This wound up being the final issue of MARVEL TRIPLE ACTION, the title that reprinted vintage AVENGERS stories from a number of years earlier. not that I knew it when I bought this book during a weekly trip to my local 7-11. Marvel had been steadily cutting down on its number of reprint titles, and soon, only MARVEL TALES and MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS would remain (though the company would resurrect a bunch of reprint books a couple years down the line.) I can recall really liking the new cover on this issue and recognizing that it had been drawn by Steve Ditko. That Black Knight figure really gave it away.
And I remember really liking the issue as well. By this point in its run, writer Roy Thomas had successfully made the series his own, and with the powerful artwork of John Buscema backing him, produced a series of stories that are still rightly considered classics. Roy added a bit of additional literary flair to Stan Lee’s style of dialogue, and while Roy’s prose could sometimes be a bit too jokey and insider, as when characters would make verbal asides that were more in Roy’s own voice than their own, the overall flavor was strong and felt like a step forward, building on what Lee had initially done.
This particular two-part story focuses heavily on Jarvis’ the Avengers butler. It’s the first story to feature him with any prominence. Until this point, most of his earlier appearances simply depicted him as an almost-faceless functionary, taking care of things at the Avengers’ headquarters. Months would go by in-between appearances from Jarvis, so he wasn’t even all that consistent a supporting character. The story opens with the Avengers just having upgraded their security system, having suffered a number of break-ins by various villains recently. They update Jarvis on the new security procedures, and the butler then leaves, journeying downtown into a seedy area of the city where he has a clandestine meeting with the malevolent Crimson Cowl, who has assembled a new iteration of the Masters of Evil, including Klaw, the Radioactive Man, The Melter, Whirlwind and the Black Knight.
“But isn’t the Black Knight a good guy?”, you ask. And indeed, it is so. A flashback lets us know that Dane Whitman received an invitation to join the group and only went along with it in order to get the downlow on the threat and thereafter warn the Avengers. Jarvis, though, is legitimately doing Earth’s Mightiest Heroes ill. He’s delivered the plans for the team’s new security system to the Masters in exchange for a payoff. A payoff which doesn’t come, because, you know, evil. Instead, the hapless manservant is blasted by gas pellets that render him unconscious. It’s clear that the idea here is that the Crimson Cowl has just executed Jarvis, but the Comics Code of the era wouldn’t have permitted that, and so gas pellets it is. Buscema draws it as an execution anyway.
So the Masters are ready to stage their attack on Avengers Mansion. But the Black Knight flies ahead intending to warn the heroes of the danger they’re in. Unfortunately, the Crimson Cowl suspected the Black Knight all along, and so the rest of the Masters are waiting for the Knight when he arrives. They proceed to beat Dane Whitman to a bloody pulp, preventing him from delivering his message of warning. From there, the quartet of villains break into the Mansion, each one targeting a specific Avenger and hoping to catch them unawares.
And frankly, this team of Avengers are all overmatched by the foes that they’re taking on, with the possible exception of the Melter. And even he scores an accidental victory over Hawkeye when a stray shot from his melting gun brings some equipment crashing down atop the battling bowman. As for the others, the Black Panther is ambushed in the parking garage by Whirlwind, where the spinning felon has the advantage in closed quarters. Klaw attacks the Wasp in her own quarters, incapacitating Jan and imprisoning her tiny form in a convenient vial that he’s brought along for just such a purpose. And the Radioactive Man takes on both Goliath and his lab assistant Bill Foster–Foster throws himself into the fight unbidden, and gets clobbered for his efforts. Goliath, though, puts up a good fight–but the Radioactive Man is able to trick him into the proximity of one of the Avengers’ own security devices, which immobilized Goliath long enough for the Radioactive Man to deliver the coup de gras.
With the Avengers defeated and imprisoned, the Masters of Evil communicate their victory to their leader, the Crimson Cowl, and the issue wraps up with its insane climax. Because we learn that the Crimson Cowl who seemed to be in command was nothing but a robot. And the true Cowl now reveals himself as Jarvis, who is totally evil! What’s going on here? As a kid, I had no idea, especially given that I knew Jarvis from present day stories where he was still employed as the Avengers’ major domo. And I wouldn’t get my answers for some time, as this wound up being the last issue of MARVEL TRIPLE ACTION as I indicated at the start. So I’ll spoil the game a little bit and reveal that the robot who portrayed the crimson Cowl wasn’t just any old robot at all. This was the first appearance of Ultron, who would go on to become one of the team’s most prominent foes. and he’s mesmerized Jarvis into making this reveal for–reasons that don’t make a whole lot of sense, honestly. So this is another case of creating false drama, which is something that really ought to be avoided. But I can’t say that it didn’t work for me. I wanted to know what the real deal was.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
Edwin Jarvis the third that I know of in a line of Marvel Jarvis the butlers: Jarvis the butler [ Captain America Comics#46 ( April 1945 ) 2nd story ( Human Torch ) — worked for Jare Barry] & Jarvis the butler [ Young Allies Comics#19 ( Spring 1946 ) 4th story – Lets Play Detective ( Mike Trapp ) The “Tell-Tale Tulip!” — worked for Mrs. Van Kinsey ]. Timely Comics has a non-butler Jarvis who is a criminal owner of an art gallery ( shot by Nalda ) [ Marvel Mystery Comics#21 ( July 1941 ) Human Torch story “The Idol of Death” — Mr. Nelson ( museum director ), Mr. Morrison ( Idol of Death owner ) vs. Prince Itor ( mutated by the idol — mind-control powers ), Nalda ( Itor’s henchwoman ), Crowley ( a gangster ) — Prince Itor I see as a counterpart to the 1933 Red Rajah who only had the Star of Capistan’s mind-control powers ( Defenders#44 ( February 1977 ) ) ]. I have this Marvel Triple Action.
