Post-Graduate Studies #19

The MU campus is mostly unused right now but
from time to time, our Professors will drop in for Summer courses.

This Week:
TUNNELVISION
by Professor Matthew Bradley

You’ve heard the old expression about getting worse before it gets better?  That perfectly sums up the situation when our undergraduate curriculum ended with Defenders #78, as Ed “Kudzu” Hannigan—who poked his first tendril into this mag as penciler of #58, and has been strangling it as a writer and/or artist ever since—began his longest stint as scripter.  “Better” is defined here as his successor, J.M. DeMatteis, the only new writing talent by whom I readily recall being impressed in my waning Marvel days, with Chris Claremont remaining the late-Bronze standard-bearer; “worse” is Ed’s last 13 issues, and while too anal-retentive to skip them outright, I will, as an academic completist, fast-forward through these five as quickly and succinctly as possible.

Aptly, Defenders #79 (January 1980) finds invasive species Hannigan both writing and sharing penciling duties with Herb Trimpe, who since #68 has consistently proven himself a poor match with this series.  The lettercol provides us with some context, enumerating horrors past, present, and future:  “Ed is back, love it or like it, and he’d like to take this opportunity to thank fellow stalwart Steven Grant for the fantastic job he did wrapping up the Omega storyline….[Dave] the Dude was up from Georgia recently, and Ye Olde Scripter and he had a few chances to go out and…hammer out a plot idea or two!  [They share plotting credit on #89]…For a while [the book is] gonna be like two comics in one as we flash back and forth between Earth and Tunnelworld.”

The latter nonsense, which drags on until #83, finds wing-headed Aeroika guiding Doc, Hulk, and Namor to slumber safely in a valley protected by benevolent spirits, the Nya; “is there no end to this aimless tramping about?” asks an oddly self-aware Subby.  “Dreamspeech” fosters four ponderous pages of exposition, three devoted to local lore—“the narrative, the dream, and the prophecy”—about the slave-built citadel Ogeon and vulture-headed villain Ytitnedion (as usual, read ’em backwards), and one to explaining who the hell these original Defenders are.  Enslaved like the Sputs and Ixhoohxi, the flightless winged ones were created by Ytitnedion, the Nilffim-King and servant of the Unnamed, as “a symbol of good to degrade, freedom to cage…”

So it’s something of a relief to turn from this sub-Tolkien tedium to the Colorado town where Hellcat, Valkyrie, and Defender du jour Wasp try to free Jan’s hubby from the Women Warriors, who raided a nearby airbase, and their ever-dull male colleagues, the Mutant Force.  But they soon join Hank in captivity, with Val hampered by her Enchantress-imposed prohibition against fighting women, and outraged by the betrayal of Omega-refugees Ruth, Amber, and Dian, which is easily explained.  In case anybody was actually paying attention, I’d observed of #78 that “the match-up between the Distaff-enders and the ‘surprise villain’ is way too coincidental,” because this, shall we say, all-girl action is in opposition to—the Mandrill, whom “all women must love.”

Yep, he’s back, female-enslaving pheromones and all, ready to recoup his losses from Daredevil #112 with financing from the “gold raid”; it’s implied that the WW keep Burner, Slither, Peeper, Shocker, and Lifter—who at least warrant an expository footnote now—in line with more than just grapes and fawning.  But a pubescent Dian, immune to the Mandrill’s irresistible musk, has protected Jan from its effect by blocking the airholes in her jar, so they recapture the Quinjet and flee, calling Kyle for help.  As he prepares to defy the I.R.S. and S.E.C.’s court order by going back into action with Nighthawk’s “new aggressive weapons package,” the Mandrill realizes that the escapees’ destination must be the base and launches another raid, this time led by…Valkyrie.

A holdover from #78, Esposito epitomizes the ruin’s—er, run’s—musical inkers, none exceeding two consecutive issues until #88; ever the pro, Espo gives the proceedings a fairly uniform look among the fantasy folderol, while the Mandrill’s dramatic full-page reveal is perhaps better than the relatively minor villain deserves.  Mighty Mike is followed by Dan Green on #80 (February 1980), with Herb back to soloing on pencils, since it appears Ed handled the Tunnelworld jazz last time.  Alas, even Dan can’t keep Kyle’s new and improved duds, with laser cannon making him “the most heavily armed super hero around—with the possible exception of Iron Man,” from looking anything but stupid, yet at least this Mandrill arc is resolved, so there are compensations.

