Queen Of The Werewolves!

Nobody liked fill-in issues. They were those one-off inventory pieces that suddenly appeared right in the middle of a story you were really enjoying, the creative team on the book being cursed by the Dreaded Deadline Doom.
But at least a fill-in was better than a reprint, especially if said reprint was wrapped in a tricksy cover that made you think you were actually buying a new story. Until you got home and opened to the front page, and realised you'd been ripped off with yet another stinky copy of the main characters' origin.
Sometimes though, the fill-in was as good as the regular issues, like here with Captain America & The Falcon #164.
It's by Steve Englehart, then right in the middle of his classic Cap run, and illustrated by Alan Weiss, who never did enough work in the Bronze Age for me, and it's even got John Romita doing some blindingly obvious Cap paste-on faces, AND Jim Starlin on colours!
It has little to nothing to do with the issues preceding or following it, but seems to exist in a barking mad, vivid universe all it's own, making little sense unless as some kind of fever dream.
It's also all a bit pervy; I mean, what the hell is Nick Fury wearing?? Is that a regulation SHIELD combat outfit or has he finally gone the whole hog and decided to be a pirate?
And as for Deadly Nightshade, sure, she's a great villainess, but she was very confusing for little 'ol pre-pubescent me, as in: I knew I liked what I was looking at, but didn't quite know why....
And they say comics don't corrupt kids.

The Cat in: Stampede!

I really liked The Cat and was disappointed when she became Tigra, and then when her costume went off and had a solo career of it's own as Hellcat.
I don't know why I liked her, clearly nobody else did, as her comics career only lasted a meagre 4 issues ( even Black Goliath beat her! ), but there was something about this slightly tokenistic feminist mini-period in Marvel's history ( that also included short series for Shanna The She-Devil & Night Nurse ) that I thought was fun, and a bit different.
Maybe it was simply that first issue, with spectacular art from Wally Wood & Marie Severin:

That we first read over here in glorious black & white, in Marvel UK reprint weekly The Superheroes.

Or maybe it was simply the thrill of having a brand new character you could get in on the ground floor with, after all I have similar residual affection for fellow also ran's / never was's like The White Tiger or Jack Of Hearts, to name but two.
Whatever, I like The Cat, and I don't care who knows it. Sure it was fairly generic stuff, but it was fun generic stuff. And at least, unlike Ms. Marvel, it was a feminist superheroine actually written by a woman, even though scribe Linda Fite confessed to being none too impressed with the assignment: ' I thought: A cat? Oh my god how unoriginal. We'll have a woman and we'll call her cat and she can be in catfights. ' 
I'm sure you've all seen the first issue somewhere on the net, so for once, let's have a look at the last issue, with art by Jim Starlin & Alan Weiss, both of whom cameo on pg. 2 of the story. In an interview with Shaun Clancy for Back Issue, Starlin gave the background to this issue:  ' I got the job and he ( Weiss ) lived down the block, and the job needed to be done in two days, and we were pretty well loaded the whole time we were working on it. My girlfriend was bringing us a round of wine, we were partying, and later on Alan Kupperberg came over and helped out a little bit'.
Well, we've all done that, haven't we? Got wrecked and drawn an entire comic in two days, I mean...

Jim Starlin

And today is Jim Starlin's birthday. Jim was kind of the goth of The Bronze Age, being almost completely obsessed with death & destruction throughout his career. From Warlock witnessing his own demise, to Aknaton mercy-killing an entire galaxy, to Captain Marvel's sad end, and all the way up to Thanos falling in love with Death herself, The Grim Reaper stalks through Starlin's work like, well like Death I guess.
I never found Jim's morbid fascination remotely gloomy though, maybe because his drawing style is always as reader friendly as it is odd and disturbing. ( A neat trick! )
Here's what might be the ultimate Jim Starlin story, from the debut issue of Star*Reach. It's powerful, poetic and strangely beautiful stuff, full of loads of patented Starlinesque touches, not least of which being the kind of creatures that only Jim can give us. There's also the occasional nod to Ditko, obviously a huge influence on the young Starlin.
Somebody ( possibly Jim himself ) once referred to his style as 'Detroit Cosmic', and that describes it perfectly. He deals with real stuff, just in a whole other universe. Also love the way, as he gets older, he looks more and more like Aknaton.
Time to gloom out. Here's...The Birth Of Death!