No, nothing from the cover was in the comic. it was much more… generic than that. All I remember Lois doing was plotting to find out Superman’s identity and get him to propose. But then Perry White yelled at everyone, which made Jimmy drop the secret potion, and the fumes turned him into an Elastic-Jimmy and Clark had to pretend to be helpless and chaos ensued until the last page where everything got resolved and lessons were learned and Supes winked at the reader.
I disagree about the post-Galactus issues being “unmemorable” – and you yourself praised the Kirby run of FF (that went to just after issue 100). The next fifty issues gave us the arcs I mentioned above – The Hive/creation of Adam Warlock, The Thing Enslaved, the “Prisoner” series., all mentioned in my post above. There were also Dr. Doom capturing the Silver Surfer’s powers, The Sentry Sinister and Ronan two-issue run that introduced the Kree, and others.
According to some, the Kirby/Lee schism began with philosophical disagreements with issues 66-67, but , if so, Kirby continued to put out quality stuff for a while yet. But before he left his storylines and ideas were definitely becoming subpar, with the FF fighting what was basically The Creature from the Black Lagoon or the Mafia (her called the Maggia). But, heck, even Kirby’s last direct contribution (which was delayed and partially redrawn before being issued as #108; it was later reprinted in as close to the original form in 2008 – https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/20673/fantastic_four_the_lost_adventure_2008_1 )was pretty classic Kirby, and pretty damned good.
Secret Wars got me back into reading comics when it came out. Or rather, I was already reading G.I.Joe comics and saw the ads for SW and started with that and expanded into X-Men, Spider-Man, and others.
I liked the arc with Spider-Man’s alien costume. It made an interesting concept and was intertwined with his return from Battleworld, dating Black Cat, Mary Jane revealing that she knows Pete is Spidey, and a new Goblin villain causing trouble. I’m not the biggest fan of Venom but I did like the events with the symbiote costume leading up to his creation.
G.I.Joe had a good arc where Snake-Eyes, Kwinn the Mercenary, and Dr. Venom work their way from a South American banana republic to the states and have a final showdown in front of the Joe HQ. Snake-Eyes was a fan favorite and Larry Hama used to run him through the wringer so seeing him reunited with the Joe team and Scarlett was nice.
For DC, I did like the arc where Prometheus takes over the JLA Watchtower and is running through all the heroes until Batman finally stops him by replacing the fighting skills downloading from his helmet into his mind with the physical skills of Stephen Hawking.
I also liked Underworld Unleashed. There’s a nice bit where Trickster gets a little redemption arc. It is also implied that Neron is after Superman’s soul until the revelation that it’s actually Captain Marvel that he’s after.
I’m partial to Marvel’s “Kree-Skrull War” from 1971-1972. I was just starting to collect comics, and it really was a blast! Really exciting stuff to my pre-teen self. Perhaps my nostalgia is getting the better of me, though; I need to take time to re-read it, and see how it holds up.
I missed that when it came out, but just picked up the collected series recently, and so finally had a chance to read it after all these years of just hearing about it.
I was a bit disappointed – there was not enough actual “war” in it.
I just wrote an article on the history of the various Metallo robots in Superman. I didn’t put in a bit from a letter column response. Action Comics #252, May 1959, has Superman trapped by kryptonite. He’s too weak to move, but he tried one last gamble: focusing his X-ray vision on it until it melts. A reader wrote in, pointing out that melted elements have the same properties, so that shouldn’t have saved him. Nope, the editor responds. Look at ice and water. Ice doesn’t flow. So it’s different. Really. That’s what they said. Ah, the glorious Silver Age. At least Marvel mostly owned up to their goofs.
If we all agreed on everything, there wouldn’t be any threads here at all!
Oh, my goodness. I’d love to see a good, serious take on this storyline, but I can only imagine the furor by both the hard right and hard left on this.
This, and the Killing Joke, are my two most influential stories from my teenage years. Both made me think things I wasn’t ready for yet
DC:
The Watchmen
The Great Darkness Saga (Legion of Super-Heroes)
The Universo Project (Legion of Super-Heroes)
Adventure 365-366, second appearance of The Fatal Five (Legion of Super-Heroes)
The Earth War (Khunds and Mordru) (Legion of Super-Heroes)
the original run of The Secret Six
Superman vs. Zha-Vam
The Superman Sandman Saga
The Brimstone Ballet (Swamp Thing, but then I’d say the whole Moore/Vietch/Totleben/Bisette/Tatjana Wood Swamp Thing is awesome cubed)
Diana Prince & the Amazons & the Valkyries vs. Mars (Wonder Woman 183-184)
Camelot 3000
All of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman graphic novels with the exception of “Preludes and Nocturnes” and “A Game of You.”
Marvel
Days of Future Passed (X-Men)
The second battle with the Sentinels (X-Men)
Korvac (the Avengers)
The Masters of Evil capture the Avengers mansion (Avengers)
Warlock 9-15/AVengers Annual 8/Marvel Two-in-One Annual
The Cosmic Madonna (Avengers)
Avengers vs. Defenders
the Galactus Trilogy (Fantastic Four)
Spider-Man vs. the Master Planner (Spider-Man)
The Petrified Tablet (Spider-Man)
Carlton Velcro (Shang-Chi)
Pirates of China/Cat/Skullcrusher/Juliette (Shang-Chi)
Fu Manchu wants to destroy the Moon (Shang-Chi)
Fu Manchu wants to set off a nuke in NYC (Shang-Chi)
Walt Simonson’s entire run on Thor; that’s one story as far as I’m concerned
Tomb of Dracula; once again that’s pretty much one story as far as I’m concerned
Dormammu furnishes Baron Mordo with power (Dr. Strange)
Mangog’s first appearance (Thor)
Kitty Pryde and Wolverine – Both characters get some decent development here. Wolverine was the hottest character in Marvel at the time and was expanded beyond “gruff, animalistic loner” into something a little more nuanced, with a nod to Samurai and Japanese culture. Pryde gets to move past “annoying kid sister with a bad codename” and come into her own as a hero.
