The Marvel World of Icarus

Background

By the early 70's, Marvel was enjoying its first "glory days". Jack, Steve, Stan and the other creators had somehow stumbled upon a magic formula which had fired the public enthusiasm for their little corner of popular culture.

It wasn't the first time that comic books had found a willing audience. Pre-teen kids loved comic books, GIs loved comic books. But this moment in history was the first time that college students made up a significant and vocal part of the market.

And what else did college students appreciate in the late 60's and early 70's? Booze and drugs! Well, yes, booze and drugs. But what else? Sex! Sure, yes, lots of sex. But that's not what I was thinking of. Have one last guess. Music!

That's right. Music! It's kind of surprising that we didn't see more bands attempting to get aboard the train with Marvel-themed music. In the final analysis, I've found only three examples.

• Jazz record — Spider-Man: Freddie McCoy from 1966.
• Heavy metal record — "Elias Hulk: Unchained" from 1970.
• And finally, this record — "The Marvel World of Icarus" from 1972.

Icarus was (I should add) a British band. Just one glance at the band photos on the back of the album makes that painfully obvious. I'm sorry guys, but men's hairdressing in Britain in the 1970's was not in a good place.

Story 'See Review Details for Track Listing'

The original vinyl LP contained twelve tracks.

Side A:

1. Prologue
2. Spiderman
3. Fantastic Four
4. Hulk, Madame Masque
5. Conan the Barbarian
6. Iron Man

Side B:

1. Thor
2. Black Panther
3. The Man Without Fear
4. Silver Surfer
5. Things Thing
6. Captain America

The CD re-release includes 5 bonus tracks by Icarus, which were the band's "hits" (such as they were), but which have no Marvel connection.

Here, for your entertainment, are the lyrics of the "Spiderman" track. Note the lack of hyphen, or even a space in the name.

Gonna catch a fly.
Right between the eyes.
He's crawling up the wall.
And man, that's not all.

His tingling senses tell him what to do.
Who's that pumpkin man in red and blue.
Spider-Man is on the prowl.
Lookout, the web's behind you now.

Gonna catch a fly.
Right between the eyes.
He's crawling up the wall.
And man, that's not all.

He's always weaving in and out of town.
Jonah's always trying to put him down.
Spider-Man is on the prowl.
Oh, lookout, the web's behind you now.

Oooh... Lookout!

His tingling senses tell him what to do.
Who's that pumpkin man in red and blue.
Spider-Man is on the prowl.
Oh, lookout, the web's behind you now.

Oooh... Lookout!

Oh, fine. Here's the MP3 audio file. Listen to it if you're feeling. It's mercifully short — less than three minutes long. But don't say I didn't warn you!

The band is supposedly (according to the CD liner notes) "psychedelic rock" or "prog rock".

Now, I'm not a musician... Oh, wait. Yes, I am. And I've listened to enough Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead, and Phish to know that this is not a great example of "psychedelic rock". And I've listened to enough Yes, Phish, and Sigur Ros to know that this ain't good "prog rock" either.

In fact, it's really not good "rock" of any flavor. Sure, the vocals are shouted with great enthusiasm, and the guitar riffs are thoroughly distorted up to satisfactory levels. Jimmy Wiley on bass is at least semi-professional. But the drumming is "unimaginative" at best and "draggy" at worst. The band collectively lacks any of the tightness required for attempting "prog rock". As a blatant example, those opening beats (and again at 0:55) have a sloppiness in the timing which damn near had me calling an ambulance for a nasty spasm of musically-induced supraventricular tachycardia.

The lyrics? They're not bad. For an elevel-year-old. For whom English isn't a first language.

Finally, I'd like to make a comment on the melody. But I couldn't manage to find one.

To be fair, that "Spiderman" track (written by David Plotel) is probably the worst song on the album. That's not to say that any of the others would qualify as "good". But there are moments of "adequate competence". Jimmy Wiley's bass playing is actually pretty tidy when he gets up to speed, and Norrie Devine does a perfectly acceptable job on woodwinds.

Sadly, the lyrics are universally laughable, and every time the album recovers its way back up to the point of "musically almost bearable", a track like "Iron Man" or "Captain 'Murica" implodes in mid-air and launches a rain of burning sonic wreckage to fall upon the earth and send the few remaining stalwart listeners running for the shelter of the OFF button.

General Comments

Marvel's management of their intellectual property was famously terrible in the 1970s. And 80s. And 90s, really. So there's perhaps no surprise that posterity holds considerable confusion about Marvel's involvement with the album.

The CD liner notes contain a summary of the band's brief history and about the making of the album, for which there are various conflicting stories. One version says that the album was unauthorized and was pulled from sale when Marvel demanded 50% of the profits after release. Another version says that Marvel tacitly approved the album, and that Stan Lee even contributed to the lyrics of the "Fantastic Four" track.

The undeniable truth is that the album sold very poorly, and that the flight of Icarus lasted no longer than this one album. I mean, really, what did you expect when you named your band after a famous figure whose maiden voyage ended in spectacular failure?

Overall Rating

Icarus (the band) had a relatively limited music background. A few years as a covers band, and some half-baked home-written material. In hindsight, they really should not have been granted access to the recording studio, and this album should never have been inflicted on the unsuspecting public.

The band's one claim to fame was a ground-breaking tour behind the Iron Curtain into Romania — a tour which was abruptly cancelled by the Romanian government which sought to demonstrate a tyrannical attitude towards Western Liberalism, or else show off their sound judgement in matters of musical taste. Perhaps both.

Upon being evicted from the USSR, the band returned back home to England only to discover that "The Marvel World of Icarus" had been released in their absence. Released to a crashing disinterest and no round of applause. In the confusion and shame of a series of failures, the band decided to call it quits.

I'm going to give one web for each album the group produced before they disbanded.

One Web.

Footnote

Note:

• The album is 1972. The (c) date of 1971 on the album cover refers to the artwork copyright not the album.
• The liner notes also claim that they "almost toured Spain" as a backing band for Billie Davis. But then they didn't. Nice.