who worked with artist Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson on Batman, brought these three heroes together to fight the Axis during World War II as part of The All-Winners Squad in 1946.

Roy Thomas later brought The Invaders together in the pages of The Avengers in 1969. They later graduated to their own title in August 1975 and ran for 41 issues until September of 1979. Afterward, Thomas moved from Marvel to DC to write the World War II exploits of DC's Golden-Age pantheon of heroes dubbed the All-Star Squadron, or Super Squad.

The Invaders have had a number of revivals. Most notably a 2008 twelve-issue crossover with The Avengers that brought the war-time heroes forward in time, and a 2010 Invaders Now! reunion.

The Invaders return again in a new ongoing series by Eisner Award winning writer James Robinson. Robinson is known for his Golden Age inclination. He wrote the four issue mini-series, The Golden Age, focusing on the wartime period through the 1950's for DC; followed by Starman, which featured several Tales of Times Past stories, as well as fleshing out a rich and full history for his Jack Knight Starman. Starman led to a run on Justice Society of America and finally Earth-2.

There will probably be a lot of comparisons between Robinson's Earth-2 and All-New Invaders. Both feature updates of Classic, Golden-Age concepts and characters for a new generation. Notably, Robinson was part of re-imagining Green Lantern Alan Scott as homosexual.

At rival Marvel Comics, Robinson brings Jim Hammond, Namor, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes into a new century. Time has not been kind to The Invaders. Namor, The Sub-Mariner, has been more or less the original anti-hero, in the sense that he has been antagonistic toward "surface-dwellers". For a time, he was actively a super-villain; adversary to the Fantastic Four and The Avengers. More at home with Magneto and Doctor Doom than Captain America and The Human Torch. Jim Hammond suffered pretty much the same fate. As a synthetic android, he was reanimated to fight the Fantastic Four by the villain the Mad Thinker; and later by Ultron as The Vision to fight The Avengers.

Captain America's sidekick, Bucky was one of the three Classic Marvel deaths. "With great power comes great responsibility", Ben Parker told his nephew Peter, before he was fatally shot by a robber Peter had encountered earlier as Spider-Man. Thinking a single, loner Spider-Man was better than one with a girlfriend, Gwen Stacy was murdered by the Green Goblin. Bucky died in an explosion toward the end of World War II. It was the same explosion that caused Captain America to be frozen in ice. Steve Rogers was later found by The Avengers. He mourned Bucky for many years. Until, it was revealed that Bucky was found by the Russians and trained to become the Winter Soldier.

Robinson and artist Steve Pugh bring The Invaders back together to face larger, more intergalactic threat in the first chapter, "Gods And Soldiers".

   

The Kree race are looking for something The Invaders came across during World War II. A villain called Tanalth tracks down Jim Hammond to probe his memory for information on finding it.

The story opens with the prologue of three Kree warriors finding a part hidden in the African desert by Namor.

Next, we see Jim Hammond working as a mechanic at a gas station in Blaketon, Illinois. His boss, Roger, tells him to take a lunch break and get something to eat at the diner. Roger tells him to have a burger, but all Jim has is a few bites off a slice of pie and a few sips of a cup of coffee. He is away from the gas station long enough to establish that he's been in Blaketon about six months and that he is well-liked in town. He gets back to the gas station in time to find his boss murdered by Tanalth. This is when the town of Blaketon discovers that Jim Hammond is really The Human Torch.

Tanalth opens up a forgotten memory for Hammond of The War. It's a vivid memory that he relives, where he, Namor, Bucky and Major Liberty encounter Hela. Captain America and Hammond's sidekick Toro are noticeably absent from the encounter. It is this memory that helps Tanalth learn where to find what she is looking for. Just as she is about to deliver a death blow to Hammond, Captain America and Winter Solider intervene.

Hammond, Rogers and Barnes will soon discover that Namor is a prisoner on the Kree home-world.

Robinson is an incredibly talented story-teller as evidenced in his work on WildC.A.T.s,e Leave It To Chance and Starman. He's only had a few misfires, such as the controversial Justice League: Cry For Justice storyline; his short run on Justice League, which featured a number of former Teen Titans; and his equally short run on Earth-2. His New Krypton Superman storyline may just have been ill-timed. The Superman Grounded storyline by J. Michael Straczynski that followed was widely derided. It seems nearly impossible to make Superman relevant and cool in this modern age.

Readers don't need any history or background to read All-New Invaders #1, although it is great to catch up again with old friends. Some comics rely heavily on a comics knowledge. Picking up The Invaders for the first time, Jim Hammond is revealed as The Human Torch and part of a World War II era super-hero team. There is a front-page breakdown of just who The Invaders are and where they've been. It is interesting that they are described as a "band of brothers".

James Robinson and Marvel certainly are striking while the iron is hot: Captain America: The First Avenger was part of the excitement leading up to the blockbuster The Avengers film. Captain America: The Winter Soldier featuring the legendary Robert Redford, as well as Black Widow an The Falcon looks to be another smash ahead of The Avengers 2: Age of Ultron.

All-New Invaders looks like a re-purposing of a classic concept. This could be what he intended for DC's The New 52 Earth-2.