50 Years Ago, Marvel Introduced Its Iconic World War II Superhero Team, the Invaders

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In every Look Back, we examine a comic book issue from 10/25/50/75 years ago (plus a wild card every month with a fifth week in it). This time around, we head to March 1975 for the debut of Marvel’s World War II superhero team, the Invaders!

It’s funny, if you’re thinking of a notable Marvel superhero team that made their debut in 1975 in a Giant-Size comic book, I’m sure that you all, like me, automatically think about Giant-Size X-Men #1, the debut of the All-New, All-Different X-Men, and, of course, that issue IS the most notable instance of a 1975 Giant-Size Marvel comic book introducing a new superhero team, but surprisingly there was ANOTHER notable Giant-Size Marvel issue in 1975, at least in terms of introducing a new superhero team.

In March 1975, Roy Thomas, Frank Robbins, and Vince Colletta introduced the Invaders, a World War II superhero team that was the Marvel Universe’s answer to the All-Winners Squad, a different superhero team that appeared a couple of times in 1946, which, of course, was after World War II had ended, and so Thomas now wanted to come up with the Marvel Universe superhero team that existed during the war itself, and so the Invaders were born in Giant-Size Invaders #1!

First off, as a little detour! You see, after having his solo series canceled and the Hulk “cured,” the Hulk returned to fight Giant-Man in Tales to Astonish #59, a series that starred Giant-Man and the Wasp…

But guess what, Giant-Man? We have some bad news for you, as the next issue saw Hulk take over half of the series!

However, we have some even WORSE news, Giant-Man, as he lost his feature ENTIRELY ten issues later, as Namor took over half of the book…

Here’s the thing, though. Some time before the book split into both a Hulk book and a Namor book, Stan Lee had the idea that Namor and Hulk should form a team together! It was going to be called the Invaders. The idea was dropped, and they were kept as separate solo heroes, although eventually they DID join together in the Defenders. Roy Thomas, though, cleverly noted that Stan Lee really liked the name “Invaders” for a comic book.

Okay, a few years later, in Avengers #71 (by Roy Thomas, Sal Buscema and Sam Grainger), three members of the Avengers (Black Panther, Yellowjacket and the Vision) were forced to fight (in a battle between the Grandmaster and Kang, with Kang selecting the Avengers as his representatives) against Captain America, Namor and Human Torch from the past. Now, note that Captain America’s return to superheroing in Avengers #4 included the revelation that Captain America had never finished World War II, so obviously he couldn’t have been on a team with Namor AFTER World War II, so this was the first evidence that Cap and Namor knew each other DURING World War II.

The characters were not actually called the Invaders in this issue, but a few years later, Roy Thomas decided to follow up on this old Avengers story with a new series following the adventures of Marvel’s superheroes during World War II. He knew that that might be a bit of a hard sell for Stan Lee, but Thomas recalled the fact that Lee liked the name, “Invaders,” and so Thomas pitched the series as the Invaders, Lee loved the name, and so a team was born!

What happened in the Invaders’ debut issue?

The issue opens with an awesome splash page by Robbins and Colletta featuring the Invaders attacking Adolf Hitler…

The opening chapter of the over-sized story is basically a rehash of Captain America’s origin, and it opens with this cool double-page splash that I just feel like sharing…

The reason Cap has a flashback to his origin is that an FBI agent lets him know that one of the scientist who worked on the Super Soldier Serum was kidnapped and his know-how was used to create Master Man, the Nazi equivalent to Captain America!

Luckily, though, the Human Torch and Toro were able to rescue the scientist from the Nazis, and they brought him to the hospital for recovery, and that’s where Torch and Toro met back up with Cap and Bucky…

However, the government then realized where Master Man was heading! He was trying to sink a specific boat, and the heroes had to stop him! So they headed out to sea, and who shows up to help, as well? Why, none other than Namor himself!

The heroes are able to thwart Master Man’s attack plans, and then the villain’s new abilities wore off, leading him to become a weakling again. Cap let Bucky knock him out…

The heroes then learn that the ship they were protecting was carrying Winston Churchill! He convinced them to form a superhero team, and so the Invaders were born (in Marvel continuity, that is)!

This was a fun series. At first, it was meant to be a Giant-Sized series that would come out less frequently, and would then feature Golden Age reprints as backups, but instead, the series was just turned into a regular ongoing, with a new #1 released soon after this issue.

If you folks have any suggestions for April (or any other later months) 2015, 2000, 1975 and 1950 comic books for me to spotlight, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com! Here is the guide, though, for the cover dates of books so that you can make suggestions for books that actually came out in the correct month. Generally speaking, the traditional amount of time between the cover date and the release date of a comic book throughout most of comic history has been two months (it was three months at times, but not during the times we’re discussing here). So the comic books will have a cover date that is two months ahead of the actual release date (so October for a book that came out in August). Obviously, it is easier to tell when a book from 10 years ago was released, since there was internet coverage of books back then.

“}]] A look back to March 1975 for the debut of Marvel’s World War II superhero team, the Invaders, starring Captain America, Human Torch, and Namor  Read More