Venus #9
The Man She Dared Not Love! A Pact With the Devil!
As Venus and Whitney Hammond have a romantic moment together, Della Mason watches angrily recalling how Venus suddenly showed up and stole away the job of editor from her and the heart of Whitney Hammond. He thoughts are then interrupted when she is visited by Marvin Klee from the Art Department. Marvin is in love with Della and professes it to her and offers to play her a song on his piccolo for her, Della is disgusted by Marvin and tells him to get back to work. Glum over her lot in life, Della wishes that Venus would just vanish from the face of the Earth.
Meanwhile, on Olympus, Apollo once more begins to desire the love of Venus and petitions Jupiter to allow him to return to Earth or to force Venus to return home. Jupiter refuses telling Apollo that Venus has a job to do on Earth. Unable to take no for an answer, Apollo then begins to formulate a plot to go to Earth without Jupiter knowing. Taking his chariot to Hades, Apollo meets with a demon named Zoroba and convinces him to possess his body and pose as him on Olympus, while Apollo sends his spirit to Earth to be with Venus. Zoroba agrees to the deal, wishing to leave Hades to live in fabled Olympus.
With the deal made, Apollo's spirit goes to Earth to be with Venus, but while she detects a strange presence around, she cannot see or hear him. With this not working, Apollo decides to possess the body of the first mortal his sees and takes control of the body of Marvin Klee. Apollo, as Klee, then interrupts a meeting between Whitney, Venus and Della to force a kiss on Venus, much to Della's delight. Whitney demands that Marvin stop, but Venus cannot resist "Marvin's" magnetism. Della also finds herself suddenly smitten by "Klee" and faints. Della soon finds herself in love with "Marvin" and Venus convinces Whitney to have her figure out what is different about Marvin.
Alone, Venus confronts "Marvin" and learns that he is possessed by Apollo's spirit. Apollo then demands that Venus return his love by either returning to Olympus with him or staying on Earth and forced into a romance with "Marvin Klee". With no other choice, Venus agrees to return to Olympus and goes to say goodbye to Whitney, while Della once more gushes over "Marvin". Meanwhile on Olympus, while posing as Apollo, Zoroba uses his position to summon Loki to Olympus. They then begin scheming to remove Loki's banishment as the first phase of conquering Olympus. "Apollo" brings Loki to Jupiter and convinces him to allow Loki to stay, pointing out that Loki is aware that their defences are weak and it is the only way to prevent a massacre. Jupiter tells Loki to leave while he renders his decision and begins discussing matters with his council.
Jupiter suspects the worse and correctly deduces that the Apollo on Olympus is an impostor and contacts Venus on Earth. She decides to go and deal with Loki and leaves both Whitney and "Marvin" on Earth. Arriving on Olympus, Venus confronts the phony Apollo and uses her love power to charm him and trick him to return to Earth. Upon arrival, Zoroba reverts to his demonic form and Venus convinces a police officer that Zoroba is a Communist spy and he is arrested. Venus then returns to Beauty Magazine to find that Apollo has been constantly harassed by Della the entire time she is gone. Learning that he is free to return to Olympus, Apollo realizes that he cannot force Venus to love him and returns to meet his punishment. With Apollo's spirit gone, Marvin returns to normal and Della snaps out of her love struck stupor and finds, much to her dismay, that Marvin is even more determined to win her love than ever. Rushing to Whitney's office, she learns from his secretary that Hammond left the office telling her that he has no will to live. Worried Venus rushes off to find Whitney.
Meanwhile, Apollo appears in the prison where Zoroba is being held prisoner and returns him to Hades before returning to Olympus himself. At that time, Venus finds and stops Whitney from throwing himself off the George Washington Bridge and the two reconcile their romance.
Recurring Characters
Venus
Whitney Hammond
Della Mason
Apollo
Jupiter
Loki
Continuity Notes
Della Mason's recounting of how Venus got a job at Beauty Magazine differs from the story told in Venus #1. In this recounting Della recalls that there was no editor prior to Venus working at the magazine and that she was pressuring Whitney Hammond into giving her the job. This contradicts Venus #1, which depicts the prior editor as being Clarence Snipe who quit when he refused to the idea of promoting Venus as the "descendant of the real Venus" as a feature for the magazine. One could assume that Della was merely embellishing the circumstances to justify her position.
Is this the Loki? That friends is a really complicated story here. Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #6 and other earlier handbooks state that this is the first appearance of Loki in the Marvel Universe. However, Official Handbook of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Thor goes back and states that the first appearance of Loki is (as far as Marvel is concerned) is Journey into Mystery #85. This was not due to omission, I got the truth straight from someone who helped write that handbook. You can find that thread over at the Chronology Project. Why Marvel chose to double back on it? So is this Loki? Officially no. As for you reader? It’s a matter of interpretation. I mean there are enough built in ways to explain all the discrepancies between the Loki seen here and the Thor we all know and love. So you could choose to accept that this is the Loki or just some other guy using his name. That said, the “Son of Satan” is also probably not the son of the Loki.
Beauty for Everyone! A Dream is Born!
During a writing session at Beauty Magazine, Venus suggests a new feature called "Beauty for Everyone" where she offers ways to make less attractive women more beautiful than they currently are, guaranteed. Although Whitney worries that if they fail to deliver, they could be sued, he trusts Venus to carry out the new feature. Della sees this as a perfect opportunity to see Venus fail and get fired and decides to sit back and watch it happen.
The letters begin coming in and sales of the magazine go through the roof. Left alone with the letters, Venus summons Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Juliet, Du Barry and other beautiful women of history to help write her responses which are all a successful and gets the feature more popular and triples Beauty Magazines sales. Furious at this success, Della then coerces Marvin Klee to help her find a woman who refuses to improve her image. They find it in Marvin's friend Minnie Glee, who is interested in Marvin and takes the task to impress him.
Meeting with Venus, Minnie is stand offish about changing her image but Venus ultimately prevails thanks to her powers turning the pudgy woman into her full beauty potential. With this success Della's plot is foiled, and adding insult to injury Marvin finally gives up on his constant pursuit of Della in order to date Minnie.
Recurring Characters
Venus
Whitney Hammond
Della Mason
Cleopatra
Helen of Troy
Circe