As Val, Hellcat, and the WW/MF box up the Las Animus contingent in a hangar—sealed off by Shocker with an electric field—and Mandy taunts his prisoner, a bored Clea takes Aragorn for a joyride back in New York.  Following a limited test flight over southwestern Kansas, Kyle wings to the rescue; quickly deducing the source of the field, he drops Val and Patsy into it, knocking it out while shocking them to their senses.  His forces routed, the Mandrill heads for his “Central American enclave,” diverting attention with an escape rocket that proves to contain a chained YJ, after which the reunited Pyms, Defenders, and Omega women head for home in the Quinjet, and hope to honor Amber’s request:  “Uh—could we not stop to fight anyone else on the way back?”

Meanwhile, back in Tunnelworld (Sigh™), Aeroika is puzzled when a dozing Hulk awakens as Banner—less so than the latter, whose memory is unusually clear due to the Dreamspeech—and posits that something is blocking his mind-meld.  Bruce wonders if Greenskin’s encounter with a Shmoo, er, “silvery glob” in #76 may be involved, but their discussion is tabled as a member of Ytitnedion’s vulture-headed royal family leads his archers in an attack on the “protected” valley.  “Hulk smash” is the order of the day, yet while he scatters the opposition, Ytitnedion gloats that, “though they fight the Unnameable, the dreaded Name is implanted in the brutish one’s brain—and only I…have the power to bring it to the fore—when the time is right!”  Bwuhahahahahaha!

Longtime Trimpe-inker Jack Abel draws the short straw in #81 (March 1980), and their reunion with the Hulk dominates the issue, excepting a two-page interlude where Kyle’s immediate arrest by the F.B.I. for “contempt of court and interstate flight [har] to avoid prosecution” mars the NYC homecoming.  The other 15 are devoted to the assault on Ogeon by “the four Defenders” (Aeroika evidently having become a non-teammate), who enter via the time-honored method of hiding in the back of a merchants’ wagon.  They see a captive ally, the wizard Xhoohx, paraded through the streets with his Orb of Ommennon, but their cover is blown and their planned rescue postponed when soldiers spot escaped slave Aeroika and a typically hotheaded Subby runs amok.

Facing the Crusher, a gigantic war machine, the Hulk is felled and captured, his subconscious knowledge having been activated, while Aeroika foments rebellion among his race.  Ytitnedion intends to dangle the possibility that the prophecy is coming true, as it appears to be when the winged slave wields a weapon, and then cruelly snatch it away, killing Xhoohx and shattering the orb.  The covers (like this one by Buckler/Milgrom) continue to be intensely forgettable, with the interior artwork a mixed bag—we rarely get a good look at Doc, and when we do in page 14, panel 1, he seems to be impersonated by Ronald Colman; Namor looks like he fell off Mount Rushmore in page 2, panel 1, yet is portrayed in realistic and excellent detail in page 22, panel 6.

In #82 (April 1980), Ghost Rider limpet Don Perlin succeeds Herb with a rarely interrupted run of nearly five years, his layout here and in #83 finished by my all-time favorite, Joe Sinnott, who will return in #93. So if we must endure two more issues of Tunnelworld—this one lacking even an Earth Interlude (EI)—at least the visuals take a quantum leap, with a Buckler/Milgrom cover that is, dare I say it, Brunneresque.  As a teen, less sensitive to the intricate dance between artist and inker, I had a favorably skewed impression of Don that I now attribute to the Perlin/Sinnott Defenders, especially with J.M. at the typewriter; Joltin’ Joe has been known to obscure as much as enhance a penciler’s style, yet while no great loss, Don is vastly more suitable here than Herb.

With its storybook-style border, the splash bodes well, surrounding Ytitnedion’s captives with all manner of lackeys and odd critters; in his gloat/recap, “Yt” complains that Xhoohx’s “pattern of speech is near incomprehensible,” yet tempting as it is to blame Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back won’t be released for four more months.  Having transferred most of his power into the orb, and used the rest to stave off hearing the Name, Big X has some invisible Nya goad the Hulk awake, but Yt sees through and squelches this attempted disruption.  Now enthralled, Greenskin is slated to crush Aeroika’s rebellion, although I feel compelled to ask—as I do whenever I watch Fritz Lang’s Metropolis—whether it’s really in Yt’s best interest to wipe out his own labor/slave class.

As the Hulk is decked out in Nilffim-Rider regalia recalling his days on K’ai, Yt turns to the orb, discovering by chance that it was shielded from magical but not physical attack, and shatters it.  Namor, Aeroika et alia hit sewer tunnels leading to the Citadel so that Doc, rightly suspicious of being manipulated, can do astral-form recon with his physical body safe; Subby spots a “wretch” who, despite the language barrier, clearly bears Yt a grudge, guiding them in via the dungeon.  Yt busts in on Doc and Xhoohx, fulfilling his threat to slay Big X for unleashing the Nya again, yet Doc, vexingly visible to the bird-borne Nillfim he seeks to outmaneuver, uses Xhoohx’s spell to re-form the orb, trapping the Hulk inside, and a slave knocks out Yt with the flat of his sword.

Making up for lost time, the EI in #83 (May 1980) comprises three subplots in as many pages:  in California, the Feds offer the MF a break in return for unspecified services; in New York, Patsy reflexively foils a bank robbery with Val while in her civvies, realizing that her abilities do not in fact depend on her costume; and Kyle’s counsel wonders if the media blackout re: the gold theft suggests a desire for secrecy sufficient for the S.E.C./I.R.S./F.B.I to let him off.  As for the main event, two things on the splash page instill confidence, the first being “At last: the cataclysmic conclusion of the Tunnelworld saga!”  The second is the sure and steady hand of Joe Sinnott as Strange reunites his astral and physical forms amid web-footed, multi-tailed, red-eyed sewer rats.

Doc rejoins Namor and Aeroika, bearing Xhoohx’s body, and they report the wizard’s death to a populace singularly unmoved by news of Yt’s downfall, fearing that the winged ones may only supplant the buzzard king as their oppressor.  Strange is forced to agree that victory remains elusive with the Unnameable still threatening multiple worlds, including our own; I was going to give Ed grudging points for the smoothly expository dialogue of the opening scenes when he bludgeoned me with this:  Ytitnedion “had no identity [Get it?  GET IT?] of his own, therefore, it did little good to defeat him!”  So it’s off to “the end of the world,” as the tunnel tapers to the unknown, to bury Xhoohx in the frozen wasteland and confront the foe where he is the strongest.

After a sudden blizzard helps the captive Yt break free, Strange shelters them from the storm by expanding the orb to encompass them all, completing the prophecy as Aeroika discovers he can fly.  The Unnameable draws all his power inside, creating a huge visage of the Hulk—who has flown Yt to safety—so Doc, Subby, and Winghead make an ocular ingress to his consciousness, battling “memory-images” of his foes (e.g., Rhino, Absorbing Man, Harpie [sic]), Leader).  Doc sweeps away the “hoarde” with a deluge and, as they face Greenskin and Yt directly, realizes that Namor was on the right track when asking, “If we are inside the Hulk’s consciousness, how can the Hulk himself be present?”; they must “see things as they are, deny the faulty premise!”

The bad news is that the strobe-light effect used in Doc’s mystic battle is applied to the lettering, which gave me, as Professor Tom would say, a headache in my eyes.  The good news (other than “Finis”) is that it’s a rare case where he combines his sorcerous and surgical skills, locating and sealing off the exact portion of the Hulk’s memory that contains the Name, withdrawn from the minds of all other victims in a last-ditch tactic.  Although Strange passes out from exhaustion, his unconscious mind conveniently supplies the spell to bring them out of Greenskin’s gray matter and shatter the orb again; unable to call on the now-forgotten Name, Yt plunges off the edge into the vacuum, so, quoth Subby, “The tyranny is ended, and the time for new dreams has arrived!”

Unsurprisingly, Joltin’ Joe helps Don wind this up on a visually respectable note; a nice touch is the contrast between Doc in the first panels of pages 26 (above), typically well-coiffed, and 27 (right), tousled after the battle, while the people of Ogeon on page 6 are a Mos Eisley-style mélange of shapes and hues.  And that’s it from Tunnelworld, bringing blessed closure to one of the most overlong and unlamented arcs in Marvel history, in which sentiment I know I am far from alone.  At the moment, my seemingly endless sojourn in Relocation Hell, as Mrs. Professor Matthew and I struggle to transition between our houses in Bethel and Newtown, makes the likelihood of any future post-graduate studies from this quarter uncertain, but maybe someday, if the stars realign...

Bradley out.