Captain Marvel #50 (May) To Begin Anew.
Scott Edelman, Al Milgrom, Terry Austin.
This is where I realise that of any praise I've heaped upon the shoulders of Carmine Infantino, John Byrne and others, about half of it has probably been the due of Terry Austin. You learn something new every day. Anyway, I still find it difficult to move beyond the Gene Colan version of Captain Marvel and I'm not convinced there was much point turning him into David Bowie, so I'm a bit lost here. Apparently he's now Rick Jones - the Hulk's own Jimmy Olsen - with whom he trades places when Jimmy Rick says the magic word fiddles with his bangles, just like C.C. Beck's Captain Marvel and the guy Alan Moore later wrote as an adult character for grown-ups by having him do it with a nude lady. Getting to the point, this issue sees the Captain teamed up with the Avengers against the Super-Adaptoid, and if it's hardly breaking new ground, the telling is fucking terrific with the creative team here rendering an arguably hokey antagonist as genuinely weird and scary. We also get a brief glimpse of Rick Jones' career as a rock star - same month that saw the release of Never Mind the Bollocks and the first Damned album* but I get the feeling these wouldn't have been on Rick's radar, so fuck him. Otherwise, this one has me wondering whether I should have tracked down the first forty-nine issues.
*: Also the Heartbreakers' LAMF and Rocket to Russia by the Ramones.
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