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Terry Hooper-Scharf

Saturday 18 January 2020

Condor's Die Rächer and a note on how Bendis ripped off Bill Mantlo

Between 1979 to 1996 Condor Verlag in Germany published some 47 issues of Marvel's Avengers under the title Die Rächer.  As far as I can recall this was the longest German comics run of the group -I doubt anyone will correct me if I got that wrong!  Williams Verlag I do not believe had a very long run -I'm still looking into that.

Taschenbuch -unless they've changed the meaning of that in "modern German" - were digest/A5 size books.   Ehapa published their Avengers in a more A4/comic album format.

For me the Ehapa and Williams comics are very nostalgic. Condor I think I only have one issue of but this is in the larger format (I'll need to double check that).

These are comics hand drawn and coloured before the computer age and digital art. I may well be a crusty old fart but I love these.  

Not sure where these images come from as they are on an old disc (yes, even having stuff on discs makes me an old fart these days!).  

Take a look at the cover to nr 18.  Everyone raved about shape-shifting Skrulls and the Secret Invasion yet in the 1980s we had shape changing Dire Wraiths and a secret invasion.  Yes, the "innovative" and "original" Brian Michael Bendis was merely ripping off Bill Mantlo and re-writing the whole Dire Wraith Saga as we called it.

Wikipedia apparently wants to delete the Dire Wraith entry. ?!  The Dire Wraiths first appeared in Rom #1 (1979) and were created by Bill Mantlo and Al Milgrom and they were an "evolutionary offshoot of the Skrulls" and Wikipedia even notes that while Rom the Space knight was absent the Wraiths  "openly attacked S.H.I.E.L.D. at their headquarters, the Helicarrier. This proved a major blunder in that the personnel were able to repel the attack and all doubt by the authorities as to the existence and threat of the alien species was removed."

See, comics history and art.

Just look and enjoy!
















































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