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Plus I believe this reprint is the first book I have that has Klaw & Radioactive Man in it. Bill Foster proving he every bit as heroic ( going up against the Radioactive Man then and Atom Smasher in the future ) as Al Harper [ Silver Surfer#5 ( April 1969 ) ].
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It seems at least 2 Marvel African-American characters ( Bill Foster & Jim Wilson ) share names with 2 rival golden age heroes ( alter-ego for one ): Bill Foster ( Invented & radio-controlled the giant robot ( about 8 feet tall ) MEKANO ) [ Wonder Comics#1 ( May 1944 ) ( Standard ) ] & Jim Wilson ( a.k.a. AJAX,THE SUN MAN ) [ Doc Savage Comics Vol.1#2 ( October 1940 ) ( Street & Smith ) — comics.org ].
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I loved this era of Avengers.
I also liked how Kurt Busiek was inspired by this story to introduce a new Crimson cowl in the Thunderbolts (who was unmasked – in what I believe was a fake out – again a cool parallel to this issue).
Kurt – what were your original plans for the new Cowl (I see you comment here a lot).
John
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Personally, I always thought it should’ve been the body-swapped Zemo from SPIDER-MAN: FEAR ITSELF since I liked the idea of the original Zemo leading the Masters again (and, no, I never bought Mark Gruenwald’s way of retconning that story away figuring this was a fake out to keep Cap off Zemo’s tail.)
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Plus, retconning away what I *think* was the last Spider-Man story Stan Lee worked on for Marvel seemed kinda disrespectful to me.
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My intent was that the new Cowl was going to turn out to be Alice Nugent, Hank Pym’s onetime employer — but as with the Green Goblin debuting before Norman Osborn was seen, we’d have reintroduced Alice and made her more interesting before pulling a reveal, so it wouldn’t have been the, “Huh? Who–?” situation you’re imagining at the moment.
But when I handed T-BOLTS off to Fabian, I told him where my various threads were headed, and stressed that he should feel no obligation to go there himself. And he revealed the Cowl to be someone else.
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I was close. I’d’ve guessed the Crimson Cowl was Ted Nugent.
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Instead Fabian made Dr. Alice Nugent the new Doctor Spectrum [ New Thunderbolts#15-16 ( January-February 2006 ) ]– looked it up cause I knew that name looked familiar. Plus if Doctor Spectrum’s Power Prism can equal Green Lantern’s Power Ring then I say Alice got a power upgrade by being made Doctor Spectrum.
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Didn’t this story reprint get continued in Marvel Super Action #14, replacing Captain America reprints, in 1979 a month later?
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Marvel Super Action took over the Avengers reprints eight months later. Marvel dropped most of its reprint titles at the beginning of 1979 as part of a general culling. But the Jim Shooter sales renaissance had begun to take hold. Part of how he initially used his new clout was to launch new reprint titles. The Avengers took over a revived Marvel Super Action (which featured Captain America before the culling), and the stories picked up right from the Marvel Triple Action continuity. It was joined by new reprint series featuring the Sub-Mariner, the Silver Surfer, and the original X-Men.
This initiative lasted a little over a year. The Sub-Mariner, Silver Surfer, and original X-Men titles were cancelled along with the Marvel’s Greatest Comics, which featured Fantastic Four stories. Marvel Super Action held out another eight months, but then it was dropped, too. That left Marvel Tales (the Spider-Man reprint book) as the only newsstand reprint title, and that was rebooted with an issue-by-issue reprint of the Lee-Ditko Spider-Man material a few months later.
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One correction. The Marvel Superheroes title, featuring Hulk reprints, and the Sgt. Fury book, which was all-reprint at this point, were cancelled a month after Marvel Super Action in 1981.
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This is one of my favorite Avenger storylines. I bought Avengers 54-57 second-hand for $1 total in the late 70’s. Those were the days.
It speaks to Thomas and Buscema’s strengths in pulling if off so successfully…. cuz it’s not the greatest lineup of Avengers but the stakes seem elevated and the bad guys in this are pretty cool throughout…. and it leads into the Vision. The old setup of the Avengers getting overpowered, trussed up, escaping, and coming together to whoop bad guys is rarely done this well….and without Cap.
This period feels like a turning point for Marvel… the villains have been around long enough to have developed personal animosity towards the Avengers.
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I like that last point about the villains’ animosity the most.
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I loved how clever that cover was, being a ‘rear view’ of the original for AVENGERS #54.
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was going to say the same thing.
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I loved how *clever* that cover was, being a ‘rear-view’ of the original for AVENGERS #54.
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Yes!
This was the first reprint book I had as child. The Excellent cover is what drew me in.
I love the then modern day trade dress over the classic cover reprints or in this case alternate takes on the classic covers – which in itself is now a classic cover 🙂
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I wonder if John Buscema put more in these pencils than he’d have time for in other (later?) issues. These are pretty detailed. That rib cage on the Panther’s “split” figure. I’d be surprised if Tuska added all of that on his on without John drawing it first. The Black Knight looks especially great here.
Can’t help but think of the “Siege” arc many years (a decade or more?) later. Again the Masters of Evil, and BK Dane Whitman getting beaten to a bloody pulp by them. Though I don’t remember any mention of Jarvis’s much earlier betrayal during “Siege”. He was never under any suspicion. Maybe because he was nearly beaten to death by the MoE. When I read those “Siege” isues as they were released,
At 14, I was totally unaware of this earlier story. Writer Roger Stern just made it abundantly clear that there was an existing, long time sour history between the 2 teams, despite several changes of membership in each.
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