The All-New Ms. Marvel
MS. MARVEL — Issue no. 20, July 1978
Book: Ms. Marvel
Issue No.: 20
Published: July 11, 1978
Title: “The All-New Ms. Marvel”
Cover Price: 35¢
Format: Digital scan
Looking ahead at the comic books Marvel published the second week of July 1978, I’m noticing the covers of all these books hype their price as “Still only 35¢!” (The exclamation point is mine, but I believe it is implied by the little starburst thing that houses the price info.) A little research (thanks, CBR!) revealed this was in response to Marvel’s chief competitor, DC Comics, raising the price of their books to (a surely whopping at the time) 50 cents.
Aside from bragging about the book’s low price, the cover of this issue of Ms. Marvel also promises it is “beginning a new era of greatness for the Fighting Fury!” Is the Fighting Fury a popular nickname for Ms. Marvel, like how they sometimes call Batman the Caped Crusader? I dunno, but I dig it. The cover also shows off Ms. Marvel’s new costume. (Which folks already saw in an issue of The Defenders, assuming I’m actually reading these books in the correct order. Which I’m not always sure about, but I am fairly confident that Defenders book did come out before this issue of Ms. Marvel.)
The story here is nothing groundbreaking, but it is fun in a 1950s-sci-fi-movie sort of way. Ms. Marvel travels to New Mexico to investigate some missing persons (including her pal Sharon Cole) and stumbles upon a race of super-strong, hyper-intelligent lizard people. The lizard people aren’t revealed till about halfway through the book (in a mid-issue splash page). It’s kind of like the giant ant movie Them! The good guys know something weird is going on, but it takes some investigating to figure out lizard people (or giant ants, in the case of Them!) are involved.
Also, I assume they’re unrelated, but the lizard people here remind me a little of Stegron the Dinosaur Man. Anybody remember him?
The creative team for this book is led by writer Chris Claremont and penciler Dave Cockrum. I consider both those guys geniuses — they worked together on the now-legendary second generation X-Men stories, the ones right after Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, and Colossus joined the team. I’d read anything Claremont and Cockrum collaborated on, but it’s especially fun (for me, at least) to see their take on atomic age, desert-set science fiction movies.
Next time — I’ll be back Tuesday with Doctor Strange and the Sub-Mariner!