Monday, June 14, 2010

Killraven: 'Amazing Adventures' No. 29
(March 1975)


‘Amazing Adventures featuring Killraven’ No. 29 (March 1975) appeared on newsstands in the Christmas / New Years season of 1974. 

This issue, ‘The Hell Destroyers’,  continues the ‘Death Breeders’ storyline involving Killraven's quest to free what used to be Chicago from control of the Martians and their human lackeys. The script is by Don McGregor and the art and colors by Craig Russel. 

Things improve page-wise with this issue, as the number of pages devoted to the Killraven story goes up to 19, with no filler material (such as reprints from Marvel stories from the 1950s). The reason for the return to the page counts routine for comics of previous years is unclear; perhaps the beleaguered Marvel staff is beginning to catch up with their workload. Or maybe Stan Lee came to his senses and canceled a bunch of books and assigned the artists to existing titles.   


Unfortunately, despite the increased pages given to him to work with, MacGregor can't help stuffing too much awful dialogue and text boxes into each panel, essentially overwhelming the decent art by Russell. There are also too many characters vying for attention - Killraven's crew has grown too big for its own good. Nonetheless the story does work up some momentum, and features some gruesome revenge upon the servants of the Martians.



 

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