Random Happenstance

I don't know if anyone else does this, but sometimes when you're looking through a box of comics at a con table, maybe it takes a little bit of flipping, but then you find that first comic, that leads to more comics, and then you buy a stack two feet tall. This book was the first of one such stack! From 1974, Strange Tales #174, "There Walks the Golem!" Written by Len Wein, pencils by John Buscema, inks by Jim Mooney.

This was the first appearance of Marvel's Golem, described as "comics' first Jewish monster-hero" in the letters' page, which is ignoring Ben Grimm, isn't it? And was this Golem the same one as from Incredible Hulk #134? The Marvel wiki seems to think they're the same, or perhaps merely assumes; while Wikipedia doesn't and I think they're right. This was also following five or so issues of Brother Voodoo headlining the book; and after four issues of Golem (Three issues of Golem, #175 was a Lee/Kirby monster reprint, featuring Torr!) Jim Starlin's Warlock would take over. Warlock is a classic, and Brother Voodoo was surprisingly enduring, but I was unfamiliar with this Golem until I picked this issue up! Did he not get a Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe entry? Apparently not, since he's had maybe 8 appearances since 1974. 

We're nattering on about his publication history, since this one's not amazing. An aged archaeologist, Abraham Adamson, finally discovers the lost Golem in the desert, but then is murdered by vaguely Middle Eastern deserters from a local war. Adamson manages to restore the Golem to life, possibly by putting his spirit in it, to save his young charges. It's pretty straightforward, although with Wein and Buscema there's still a solid level of craft, even if this isn't their best.