current / archive / issues / faq / RSS feed / twitter /
The Phoenix Gambit: The Temples Of Time
| < previous | next > |
This is a really rather strange comic which did not appear in my original corpus at all. Doctor Doom is very much present in the story (including a very subtle hint to his presence on the cover), although not until the very last page, so the only explanation for his absence that I can think of is that none of the original indexers managed to get to the end. Having had to do so, I fully sympathise! I only realised that Doom might be in this comic because he appears in the next issue as if he's already been introduced. That comic, as we'll see soon, made almost no sense whatsoever, so I was hoping that reading this one might give a clue to what was happening, but if anything I came away even more confused!
The story exists in a weird, almost druggy, state, with Shang Chi wandering around meeting Strange Figures who say Mystical Things, all heavily narrated in that "hip" mid-70s style that would reach its high point in the next decade with Alan Moore's run on "Swamp Thing".
Shang Chi spends a lot of time sweating as he wakes up in Marvel's version of London, full of "blokes" and "bloody"-spouting bobbies drawn by a young Mike Zeck, who hasn't turned into the artist who would gain fame a few years later on Captain America, and also who clearly hasn't ever been to London! In the midst of all the confused, sweaty weirdness there's one small panel which cuts away to a view of a castle which, as yet, hasn't been mentioned.
There's more dreams, a pyramid, a spaceship, some kind of angel, and a whip-weilding woman in her pants who turns out to be a robot before we get another shot of the castle, this time with two silhouetted figures visible at a window.
The whole story is so disjointed and incoherent that these cutaways slip by unnoticed - nothing else fits as a plot so the reader doesn't really notice that these are meant to be anything different! Things continue in this vein for the rest of the issue, with Shang Chi continuing to sweat an awful lot as he fights yet another robot who, this time, turns out to be someone he knows who is inside a robot costume, and is just as confused as anyone else.
It all feels like an attempt to copy the structured weirdness of a Jim Steranko comic... which is exactly what it turns out to be as the very last panel reveals that our mysterious game players in the castle were none other than Doctor Doom and The Prime Mover!
This is a homage to Doom and The Primer Mover's shock reveal at the end of Strange Tales #167:
"More than mildly mystified and stunned enough people?" asks the next time box, "Or are ya craving more of this weirdness?" I definitely feel mystified but can't say I'm craving more!
Luckily for all concerned, before we delve into the next issue there's a very different comic too look at which marks a major milestone for this whole project - next time!
link to information about this issue
posted 15/10/2019 by Mark Hibbett
| < previous | next > |
Comments: