Marvel University

February 1966: Marvel's Most Iconic Image Ever?

2012-03-07T06:00:00.002-08:00

Daredevil 13
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Daredevil’s vacation from hell continues as he is accosted in a cave by an Ape-Man! Meanwhile, searching for some healing berries that will cure Daredevil of his illness (he has now lost his super powers from a strong punch), Ka-Zar does battle with a giant plant. The savage human, along with his pet saber-tooth tiger, Zabu, overcome the plant creature after Ka-Zar makes a quick fire with two stones. Daredevil may be without his powers, but even blind, he is able to fight off the primordial beast until some unexpected help arrives in the name of the Plunderer. The villain believes it is Ka-Zar inside the cave battling the Man-Ape. He shoots a round that injures the Ape-Man, causing him to flee. Though disappointed that it is only Double D, he quickly uses him as his captive once again. One of his pirate cronies named Slagg points out that Daredevil is blind, so the Plunderer dismisses him as useless. The Plunderer then lures Ka-Zar into a trap by showing him a half piece of a medallion that he claims his long lost brother has the other piece of. The savage human also acknowledges that he has a half medallion also. Ka-Zar, while lured into a false sense of security, allows the pirates to capture him in a cage dropped on him, but not before he is able to pass along the healing berries to Daredevil. Our hero eats them and they slowly restore his powers. Believing that it would be wise to continue faking his total blindness with no powers, Double D plays possum for the time being. The Plunderer takes both heroes back to his castle in England. He smugly tells Daredevil about his scheme in that his father had long ago brought back a powerful pile of ore that could vibrate so strongly, it could become the ultimate weapon of power. His father crafted a medallion out of a section of the ore then split it in half between his two sons, the Plunderer and Ka-Zar! The Plunderer never saw his father again, as his father took his brother (named Kevin) and sailed to Skull Island where he first found the ore, never to be seen again after being hounded by agents. Before his departure, the Plunderer’s father had put the ore in a crypt that only the two matching medallion pieces could open. Ka-Zar is kept in an underground cell which the Plunderer pushes Daredevil into, ordering him to get the other half off of Ka-Zar or die with him. Ka-Zar is past reasoning at this point, feeling betrayed and that he can’t trust anyone. The two heroes brawl awhile before Daredevil uses the savage human as a launching pad out of the prison, luckily kicking and knocking out the Plunderer also. The pirate crony, Slagg, tries to shoot Double D, but one of the Plunderer’s servants, named Feepers, shoots and kills him. Feepers ends up being a secret agent working for a mysterious organization that wants the medallion also. The two heroes escape the villain’s castle as Feepers calls in agents across the globe to come to the location, while the Plunderer calls the police to capture them. The story ends with an unknown agent shooting the heroes with a grenade gun.

PE: Without his "super heightened senses," Daredevil's just another guy in longjohns. Unfortunately, we don't get to see panels of DD walking into walls or sticking fingers into a man's eyes while trying to shake his hand or any of the other uber-funny pratfalls that Hollywood has shown us through the years. Blind people are supposed to be funny, so why is this guy so morose? And how are DD's powers so easily removed and regained? Stan never fully explained how The Man Without Fear lost his powers in the first place last issue other than a super-duper blow from Ka-Zar. We know how he gets his super senses back so I'd advise our hero to take a stash of Ju-Ju Berries back to the states with him if one well-placed smack to the kisser makes him a nobody in the superhero world!

Tom: Lord Almighty! Did Wally Wood write this one also? Because it’s got as much going on as the two-part story from a couple issues back! I’m starting to like this saga, even though it’s getting pretty bizarre. The art is fine and Ka-Zar’s dialogue is getting a little better. In this issue alone we’ve got pirates, ape-men, killer plants, magical healing berries, a villain’s castle, secret double agents connected to evil organizations, and a mysterious all-powerful ore that may be released if a special medallion can open it when matched. This is like a case of throwing everything on a wall until some of it eventually sticks.

PE: Stan can't help himself from injecting some of that Marvel Romance, so he stops the action dead to transport us back to the Foggy and Karen situation. Karen's crying because she's convinced the only man she's ever loved has been washed overboard and Foggy's thought balloons are alternating between "Gee, I guess she really loved him" to "She can't mourn him forever!" This is Matt Murdock's best friend simultaneously holding back the tears and animal lust.

Jack: Take a look at the change in Daredevil’s horns from issue 11 (Wally Wood art) to issue 12 (John Romita art). Wood’s horns are straight and almost metallic-looking, while Romita’s curve inward. Part two of the Ka-Zar story is all over the place! Daredevil fights with Maa-Gor, we learn that Ka_zar is really the long-lost Kevin Plunder, brother of the Plunderer, the gang sails to a castle in England, Ka-Zar has half of a wondrous medallion, Feepers the servant is the head of a spy network—whew! This is a very pulpy story. I’m glad to be done with the pirates by the end but it looks like they’ll be relaced by equally corny English bobbies.

PE: As with the romance interruption, Stan feels he has to get in at least one "Hero vs. Hero" sequence and this one, The Plunderer might opine, is full of bilge water. Ka-Zar suddenly hates all men including DD and so attacks. DD exclaims that this is exactly what he wanted in the first place and uses Ka-Zar's back as a springboard to deliver a swift kick in the head to The Plunderer. Only the intricate mind of a lawyer could have planned all that out beforehand. I hasten to add, before my time runs out, that if you dropped a metal cage onto a man from the height of a palm tree, jungle savage or no, you're going to kill him.

Jack: Not as long as he has the magic ju ju berries!

PE: The Feepers reveal ("I am actually part of an International Espionage Network that disguise themselves as butlers for decades and then strike when we feel the time is right but don't really update our technology to keep other countries from stealing our information") is a hoot. I was waiting for The Plunderer to disclose to the word that he's dressed in a cape because he's actually Dracula, King of Vampires! Hard to believe this is the same Jazzy Johnny Romita who'd light up The Amazing Spider-Man in a few months. It's got Romita's "gritted teeth" trademark but much of it, especially our friend Maa-Gor, is sketchy at best.

The Avengers 25

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Dr. Doom decides that the best way to cause the Fantastic Four to fear him is to defeat the Avengers! He tricks them into coming to Latveria and encases his kingdom in an impenetrable plastic dome. The Avengers find Dr. Doom’s castle and confront him. The first battle causes Doom to run off to change his armor. In New York, the Fantastic Four get word of the Avengers’ plight, but are barred from helping because of the sensitive relations between the U.S. and Latveria. Dr. Doom returns to battle the Avengers again, but they work as a team, defeat him, and escape, opening the plastic dome and allowing a Latverian child to travel outside the country for medical care.

Jack: If Dr. Doom and Kang are the same person, wouldn’t Kang know it? And wouldn’t Dr. Doom recall having been Rama-Tut? My brain hurts! This story reads like a Stephen King novel, due to all of the pop-culture name checks (and the dome, don't forget the dome!-PE): Ed Sullivan, The Munsters, 77 Sunset Strip, and the Rolling Stones are all mentioned.

Hawkeye displays his cutting sense of humor

PE: Instilling fear into the hearts of The Fantastic Four seems a pretty flimsy reason for attacking the "Once-mighty" Avengers, but that's exactly what Doom does. More corn beef hash as we have to endure such thought balloons as Wanda's (while looking dreamily at Steve Rogers) "Am I just confusing pity with the dawning of love?" schmaltz. And why do these so-called intelligent Marvel heroes always fall for the "long lost Aunt Agnetha in the hills of Latveria" trick? Reminds me of the "You've won $1,000" scam the feds run on wanted felons to bring them in. I do love how, once they're in Doom's country, the team is arrested and Cap gets a look on his face as if a new dawn is breaking and utters the immortal words: "Hang on a minute. Now I know where I've heard of Latveria!" Stan (or perhaps one of his ghost writers) is up to his eyeballs in inane pop culture one-liners this issue ("Welcome back to 77 Sunset Strip" and "This could be where The Munsters spend their vacation" jump out). I don't have the Essentials volumes but I wonder if any thought was given, by the current powers-that-be at Marvel, to update those references to something today's kids could relate to.

MB: You would think that an Assemblers/Doom smackdown would be a slam-dunk, especially with Ayers having a better day, but even before the Quartet comes face to face with ol’ Vic (who pursues Kang’s thinking from last ish about their complex relationship), we’ve got some troubles. The by-now-routine intra-team squabbling, Wanda’s interruption of couch-potato Pietro’s viewing with important news, and the Avengers' walking ever so blithely into a trap in a foreign land are all rehashes of recent issues…and don’t even talk to me about their waltzing into Latveria (in civilian i.d., yet) without knowing who runs the joint. Bre’er Hawkeye is a veritable font of pop-culture references—The Munsters, 77 Sunset Strip, Dracula, Alfred Hitchcock—but it’s a shame some of the Master’s magic didn’t rub off on what is, ultimately, a rather silly story.

Wanda demonstrates the prototype of the Wii

Fantastic Four 47
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The “good” Inhumans, save for Triton, have vanished into Lockjaw’s dimensional vortex. Dragon Man has flown to freedom. Triton will die without water to breathe. What’s a super team to do? Split up! Johnny and Ben take off in pursuit of the dragon, while the newlyweds remain. Sue throws an invisible force bubble around Triton, which Reed fills with water. The Seeker returns, and moves Triton into a proper water tank, making reference to Maximus, the ruler of all the Inhumans. When the Seeker points out that humans have no legal right to stop him, Reed backs off, but plants a homing device on the outside wall of the ship to pursue later. Johnny has a flash of his brother-in-law’s brilliance, using ultraviolet flame to give Dragon Man a “sunburn,” knocking him out. When the FF reunite, Reed turns the misguided creature over to the authorities, which have him sent to a deserted island where he can be studied under sedation. On the other side of the world, Black Bolt and the others arrive at the Great Refuge, where, after a warm welcome from some angry Alpha Primates, they again see their ruler. Maximus pretends to be glad for their return, but secretly plans to conquer humanity with a weapon called an Atmo-Gun. He essentially usurped rule over the Inhumans from Black Bolt, their rightful ruler, and his brother. A so-called accident that rendered Black Bolt speechless was the doing of Maximius. Medusa is betrothed to Maximus, but really shares a deep love for Black Bolt. Perhaps it is this incentive that Black Bolt uses to snatch the crown off of his brother’s head, and to wear it justly himself. Not far away, the FF, flying a commercial aircraft to avoid suspicion, track Reed’s homing device to a plateau high in the Andes mountains, where they find the Great Refuge. Ben Grimm’s landing skills come in handy, and they set out to find the others in the awesome city, set far below. A rock bridge gives way, sending them plummeting down, where Sue casts an invisible mattress to cushion their fall. The Inhumans are uncertain if the FF are friends or foes (except for Crystal and Johnny), but want no bloodshed, and ask them to leave. Reed tries to convince them of the folly of trying to remain hidden forever, while Maximus steals away to unleash the Atmo-Gun, which will unleash vibrations into the atmosphere that will harm only humankind.

PE: Despite the fact that we're knee-deep in "epic" territory, it's hard for me to keep a straight face when, in every other panel, Reed is shouting such idiocies at his new bride as "I'll explain it later, woman! Just do as I say!" or "Stop sounding like a wife, Sue! I still make the decisions for this team." Right about that time, Sue's wondering how fast she can get down to Mexico for one of those quickie divorces. Atlantis must be looking pretty good now.

MB: We make our first visit to the Great Refuge, while our ever-expanding cast of Inhumans is joined by the Alpha Primitives (looking a little more primitive than I remembered them from later issues) and Maximus the Magnificent and/or Mad, with the latter’s machinations making the situation with the Seeker somewhat clearer. So that’s all well and good, as are Sue’s overdue ’do—if a tad ill-timed—and the responsibility for the Dragon Man devolving onto other hands, especially with Galactus and the Surfer on tap for next ish. I know their bickering is part of the familial shtick that has always differentiated the FF from other teams, but it just seemed a bit much here, from Alicia’s patently foolish assertion that she should stand by her man while the big winged galoot tore her building to bits to the discord between the barely married Richardses.

Ya gotta admit, for a comic chick, she's pretty hot!

PE: Just what I was thinking, Professor Bradley. That "We're about to fly into a deathtrap but my hair needs to look its best if this is the end" sequence is one of the wildest I've seen in a Marvel comic. Does Sue always pack her make-up kit when heading into battle? Does it have one of those invisible shields around it so her enemies don't see it and guess that her Achilles' Heel is her mop? Amping up the silliness is Johnny Storm and his raging libido. While his team fights all around him, the world in flames, he stands off to the side exclaiming "I've got to find that Crystal. I've been in love since the moment we met (about ten minutes ago)!" There was truly nothing subtle about developing plot lines with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The second Johnny has thought balloons about the fair Crystal (and vice versa), you'd know this chick was hanging around for a while. He's already calling her Chris! And didn't Johnny use that "This is the first time Reed has called me a man" line just a couple issues ago? Maybe he should have phrased it differently: "This is the first time Reed's ever called me a man while we were flying in a commercial airliner over a remote dead spot high in the Andes to avoid attracting undue attention!"

JB: On a personal note, I remember getting a copy of this issue in horrible shape; the Torch’s flame was covered in blue ink. After I had traded it in, this same copy came back to me a couple of times in later years, in different stores. It must have been haunted.

PE: Glory be to King Kirby. His art helps make this strip readable while the script is like a trail through mountains and valleys, although I begin to wonder if his costuming was designed using some colorform-style materials. Maximus's outfit looks like something out of the Thor strip and we're going to see an even more Maximum Maximus-ish design with Galactus. I'd think these characters, with their imposing headgear, would have to stop their life of crime every couple weeks to visit a chiropractor.

JB: As much as I like the Inhumans, some things about their situation don’t make a lot of sense to me. If it was so easy for Black Bolt to grab his crown back, why didn’t he do it ages before, since his family has been on the run for so many years? Is the power Maximus has had just in the crown (except for the Atmo-Gun he’s developed, which the others don’t know about)? The good guys here aren’t without power themselves. You guys are right, Sue is pretty hot with those new tresses; look out Medusa!

PE: As we've already learned from Daredevil's Ka-Zar/Plunderer surprise and now the Maximus/Black Bolt reveal, everyone in the Marvel Universe seems to have an evil brother.

Journey Into Mystery 125
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The Demon, the witch doctor transformed by the power of the Norn stone, plans to pillage another fortress but finds an unexpected obstacle: the Mighty Thor. The Demon’s followers fire a rocket cannon, but not before Thor's Mjolnir blocks the barrel. The resulting explosion scatters the Demon’s army and renders him unconscious, the Norn stone protecting him from further harm. Thor returns the stone to Odin in Asgard, but when he requests permission to return to Earth, his father forbids it, furious that his son has revealed his secret identity to Jane Foster. Thor’s punishment: to endure the “ritual of steel,” battling Odin’s warriors, and if he survives, he will be banned forever from Earth. On our lovely planet, Hercules has arrived and is awoken from his nap on a grassy hillside by the brakes of a passing train that is blocked by a fallen Sequoia tree. Tossing the tree aside, the Olympian learns that the train is on its way to the city and he gets on board. Enjoying the good life like no one else can, Hercules is soon feasting at a fine restaurant, surrounded by beautiful women. Some common criminals make the mistake of attempting a robbery, but find that an immortal is an obstacle not to be trifled with, even when they’re armed with guns and a runaway car. Thor’s troubles are on a different scale; having battered his way past Odin’s guards, Thor finds his way out of Asgard blocked by Heimdall, whose sword is almost the equal of Thor’s hammer. Heimdall’s ears, sensitive enough to hear a flower growing, prove his undoing, as Thor creates a loud enough sound of impact to momentarily stun the guardian of Bifrost and make good his escape to Earth. Crowds have gathered to watch the spectacle of Hercules, and Jane Foster, preparing to leave the hospital, watches from her window. Thinking Thor must have returned, she rushes to the scene, only to find Hercules instead. She has however, struck his fancy, and she allows herself to be charmed by him as they sit down for drinks. Thor returns at this moment, and the crowds attract him to the very scene where they are. Tired of waiting for his return, Jane wants none of Thor’s excuses. Hercules doesn’t appreciate when Thor brushes aside his greeting, nor does he like hearing Thor's tone towards “his” girl, and he strikes Thor. The stage is set for a mighty battle.

“The Queen Commands” her flying trolls to hover but not strike the Odinship in Tales Of Asgard. Loki and his cohorts work some unauthorized magic, causing the trolls to fall into the sea, but only temporarily, as his scheme backfires, and Loki is carried off by the winged hordes.

JB: Enjoy the “Journey Into Mystery” logo for the last time folks! Although it sounds good, it will be nice to have the covers cleaned up a bit. It always irks me a little in retrospect that the numbers of the Thor issues are so inaccurate with their real numbers, but that’s a minor point.

MB: The Demon has unfortunately met my expectations as a forgettable villain, but fortunately takes up less than half the issue, which seems to be a frequent pattern: instead of winding up a plotline at the end of a story, they do so in the middle and then move on to something else. In this case, that’s the arrival of Thor’s Olympian counterpart, Hercules, and the concurrent Ritual of Steel at Daddy-O’s behest. Even entrusted with Thor’s literally life-threatening secret, Nurse Jane shows she is worthy of the opprobrium regularly heaped upon her by the senior faculty with her selfish “How dare you leave me to help those countless innocent people?” routine—feh.

PE: Once again, Odin tests positive with Alzheimer's. One issue, he's furious his son is dating a bad girl from the other side of the tracks. Next, well, it may be okay. Isn't there anything to be done in Asgard? Does he sit atop his throne and conjure up new ways of intruding in the personal lives of his kids? No wonder Loki's so screwed up!

Raise your hand if you want Mighty Mjolnir to strike Jane

JB: It’s nice to have a running saga without Loki having much of a part in it. It gives the Thor title more credibility; sometimes we’ve been left to wonder if Stan and Jack viewed the options of the comic as being somewhat limited. Thor is in a kind of personal crisis with everyone turning against him (except Balder, who is gutsy enough to risk the wrath of Odin rather than smite his brother in arms). I agree Jane doesn’t do herself any favors by ditching Thor in his time of need. Again, Stan and Jack seem to change their minds whether to intend Jane as a worthy longtime partner for Thor, or just a catalyst for drama, to take advantage of Thor’s one vulnerable spot, his heart. Hercules is, and continues to be in the future, a great foil, and friend, for Thor.

PE: Sometime around the end of 1965 Stan Lee must have had a real hard look at his amazing new universe and decided... there weren't enough love triangles in his comic books. That has to be the only reasonable explanation for adding yet another obstacle to happiness for The Mighty Thor. In my book, Jane Foster will be better off with Herc, but how long can it last? The guy's built for multiple relationships, not monogamy. One day, soon after they've hooked up, he'll try to have an intelligent conversation with the daft nurse and he'll be gone in no time. I do find, as Professor Jim notes, that Hercules is a great supporting character, which surprises me since I don't recall feeling the same way about him when I read his adventures as a kid. The fish out of water aspect of the character plays much better than with Thor since Herc's a happy-go-lucky feller and Thor's a stick in the mud.

The Amazing Spider-Man 33
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Trapped beneath tons of machinery, an exhausted Spider-Man somehow finds extra reserves of energy to free himself and escape the crumbling undersea fortress of Doctor Octopus, Aunt May's serum in tow. The wall-crawler is able to get the ISO-36 to Dr. Connors and the good doc is able to mix a potent potion designed to save May's life. To Peter Parker's delight and relief, the potion works and Aunt May escapes The Grim Reaper yet again.

PE: I can see younger readers pushing this one to the side in 1965 and muttering "no action" under their breath. Spider-Man is trapped in Doctor Octopus' lair but we never see Ock, not even one panel of his large backside as he scubas away to safety. It's all about Spider-Man overcoming adversity, far beyond the breaking point, for the one person he loves and trusts most in the world. That's a nicely staged sequence, the lifting of the big gizmo, and you can understand why that one panel has followed Steve Ditko ever since. It's probably one of the ten most iconic moments in comic book history. The little spider that could. And the fight with Ock's henchmen shortly after is a keeper as well. Spidey's thoughts are so focused on getting that ISO-36 to Connors that he continues to swing away after the baddies have all been bested. The rest of the issue is familiar territory, the Foswell connection, the chintzy Jonah, the close call for Aunt May, the romance problems. So do you give a"landmark" designation for a series of 19 panels amidst a good but not great story? Yeah, in this case you do.

Could this be the most iconic Marvel image? Chime in.

MB: The trapped-Spidey sequence that begins this justly celebrated issue isn’t as long as I thought—I’d misremembered that they somehow spun it out (ha ha) for pretty much the whole 20 pages—but it’s still a tour de force for plotter-artist Ditko, with Stan’s script in there punching. That full-page shot of Spidey freeing himself makes the reader heave a sigh of relief and release as well, and even then, half the issue will be over before he’s defeated the Master Planner’s gang and can get on with the business of saving his Aunt May. With all that’s been dumped on him lately, it’s nice to see the victorious Peter, bloodied but unbowed, and we don’t even mind so much that the real villain, Doc Ock, has taken a powder for the entire issue.

JS: I can understand why that sequence would be so memorable—because the rest of the story is so forgettable. While I was willing to believe that Spider-Man could muster the necessary strength to lift the heavy machinery, I have a bigger problem with his being able to fight off a team of baddies while so seemingly groggy he's ready to fall over at any minute.

PE: Seems like every issue we're back to square one with dunderhead Betty Brant. She's pestering Peter again even though, supposedly, he'd already driven her to Ned Leeds for good. Now she's acting like there's still a chance for her and Parker as a couple. Betty even has a Green Goblin-esque meltdown while flashing on her dear dead brother.Sheesh, these thick-headed Marvel dames!

JS: Yeah, enough already. Petie's moved on, Betty. He knows it, we know it, and you should know it.

PE: On The Spider's Web page, prolific letterhack and future fanzine contributor (The Amazing World of DC) Guy H. Lillian III writes in a rare rave for Marvel. Lillian was a mainstay in the letters pages of DC Comics.

The X-Men 17
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After defeating The Sentinels, the X-Men's next challenge is allowing the Beast and Iceman to get the medical attention they need (while preserving their secret identities), while the rest of the team races home to intercept Warren Worthington's parents who are in town for a surprise visit. Little do they all know there's someone else lurking in the shadows of Xavier's mansion. Our old friend Magneto!

MB: I don’t know how much effort Kirby is truly putting into the book at this point, but I’m still not sold on the Roth/Ayers team providing the finished artwork, which I don’t think is awful, just routinely disappointing in a way I’m having trouble quantifying; perhaps the senior faculty will have better luck. Regardless, it was probably foolish of the X-Men, or any reader, to think that Magneto was gone for good, yet despite the misterioso build-up it gets here, his return is something of a disappointment. Even if you didn’t figure out (let alone reveal) the “incredible ending,” the whole set-up, with our merry mutants being menaced on their own turf by an unseen villain, feels too much like a rehash of Juggernaut’s dramatic introduction just a few issues back.

PE: Those of you who didn't see that final panel coming all the way from page 7, raise your hands. You will sit in the corner with a dunce hat on for the next week. Seriously, twenty pages of build-up for what? This issue smells like one of those "Deadline Doom" fillers Marvel used to pull on us unsuspecting lads and lasses in the early 1970s. A story that could have been easily handled in a third of the running time but relies on its characters leaving the hospital one or two at a time to drag out its narrative. Flying metal objects, purple gloves, where's the mystery to who this guy really is? I desperately wanted to be fooled.

JS: Granted, as a splash page, that final panel at least leaves you on a positive note. I mean, is there anyone that didn't finish this installment knowing that the next one would be better?

Tales of Suspense 74
Iron Man
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Lying powerless on the castle floor, Iron Man has only one chance to contact help: his transistors have just enough juice left for him to call Pepper Potts. The beautiful secretary races to the castle and rescues Shellhead, taking him back to Stark Industries where he can reboot himself. While he's recharging, he learns that doctors are about to test out Strak Industries' newest gizmo, The Enervator, on a non-responsive Happy Hogan, still in a coma from the fight with The Crimson Dynamo a few issues back. Unfortunately, The Enervator is still being tested and may be flawed. Did we say may be flawed? Iron Man reaches the hospital just after the doctors have blasted Happy with the machine and opens the door to wreckage. The Enervator has transformed Happy Hogan into, what several people have dubbed, The Freak, a giant, bald strongman devoid of anything human. Feeling responsible for his gofer's rather bad week, Iron Man sets off after him, bemoaning the fact that he didn't really get that good of a charge back at the plant.

PE: Answers the question every Marvelite was asking at the time: what would Happy Hogan look like if he was a Watcher? I love Colan's work as usual. His Iron Man just looks perfect as opposed to the Don Heck version we'd been subjected to all those years. It's too bad Colan couldn't have taken over more Marvel strips. The Pepper-Tony-Shellhead triangle is, thankfully, toned down a bit more than usual. I'll refrain from mentioning that, yet again, a moniker sticks after two or three unrelated characters utter the word "freak." If Happy can talk by the next issue, he'll be exclaiming "Behold, world, I am The Freak!"

MB: This is another of those frying pan/fire stories that epitomize the serial format, and again, Abel doesn’t seem consistently, uh, able to handle Colan’s powerful yet unconventional pencils—his Iron Man looks terrific, but some of his faces suffer the same amorphous fate as under Colletta’s inks in Astonish. If you think about it, the Freak is like Shellhead’s less-interesting version of the Lizard: a super-powerful foe with whom he cannot reason, and against whom he dare not unleash his full might, because his good friend is trapped inside. Speaking of Mr. Hogan, his soon-to-be-spouse provides a true “only in comics” moment when we realize that La Potts has finally transferred her affections from one man to…the same man in a suit of armor.

PE: Soon-to-be-spouse? Good Professor Bradley, you've spilled the beans for me!

Captain America
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Having watched the first two sleepers join forces and lat waste to several villages, Captain America heads to the NATO Army base to warn General Logan he's gonna need a bigger cannon. Meanwhile, the third sleeper, a dome shaped like The Red Skull's head flies off to join with its two brothers as one big sleeper. Cap hypothesizes that the Big Sleeper will head to the North Pole, blast its way through the earth's core and then detonate, cracking the world apart like an egg. Knowing he has only one chance to bar that disaster, Cap free falls from an airplane onto the Sleeper where, with a little acetylene know-how, he destroys the mechanical monster and saves the world yet again.

"Could we get this to scale, Cap?"

PE: As if I was able to reach back across the decades and talk sense into Stan Lee, he presents us with not one, but two fatalities this issue, both of the Nazi variety. Now we know this can be a dangerous job. Despite looking pretty goofy, I thought the initial two sleepers were pretty awesome. Together with the sleeper head, the whole shebang is just goofy. I think if handled by another artist, this could have been something real special. The anti-climactic finale is criminal. You set up what could be potentially a world-ending threat and it's dispatched with an acetylene torch? The only bright side to this disappointment is my single favorite panel of the month (well, okay, second after the "Spidey Lifts the Big Gizmo" shot), Cap's homemade drawing of the three sleepers, resembling something a First-Grader would draw with crayons. The cherry on top would have been a backwards "S" in Sleeper!

JS: I'm glad you finally recognized how goofy the super Shogun Warrior Sleeper-mobile was. I'm just sorry it took attaching the coolest portion (the exploding Red Skull skull replica) for you to see that. I was personally more surprised that Cap didn't get blown up with it.

Strange Tales 141
Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD
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S.H.I.E.L.D. uses a diamond-tipped bazooka drill and a power-drive hammer to enter Imperial Hydra’s sanctum sanctorum, but before they can—in a, shall we say, supreme irony—he is gunned down by his personal guards, who do not believe undisguised Arnold Brown could be their “massive, powerful” leader. Nick allows his daughter, who saved Fury’s life, to escape with a pair of wall-climbing vacuum-soled shoes, despite Dugan’s warning that “the press’ll roast ya alive,” and leaves Dum-Dum to finish mopping up while he and Jones return to H.Q. There, a demonstration by the new E.S.P. division is sensed by their mind-reading ex-agent, who intends to team up with an inventive escaped con, the Fixer, against S.H.I.E.L.D.

PE: Once again I'm left wondering why a guy with a brain as huge as The Fixer (the police have named him that because there's nothing he can't fix!) would turn criminal. Isn't there easier money to be made legitimately? Our new Brainwave-buddy even notes that this guy could have rivaled Tony Stark if he hadn't turned bad guy. Crime, evidently, must pay. Of course one wonders, after watching that fabulously high-tech prison escape, how he got caught in the first place!

MB: Kirby is apparently back to providing full pencils again, this time with creditable inks by “Frank Ray” [this was obviously written after my comments regarding next month’s Avengers], and the pair makes an excellent team, although Brown’s appearance seems to have changed considerably since last issue. Fury doesn’t even have a chance to grab a hot meal before being summoned for another one of those appallingly dangerous demos (“I shall take aim and fire at him!”), but more than one reader is probably in sympathy with his decision to let Brown’s daughter flee, after all she’s been through. As for us, we have the pleasure of meeting the first post-Hydra villains to be introduced, Mentallo (as we shall soon know him) and the Fixer, who will be around for a while.

PE: The sequence where Brown is assassinated by his own bodyguards is sheer genius. I would like to see a little less of the unclothed Nick Fury. Save that for the Howling Commandos title. Here, he's the suave, Bond-ish super-spy and should stay dressed as one. Nick should have at least suggested to Brown's daughter (whom he was obviously sweet on) that perhaps she might want to doff her incriminating Hydra toga before exiting the scene. Although Fury might have wanted to get rid of the dame so's he could make off with her pop's getaway hydroplane. It's amazing that Hydra was able to dig that elaborate tunnel under the city of New York, all the way from Hydra Central to the docks, without the city being the wiser. Public Utilities must have taken 1965 off. It's all fun, though, as even Stan and Jack get into the outlandishness of the situation with their tongue-in-cheek schematic of the tunnel.

Jack: Great Kirby art drives this entertaining story, as we wrap up the Hydra arc and segue into a new story. The Fixer’s escape from prison recalls a similar escape by the Wizard in Strange Tales (was it issue 105? Help, Professors!).

Doctor Strange
Our Story

Though Dormammu is angry at Mordo for interfering in his battle with Dr. Strange, he claims victory until Strange recovers and challenges him. The battle is joined again, and this time Dr. Strange feigns weakness in order to emerge victorious. Dormammu vows to leave Earth alone, but quickly contacts Dr. Strange to show him that Clea is being banished. The Ancient One has recovered and sends Strange on a new mission to destroy the traces of evil enchantment that Baron Mordo spread around the Earth. Little does he know that Mordo’s minions house planted a bomb in his sanctum.

Jack: The fight is a rehash of what we saw last issue, so I’m glad Dr. Strange can move on to new challenges.

MB: “Let There Be Victory“ is certainly an ironic title for a tale in which the tables are turned so many times in a mere ten pages, from Strange apparently defeated and perhaps dead through his seemingly clean win over Dormammu to a victory rendered hollow by Clea’s banishment. On top of that, Doc’s now gotta play Whac-A-Mole with the residual evil left behind by Mordo, but it’s been ages since I last read these stories and I can’t recall where we are headed with that. In the Musical Credits Department, Steverino is back to being listed as the plotter after a two-month hiatus, while—for the first time in my memory—it is the “dialogue and captions” that are attributed to Stan; given the fairly seamless nature of this saga so far, I have to wonder if these varying credits really indicate that much of a change in m.o. from issue to issue.

JS: I picture hundred of kids screaming at the page to remind the good doctor that Dormammu can't be trusted. After the last several months (years?) of this storyline dragging on, I like where it leaves the reader, with a hidden bomb threatening to go off while Strange stops to catch his breath.

Tales to Astonish 76

The Sub-Mariner
Our Story

The Sub-Mariner wastes no time pummeling the treacherous Krang now that he has him at his mercy. Though the craven tyrant begs for leniency, Namor punches him around like a rag doll. Eventually, Prince Namor realizes that his main squeeze, Dorma, needs to be saved from death by using the revitalizer machine. It’s a close call, but eventually Dorma comes back to full life and in her hero’s arms. A celebration is underway as the people of Atlantis rejoice with the crowning of Namor as their leader once again. Feeling in a generous mood, Namor orders Krang banished from the kingdom instead of killing him. Unfortunately the party is short-lived as a tremendous earthquake shakes Atlantis, causing property damage and injuries. Namor believes that this is like the last time his kingdom had suffered such a quake, when it was caused by the humans on the surface world detonating nuclear bombs in the oceans for experimental purposes. Namor once again vows to return to the surface world.

Tom: A decent conclusion, which illustrates just why I like this Namor dude. He gave Krang a good beat down that some other heroes would have passed on, being content to just tie him up and leave him for the authorities. Not so in Namor’s world. While it probably would have made more sense for him to have Krang executed, Subby wouldn’t have much of a growing rogues gallery then would he? I’m looking forward to seeing if this series can continue its quality with the next story line.

Jack: I wonder if Namor’s Ancient One knows Dr. Strange’s Ancient One? Maybe they went to high school together! Gene Colan’s art may not be up to his mid-70s heights, but it’s good enough to make this tale flow along pleasantly.

"I hereby crown you . . .
Miss Atlantis, 1966!"

MB: For several issues, I had been wondering whether Namor’s devoted, but heretofore unnamed, elderly subject would turn out to be the wise counselor of later years, and sure enough, he is here proclaimed Lord Vashti. I liked Subby’s dressing down of the usurper, and the crafty Krang’s glee over his sentence, and—as an incurable romantic—Namor’s declarations of love for Dorma; Colletta’s inking, not so much. But I think this is one case where Stan actually bit off more than he could comfortably chew within the confines of half a book (did we really require two full-page shots of Atlantean royal splendor, out of a total of only twelve?), because the “ending” seemed disorientingly rushed, and should have been saved for the next ish.

PE: A strange story to be sure, feeling quite like the epilogue to one novel and the prologue to another. I didn't have as much trouble with the inking as Professor Bradley but I did notice that Subby's nose seemed to be under his right eye at times. Still, when you consider what we had to deal with in the dim, dark, early days of Tales to Astonish, this is nirvana.

Hulk

Our Story

The Hulk has been accidentally sent to the future and is surrounded by an army of strange-looking men. He defeats and endures their weaponry until they use a machine to paralyze him. They take the Hulk captive and imprison him, until the King of that army summons him for a conversation. The communication between them doesn’t last too long as the King hints of an all-powerful evil one who has warred with his people. The Hulkster doesn’t care about their war and threatens to wreck the King’s whole palace if they don’t return him back to his time. The green goliath trashes a bunch of the King’s army before escaping. He notices that an invading army has laid siege to the city. Spoiling for a fight, the Hulk jumps onto one of the invading machines, only to be confronted by the Executioner!

Tom: It’s kind of hard to judge these serials when there is so little material between issues. It must have been torture to have been a Hulk fan and have to wait a whole month when the action would start to get into high gear. I’m guessing that this issue's villain, the Executioner, is the same bad dude who tangled with Thor in his series not too long ago. At least it looks like the same cat?

PE: A vast improvement, art-wise, over the last handful of issues as Gil Kane (appearing under the pseudonym of Scott Edward) is welcomed to the Marvel Bullpen. Though not much of Kane's signature work is salvaged under the layout of Jack Kirby and the demoted Mike Esposito's inks, there's an immediate upswing in excitement to each and every panel. Gone are the almost cut-out and pasted backgrounds and stiff, interchangeable supporting characters. It's a far cry from the glory days to come (Herb Trimpe, take a bow) but it's superior to the muddy past. The story's another matter, but then it always is. I still get the feeling this strip has no guide, no one to steer the ship nor a course for it to follow. It's all being made up from panel to panel.

How we often feel after reading a Hulk story.

Jack: I’m not sure if “layout” equals “plotting,” but the big weapons are clearly Kirby’s work. I was surprised (for once) by the ending, where the bad guy is revealed to be the Executioner! But most surprising at all was when I discovered that Scott Edward, who is credited with the penciling, was a pseudonym for Gil Kane! I do not see one tiny bit of Gil Kane on this story. It looks like Kirby and Demeo (making it two pseudonymous artists on the same Hulk story!).

Yup, same guy!

Also this month

Fantasy Masterpieces #1
Millie the Model #135
Modeling with Millie #45
Patsy and Hedy #104
Rawhide Kid #50
Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos #27

SOME HIGHLIGHTS

Fantasy Masterpieces, a reprint title created to showcase Marvel's late Golden/early Silver age science fiction tales (Kirby's "I Found the Things from Nowhere" from Journey Into Mystery #60 appears in the first FM), was a weirdly wonderful experiment that didn't quite catch on with the Marvel fans of 1966. After two issues of sf reprints, Stan shook things up by introducing Golden Age Captain America stories and adding pages (while increasing the price to a then whopping 25 cents!). Eventually, Fantasy Masterpieces reprinted the other "big two" of Marvel's Golden Age, the original Human Torch and Sub-Mariner. You can't beat, for sheer coolness, those All-Winners Squad adventures. Fantasy Masterpieces lasted 11 issues and then was retitled Marvel Super-Heroes, a predominately reprint title that would feature new content now and then (including the first appearance of Captain Marvel in its premiere issue), before settling into Hulk reprints, where it limped on for 102 issues until its cancellation in 1982. We'll cover the new content in Marvel Super-Heroes as we get to it.

January 1966: Thor Reveals His Secret Identity to Jane Foster!

2012-02-29T06:00:00.005-08:00

The X-Men 16
Our Story

The X-Men have been captured, with only Xavier not trapped by Master Mold. Trapped inside a globe, our teen mutants take advantage of an opportunity to escape when the Sentinels open it to deposit the Beast, who was the object of their experimentation (as seen last issue). Xavier stumbles across a means of disabling the Sentinels, which he and the authorities deliver just in time, as his students are about to be destroyed once and for all. Meanwhile, Trask, who had agreed to create a Sentinel army for Master Mold, has a change of heart and destroys the complex. Once again, the X-Men make it out just in time. Despite what the penultimate panel implies, we haven't seen the last of Trask or his Sentinels.

MB: Seeing the fortress containing both the Sentinels (including Master Mold) and their creator, the misguided but ultimately repentant Bolivar Trask, blown to smithereens at the end of the trilogy doesn’t bode well for the Sentinels as recurring villains, but Marvel obviously worked around that one somehow. The Kirby/“Gavin”/Ayers artistic troika seems to have cleaned up its act a little, with some better facial close-ups, and Stan is in good form with his characterizations, as the X-Men display some nice teamwork, although I don’t get why Xavier can’t come up with some sort of way to prevent people thinking he’s just zoning out when he uses his powers. Like this month’s Avengers, the story concludes with another unidentified villain waiting in the wings.

JS: Just based on this story arc, I can't imagine why a reader would be particularly enamored with the Sentinels. The weakness exploited by Xavier was uninspired, and yet without it, we might have seen our X-Men defeated once and for all this time out. Fortunately, as far as Trask and The Sentinels are concerned, the best is yet to come.

The Five Stooges

PE: I keep hearing that but do I have to wait until 1974 to see the best of what's to come? There's not much else here that compels me to keep reading the title. The last panel hints at some mystery. That's intriguing but usually it's Doctor Doom's shadow on a wall. Hope we're dealing with some other menace here.

Daredevil 12
Our Story

Matt Murdock has left Foggy and Karen behind so he can let them grow financially without him since the law office hasn’t had good business lately. He decides to see the world and takes a luxury liner cruise. Things don’t go peacefully for him as the ship is attacked and hijacked by a legendary pirate named the Plunderer. Daredevil is able to outfight the Plunderer’s pirate crew until the evil doer threatens to start throwing the ship’s hostages overboard into the sea. Daredevil has to reluctantly become the pirate’s prisoner. Meanwhile, in a savage land lost in time (Skull Island), Ka-Zar is busy fighting off nomadic barbarians, aka Swamp Men, who want to kick him off of his turf. The Plunderer isn’t too happy that the Swamp Men have already attacked the island that he wants to plunder, but he doesn’t have much time to go after them as Ka-Zar attacks him and his crew. As the savage Ka-Zar quickly defeats the pirates with his giant, pet saber-toothed tiger named Zabu, Double D tries to approach him to form an alliance. There is no reasoning with the Tarzan rip-off, who attacks Daredevil. In a brief battle, Ka-Zar wins after knocking DD out. All that’s left is the Plunderer. He too is no match for the savage’s fury. However, he shoots his machine gun wildly so that one of the bullets hits all of his crates carrying explosives. Once they go off, it’s a smoke-clouded melee. As Daredevil regains consciousness, he realizes to his horror that Ka-Zar’s super knockout blow has caused him to lose his powers, making him just a blind man once again. Ka-Zar notices a resemblance between Daredevil’s costume and that of his recent pals, the X-Men, and he wonders if he’s come to the wrong conclusion about the man without fear. He picks up and rescues Daredevil, depositing him in a cave. Going back out to continue fighting, Ka-Zar is attacked by a giant monster plant. The story ends with an ape-man creature hovering over an unconscious Daredevil.

Tom: I’ll make it no secret that I have never been a fan of the blond Ka-Zar. He always seemed to be a generic, boring super-hero, with terrible dialogue spewing out of his mouth like a human Incredible Hulk. (I’ll apologize in advance if this offends any of my colleagues.) That being said, I surprisingly kind of liked this story. The Plunderer might be lame, and the jungle setting unsuitable for an urban knight such as Daredevil, but it all kind of worked out well for an entertaining yarn.

PE: I half expected the dialogue from Ka-Zar would rhyme. "Stronger than mastodon! Stronger than wild boar! Mighty is Ka-Zar! Let's hit the liquor store!" Somewhere in California, Edgar Rice Burroughs was rolling in his grave.

Jack: I’m happy to see John Romita join Marvel, but this is far from his best work. The Plunderer is yet another example of a dopey name for a villain—a pirate who plunders? Let’s call him the Plunderer (Now, Professor Jack, let's be fair. He was born Lord Parcival Plunder so it would be natural to call him The Plunderer, wouldn't it?!-Professor Pete)! Ka-Zar’s speech is also hard to take. Stan tells us that the Swamp Men’s dialog is corny because he had to translate it from the “guttural swamp dialect, a tongue which very few of us majored in at college.” Ka-Zar lives on Skull Island, which means King Kong must be around there somewhere. The killer plant looks like a leftover from a Roger Corman film.

PE: Ka-Zar's dialogue is hard to take? How about DD's: "I sense vegetation... such as earth has never known for millions of years! As though I've been transported to the dawn of time!" This, while he's still miles from the shore of said vegetation. This sort of nonsense backs my assertion that Stan never had a clear definition of what Daredevil's powers should be. It's one thing to tell us that, because of radiation and supreme training skills, this masked man can smell perfume from three blocks and take on a set of heavily armed henchmen but quite another to tell us he can jump out of a window and land, legs askew, on the bumpers of two different cars without killing himself.

Strange Tales 140

Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD

Our Story

Disabling the Hunter, Fury hides inside a ventilation duct with the Supreme—er, Imperial—Hydra’s daughter (felled by its ultra-sonic stunner) to avoid sniffing coma gas. Meanwhile, Agents Jones and Dugan use the Electro-Jab to fight the Tiger squad, and Tony Stark blasts off from the Helicarrier in his Braino-saur to disarm the orbital betatron bomb. As the reunited S.H.I.E.L.D. forces defeat the Tigers and occupy Hydra H.Q., Stark removes the firing device, and the Hydra honcho is revealed as…no, not Leslie Farrington, the powerful head of Imperial Industries International, but his humble secretary, Arnold Brown, who now prepares to push the destruct button that will annihilate both Fury and the daughter for whom he did it all.

MB: It’s always fun trying to parse the credits of some of these mid-’60s issues; this one attributes the “presentation,” “drawing,” and “delineation” (which I presume is roughly equivalent to the usual layouts, pencils, and inks) to Kirby, Heck, and Sinnott, respectively. Perhaps over-optimistically entitled “The End of Hydra,” this action-packed issue throws Heck into the artistic mix, although frankly there’s very little evidence of his style on display, and it promises “a world-wide roundup of all the known Hydra agents.” But really, with Fury having been put in charge of S.H.I.E.L.D. specifically for the purpose of smashing Hydra, we as readers wouldn’t want him to be deprived of the foe that provides his raison d’être, which would leave him like a Drax without his Thanos.

Jack: Skate board units A and B? Thank goodness for Tony Stark! If all of the Hydra agents can be rounded up so easily, why didn’t they do it before?

PE: Imagine being the one who has to hail the "Amazing Jet-Powered Porsche 904 Land-Air Personnel Transport" (or AJPP904LAPT for short). What would possess Stan to pump up his vehicle name just this once? Usually it would be the Sky-Port or the Helo-Blimp. I smell a ghost writer here! If anything, the cliffhanger climax of this somewhat exciting yarn promises that Hydra will continue to strike in the future. And why is Dum-Dum Dugan suddenly speaking like a Dum-Dum? "He gotta answer! He gotta be alive!" On the letters page, we get correspondence from future horror film journalist Bruce Hallenbeck (The Hammer Vampire).

PE: Once unmasked, it is revealed that Hydra Supreme is, in actuality, schoolteacher and sometime Meth cooker Walter White.

Doctor Strange

Our Story

Dormammu has had enough! He puts the Mindless Ones to sleep so he can let down the protective barrier and conserve power. He sends Dr. Strange, Baron Mordo, and the Ancient One to a dimension at the edge of infinity. Dormammu summons an audience of alien despots and challenges Dr. Strange to engage in combat. They agree only to use their minds and enchanted Pincers of Power. The battle is waged and Dr. Strange uses his wits and a little Judo to bring Dormammu near defeat. Only a last-minute intervention by Baron Mordo keeps Dr. Strange from emerging victorious.

Jack: While this is a good fight, I couldn’t help thinking it was a lot like professional wrestling, even down to Mordo’s cheating from the sidelines. Was Dormammu always so ripped?

JS: I'm sorry, the "Pincers of Power"? Not quite what I had in mind for an epic showdown.

MB: Finally, after months of fending off the artificially enhanced attacks of Baron Mordo, Dr. Strange goes mano a mano (or perhaps I should say pincer a pincer) with the Dread Dormammu for the first time since ST #127. It’s great to have the DD brought to center stage, and I enjoyed seeing his preparations for the bout, e.g., sedating the Mindless Ones, but with Mordo having made Dormy unwittingly win by treachery, those of us who have read the aforementioned ST #127 can guess which way this is likely to go. The one who gets short shrift is Clea, still nameless and relegated to a few token panels per issue, if that; in retrospect, it seems surprising that that they should take so long to flesh out Stephen’s future inamorata and disciple.

JS: After longing for something other than a wrestling match on the astral plane, I should have been more excited by this issue's tussle.

The Amazing Spider-Man 32

Our Story

To no one’s surprise, The Master Planer turns out to be old Otto Octavius, aka Doctor Octopus. Ock’s new plans necessitate a large quantity of ISO-36, a serum that just happens to be arriving in New York to aid a special patient suffering from blood poisoning. That unique patient happens to be Aunt May and our hero opines that May’s blood was contaminated during a blood transfusion with nephew Peter. When Octopus hijacks the shipment of ISO-36, Spider-Man goes temporarily insane and tears apart the city’s underworld looking for information on The Master Planner. Meanwhile, back at the hospital, doctors fear May is slipping into a coma. The wall-crawler’s path of destruction is not for naught though as he finally stumbles onto The Planner’s henchmen in a basement attached to the villain’s undersea lair. Octopus shows himself to his arch-enemy and a battle ensues. During the fight, a main support beam is damaged, Octopus escapes, and heavy equipment falls on Spider-Man, pinning him. The melee had not only loosened machinery but caused structural damage as well and the roof begins to leak. Unable to move, Spider-Man faces drowning but paramount on his mind is his failure to save his Aunt May.

PE: The Marvel Age of Wacky Coincidence continues as we see Ock needing ISO-36 just as badly as Aunt May. Who’da thunk? I’m still not sure why the big secret about The Master Planner’s secret identity. It’s not like the alias would allow Ock to walk the streets unmolested or something. And then, rather than keeping the mystery going, Stan and Steve do the reveal on the second page! Huh?

JS: What next, Spider-Man dons a costume so he can be another crime fighter?

PE: More of that dopey “I have to make her hate me so she won’t love me” goop from The House of Ideas as Peter Parker is deliberately mean to Betty and her beau, Ned. None of this nonsense rings true. All Parker has to say to Brant is “Look, Betty, I care for you but it won’t work out. I hope you and Ned will be happy together” rather than make a transparent horse’s ass of himself in front of not only the unhappy couple but JJJ as well.

JS: Where's Gwen Stacey when we need her?

MB: Since it’s revealed on page 2 of this issue, I can now state that after reading the last one, I did indeed correctly remember not only the identity of the Master Planner (I can see why that name didn’t stick with me, since he doesn’t exist, except as an alias for Doc Ock), but also why the trilogy would be considered famous. The notorious cliffhanger leads into one of the most celebrated issues of Amazing, and knowing that it came so close to the departure of Ditko—now once again credited as plotter—makes it all the more intriguing. So well handled in the second Spider-Man movie, Ock is one of my favorite villains, and seeing Spidey driven to desperation over his need for the ISO-36 to revive Aunt May drastically ups the drama quotient.

PE: Stan, messing with the Marvel Timeline (and my brain) has Spidey tell Foswell that he had fought him “years ago when you were a gang boss.” That’s impossible as, according to my incredibly elaborate Marvel Time/Space continuum theorum, Foswell (as The Big Man) was arrested after the events of Amazing Spider-Man #10, or roughly 22 weeks before the events of this issue. Yes, I realize he had an extremely short stint in the stir but the Marvel judicial system has long been known for its motto of “Rehabilitation over Punishment.” Sheesh, I’m glad I got that off my chest. Is anyone out there listening to me?

JS: This issue ends with what stands out as a standout cliffhanger. While it's no mystery that Spider-Man will survive, it's a great build-up to the next issue.

PE: Our climax sets up one of the most iconic Spidey sequences of all time next issue. Should be a good one.

The Avengers 24

Our Story

Kang’s forces attack the kingdom, which is protected by a plasto-shield. Once it has been breached, the Avengers battle the enemy forces but soon surrender. Kang claims Princess Ravonna as his prize, but his generals insist that he honor his past practice of killing all conquered monarchs. Kang breaks with his generals and joins forces with the Avengers in order to save Ravonna. The generals cannot prevail without a strong leader and are soon bested. Kang honors his promise to send the Avengers home. After they depart, one of the defeated generals tries to shoot Kang, but Ravonna is killed as she leaps in front of him.

MB: Well, it was too good to last: the inks having devolved from Wood and Romita back to Ayers, who’s obviously stopped eating whatever he had for breakfast the day he penned S.H.I.E.L.D.’s debut in Strange Tales #135, the art has taken a noticeable hit. The story, too, has the frenetic feel of one of the later, more formulaic Tarzan books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, with all of these factions running around in a strange land (or, in this case, era), with the net result that the Quartet almost gets lost in the shuffle. But we get enough of the Lee-Heck moxie to make it merely an average issue, and the unusual Ravonna cliffhanger helps; on page 14, ol’ Sneaky Stan uses Hawkeye’s “Next thing y’know we’ll be swearin’ in Dr. Doom!” from #20 almost verbatim.

Cap does the Twist?

PE: Good point there, Professor Matthew. I thought more along the lines of the Keystone Kops but Tarzan will do. Incredibly, since you know my feelings about Dick Ayers, the art didn't make me want to throw up my arms in surrender. It wasn't great but, other than the panels where we see things like Captain America running in place when he's supposed to be standing and talking to another character (almost like a photoshop feel), I could deal with it. It's the story, as usual, where I find the most fault. Kang loses his army so the first thing he thinks is "I'll turn to The Avengers for help," goes to Cap with his story and, don't you know, immediately has the team on his side. I'm with Hawkeye on this one: "Have you lost your marbles, Mr. Stars and Stripes?" The trust comes just a little too quick. When compared to the "Good Old Days" of Thor, Cap, Iron Man, Giant Man, and The Wasp, Cap's yell of "Avengers Assemble" when both his teammates are standing right in front of him seems pretty pitiful. Of course, as Billy Joel once said "The good old days weren't always good..."

"Easy old man. We're right in front of you!"

Jack: When I saw Don Heck and Dick Ayers’s names as the artists for this issue, I was prepared not to like it—but I did! Kang is already developing into an interesting villain. Has anyone ever investigated Stan Lee’s use of Biblical quotations and themes? I know he was Jewish, and the tradition of killing the conquered monarchs goes all the way back to the ancient Israelites. I am sure that there was an Old Testament story about a king who failed to kill a conquered opponent and was punished for it, but I can’t remember who it was.

PE: I found this issue to be laden with text, too much text, much too much text, way way too much text! A comic book should take x amount of minutes to read, not xxx (unless it's an EC Comic, of course). I found the (SPOILER ALERT) death of Ravonna to be a very effective climax (if she's dead, that is). As for our "mystery villain" who's keeping tabs on our not-so-super team (I still want to know where these guys have all their cameras mounted), I'll just conjure the image of a certain Latverian whose name was raised in this issue. Marvel is the home of the coincidence.

Jack: What’s the point of a secret identity when Hawkeye calls Cap “Steverino” in front of a crowd?

Journey Into Mystery 124

Our Story

After hearing about the Demon’s exploits in a newspaper, Thor decides that he will investigate further, but not before checking in at the hospital to see how Jane Foster is doing. He changes to Dr. Blake, and finds that Jane isn’t recovering as expected (from minor smoke inhalation). Instead she’s in a state of depression, tired of Don Blake’s comings and goings for long periods of time with no explanation. She tells him to get lost—for good. This, and the guilt of what her love for him has cost her, is the impetus Thor needs to tell Jane the truth, that he and Don Blake are one and the same. Her heart renewed by this newfound knowledge, Thor feels safe leave long enough to stop the menace of the Demon. This former witch doctor, with the power of the Norn stone that literally fell into his grasp, continues to conquer villages across Asia and add them to his army. While Odin rages in Asgard that his son has dared to reveal his secret identity to the mortal girl, different things are happening in distant Olympus. Zeus decrees it time to send his restless, willful son Hercules to visit Earth, not visited by any of the Olympian gods for centuries. As the Demon prepares to demolish yet another fortress, he gets more than he bargained for: a Thunder God on the path of justice.

In Tales Of Asgard, the flying trolls of Ula, queen of the Stone Hive of Thryheim, approach the Odinship. The crew is recovering from the recent victory over the Utgard Dragon; destroyed by the mighty sounds of the horn Balder the Brave blew.

JB: This coming year, 1966, would, I humbly judge, be the best in the Thor run; preceding and following years were still great, but not so consistently so as this. The frustration that the Thor/Jane relationship has caused them both (and us readers) finally gets blown out of the water when he comes clean with his secret identity. We see Jane show some backbone, telling him to hit the road before she sees the whole picture. The coming year provides some amazing adventures for Jane and Thor.

PE: The roller coaster that is the father/son relationship of Odin and Thor seems to be in a dip right now (it is an even-numbered issue, after all, so give it 'til next issue to find itself back up) since pop is outraged about his son coming out of the closet in front of Jane Foster. I thought for sure Kirby's "camera" would pull back after Odin's meltdown and we'd see Loki, right over his shoulder, whispering "I told you, sire, this one's no good." The big guy would reply "That you did, son, I should have listened to you. I've never been fair with you!" Doesn't pop get tired of dreaming up new punishments for The God of Thunder? How many times can he banish him from Asgard or strip him of his Mighty powers? Let's see something new.

MB: Thor’s interactions with New York’s finest, and especially with the ordinary Gothamites, make a nice prelude to the story proper, in which the panels devoted to the poorly named Demon (about whom there is nothing intrinsically demonic) are wisely minimized. It’s interesting that Thor and Spider-Man, each told that the torch his lady carries for his civilian i.d. is endangered by the secret she senses he is carrying, react in opposite ways. Blake does the Full Monty for Jane, while Peter cedes Betty Brant to Ned Leeds, but having dodged a bullet for bringing Hobbs home, Thor clearly won’t escape Odin’s wrath for revealing his identity to Jane.

PE: The cover's a bit of a cheat. Hercules doesn't show up until near the end and it's just to nod and look strong. The Demon seems to be an afterthought pushed to the side by Thor's relationship dramas. Speaking of which, would I be a cynic to think that Odin has some kind of potion to render Jane Foster an amnesiac or does she actually push on with the knowledge that one half of the man she loves is a lame doctor? This issue isn't really bad, it's just what I would call a "tweener," the section of the arc that's very clearly setting up events in the future. Like a Lost episode that spends forty three minutes explaining to us why a gruff killer like Sawyer spends all his idle time reading Steinbeck when all we want is to get to the Kate episode where it's shown why she prefers to swim nude.

JB: The first of seven issues in one of the definitive Lee/Kirby Thor epics. As you say Peter, the story sets up the quicker pace to come. I think we’re all glad to see Hercules come back, and to get another glimpse of Olympus (much more of which we see over the next months). I fondly remember reading Marvel Treasury Edition #3, from 1974. It reprinted JIM/Thor issues #125-130. They skipped #124, but the story still made sense. In Roy Thomas’s book, Stan Lee’s Amazing Marvel Universe, the man (SL that is) counts this saga as one of fifty memorable moments in Marvel’s history (a great book, even if intended for a general audience).

Fantastic Four 46

Our Story

Frightened that their “hideout” has been discovered by the Fantastic Four, the Inhumans, (Karnak, Gorgon -holding Medusa to keep her from escaping- Crystal, Triton, and Black Bolt) attack the F.F. Black Bolt, their leader, has it out with the Thing. Ben is a little stronger, but lacks the Inhuman’s speed and skill. Triton dampens Johnny’s flame, and then renders the Torch unconscious. Reed surmises that Black Bolt gets his power through an antenna device on his head that converts the electrons around him into energy. He then rips Triton’s hooded, sleeveless cloak off, realizing it contains water, which the Inhuman needs to breathe. While Triton makes a dash to jump off the nearby pier into the water, Sue uses her force field to protect Reed and her from Gorgon and Karnak. It becomes apparent from listening to the Inhumans during the struggle that they are fleeing from someone called the Seeker, and have remained hidden from him for years. The Inhumans feel that the F.F. are a threat to their being discovered, and they are really just defending themselves. The Seeker is closer than they think, and he captures Triton under the water. A neatly bearded man in a red uniform, the Seeker’s mission is to capture the Inhumans and return them to a place called the Great Refuge; where they had escaped from years before, seeking freedom. Thinking that Dragon Man, now tranquilized in the Baxter Building, is an Inhuman also, the Seeker and his men take the reptilian android to their place of hiding, to run some tests on him. Black Bolt, meanwhile, has temporarily exhausted his antenna’s electron charge in his battle with Ben, but first manages to stun the Thing with a “master blow.” Crystal’s dog Lockjaw appears, and uses a steel girder to hold Ben at bay while the Inhumans retreat. Realizing that the Seeker must have captured Triton, the Inhumans disappear through a dimensional vortex, created by Lockjaw. Johnny and Crystal, already with strong feelings, call out to one another, but too late. Vowing to find them again, our heroes return to the Baxter Building to find Dragon Man gone. Not to be foiled, Reed not only has the Seeker and his men on camera (from their earlier visit), but also follows their particle trail to the craft where he is hiding, with a captured Triton in a water-filled bubble. The F.F. are caught on arrival, and the Seeker relates to them his story. The Inhumans are a race that developed concurrently with humanity, and were highly advanced when we were still cavemen. Genetics was one of their strongest fields of interest, and they carefully bred many of their kind with different unique powers. They eventually hid from humanity, who attacked them for their differences. The Inhumans as the F.F. know them today, are from one such ancient family. Realizing that Dragon man is not one of them, the Seeker is prepared to release him to our team, but it is too late. The mighty creature awakens, and angry at his capture, breaks his bonds. In the confusion that follows, Triton’s water bubble is shattered and Dragon Man escapes.

PE: Sue Storm asks Reed Richards a good question that I'd like to ask as well (I just don't know who to ask): what's the difference between an Inhuman and a Mutant? I won't bother asking Reed, as he tells Sue "because they say they're Inhumans!" Reed's brain constantly amazes me. It takes one look at the silverware attached to Black Bolt's skullcap and knows it "absorbs energy from the electrons around him and converts it to speed and strength." All that from just a few glances! Fantastic! He'll later amend his statement with the following: "His antenna creates some sort of Mental Dimension Displacer Force!" Hands up from those of you who think he's baffling us with...

JB: A fast moving, action-filled issue. We learn a lot in a short time about who the Inhumans are and where they are from. I find it unlikely that they would be so frightened by the Seeker. He seems more like a misguided, arrogant scientist, maybe with the technology of a Reed Richards or a little more. With all the powers the Inhumans have at their disposal, he doesn’t seem like much of a threat. As “honorary professor” Glenn said, the issues from #44-67 were the F.F. at their peak, and I suspect in rereading them here, I’ll find that to be true.

MB: Artwise, no complaints here—far from it, as Sinnott polishes to perfection the uncut diamonds of Kirby’s pencils, and the FF themselves, in particular, have never looked better to date. If I’m a little impatient at times for the plot to get moving, it’s only in hindsight, since I know so much about the Inhumans already, although it’s clear that later we’ll learn a lot more about their origin than we’ve been told, and the story doesn’t seem to jibe with Black Bolt heading their royal family. If there’s a weak link here, it’s probably that outlandishly garbed and annoyingly arrogant runt of a Seeker, who’s apparently an Inhuman himself, but I can’t make out what the deal is with those henchmen of his; they look too, shall we say, uniform to be members of his race, yet with all of his security concerns, it’s inconceivable that he would rely on humans.

PE: Since The Seeker's moniker is based on "a life dedicated to tracking down Inhumans," shouldn't he be Inhuman Seeker? What will he seek once he catches them? If he's got nothing else to seek, would he be The Ignorer? The Idler? Addition to Reed Richards' fabulous museum of "One and Done" gizmos: his Hidden TV Recorder, which tracks "heat particle trails."

JB: A note on Roy Thomas: I see in the Marvel Bullpen Bulletin this month, that Stan officially welcomes Roy aboard their ranks. I wonder who had Roy as a schoolteacher in St.Louis?

Tales of Suspense 73
Iron Man
Our Story

Iron Man shows up at the hospital Happy Hogan is being kept only to find his chauffeur is missing. The only clue is a hoof print on the window sill. Quickly deducing it's his old arch-enemy, The Black Knight, escaped from prison, Shellhead tracks the Knight to an old, dark, gloomy castle just outside Washington. When Iron Man enters, he's greeted by several holograms of The Black Knight. Not knowing which one is the real one, he lashes out and drains his own power in no time. Sensing his enemy is helpless, The Knight lifts him aboard his steed and flies high into the sky, dropping Iron Man at a height that would kill most armored superheroes. This good guy still has his wits about him though and grabs hold of The Knight as he's falling. Both tumble into the forest below, Iron Man hitting a lake and The Knight mysteriously disappearing. Down to his last drop of energy, Shellhead is able to make it back to the castle and call police to notify them of Happy's whereabouts. Meanwhile, Senator Byrd is prepared to swear out a warrant for Tony Stark's arrest unless he produces Iron Man's secret identity. Our final panels show that our red and gold hero is in bad shape, collapsed on the floor of the castle.

PE: I've said it already about the Sub-Mariner strip, but Gene Colan's artwork makes enjoyable any strip he works on. Immediately there's more of a "realistic look" to Shellhead and his supporting cast. As for the story, it's a fairly enjoyable tale though it doesn't really go anywhere and we're left with the mystery of The Black Knight's fate. We won't find out what happened to him or his trusty steed until Avengers #47 (December 1967). I know what happens but you'll have to wait about six months to find out from me. I like how Colan messes with the size and shape of the panels. I know that kind of thing will be commonplace in a couple of years when a young turk named Steranko rents a room at the House of Ideas, but we've been subjected to pretty much a standard format for the last four years and it's a nice change.

JS: This was definitely one of the more visually entertaining issues, and despite it being a straightforward confrontation between Iron Man and the Black Knight, giving it such an interesting setting was a step in the right direction. Do you suppose Dracula was lurking in the shadows somewhere?

PE: Roy Thomas's first superhero script for Marvel. Roy's first Marvel script ("Whom Can I Turn To") appeared in last month's Modeling with Millie #44. In Alter Ego #50, Roy recalls: "Stan Lee, who'd plotted the tale with Gene, rewrote so much of Roy's script on this... roughly 50%, by Roy's estimates... that he made it one of the very rare Marvel stories with no itemized credits." Roy Thomas' arrival at the House of Ideas marks the next phase of the Silver Age of Marvel Comics (if not immediately). It's no secret that, in my mind, Stan laid the foundation but Roy built the mansion.

MB: During the second phase of Shellhead’s stint in Suspense, co-creator Don Heck was succeeded by Gene Colan—under his “Adam Austin,” uh, pencil name—here with average inks by “Gary Michaels,” aka Jack Abel; apparently, some of the artists had to conceal from DC the fact that they were moonlighting for Marvel. This inaugural effort (written by another pivotal newcomer, future Bullpen mainstay and EIC “Rascally Roy” Thomas), largely set within the shadowy confines of the Black Knight’s castle, is perfectly suited to Colan’s style. If I recall correctly, he handled the strip through the one-shot Iron Man & Sub-Mariner, plus the premiere issue of Shellhead’s solo book, and must therefore be considered a key Iron Man artist.

Captain America

Our Story

Desperately trying to stop the awakened "Sleeper," Captain America is learning that the mechanical giant is a lot sturdier than any foe he's ever faced. Triggering an avalanche of boulders only proves to bury the monster for a bit of time. At that very moment several miles away in Telbeck, Frau Wolfmann and her henchmen unleash the second sleeper, a soaring craft, which quickly searches out its brother and joins with it as one huge flying machine. Cap manages to get atop the machine and notices a mechanical "cradle" that will be the final home of the third Sleeper when it awakens. Meanwhile, Agent Three begins that process.

PE: I like the story, which is one part War of the Worlds, one part The Mysterians, with a heaping helping of espionage thrown in. The Sleepers do present an awe-inspiring menace, especially when meeting up and joining. Well, except for those dopey boots., of course. What I don't like about the strip is the cop-out "violence." A couple of times we are led to believe (for a millisecond) that this is the devilishly bloodthirsty Third Reich we're talking about here and they take no prisoners. So when Frau Wolfmann and her boys use a shovel to cause the explosion that wakens the second Sleeper, I thought "Wow, this woman gave her life for the Reich!" That is, until the next panel which tells you that the explosion happened miles away. Again, Agent Three enters the pawn shop to get his little box and shoots the pawn shop owner, I got a chill. then he tells the man it's only gas and he'll awaken. Why the punch-pulling? These are the worst scum on earth and they're not going to go to lengths to make sure anyone in their way is politely admonished or gently put to sleep. They're going to kill everyone around them. Or should. It's what they do for kicks. I'm still looking forward to the continuation of the story and the eventual return of The Red Skull. I just hope George Tuska's gone by then. Thank goodness there aren't too many female characters in this strip. George doesn't draw very good looking women. Granted, Nazi women aren't supposed to look hot.

JS: I'm sorry. Did you say awe-inspiring menace? Did you mean to say yawn-inducing menace? Sleepers indeed. I did get a laugh out of Frau Wolfmann. I hope we'll meet up with Herr Wolfmann soon enough. I'm also growing tired of stories never ending. I like a good cliffhanger as much as the next guy, but have they given up on a) stand-alone stories, or b) ever wrapping stories up?

PE: In the letters section, we get our first contribution from future science fiction novelist Alfred (A. A.) Attanasio and another from Don McGregor (still several years away from being a member of the Marvel Bulpen).

Tales to Astonish #75
Sub-Mariner
Our Story

The Sub-Mariner holds a dying Dorma in his arms while the hordes of the Faceless Ones move in for the kill. Suddenly, the battle is interrupted by the grand visage of the mighty Neptune. He orders the Faceless Ones to cease, as he would like to ask Namor some questions. Namor doesn’t deny that he strayed from his quest to help out the love of his life. He expects to perish and pleads for mercy for Lady Dorma. Neptune is proud that Namor showed compassion and love for Dorma, so he banishes the Faceless Ones while rewarding our hero with the magnificent Trident. Unfortunately, Subby has little time to celebrate as Dorma will soon be dead unless he can quickly get her to the palace and use a rejuvenator ray on her to restore her life. Giving the ancient old man that has been following him the Trident, Namor and his old lady swim back to his palace. After defeating some guards, he next has to face the dreaded Robo-Tank that squashed the citizen uprising from last issue. Subby takes the tank’s best shots, then picks it up and smashes it to a pulp. Dorma’s life is saved and the ancient old dude arrives in the nick of time to give Subby the Trident. The story concludes with Namor using it to subdue Krang and end his reign of terror.

Tom: Meh. The quest kind of ended in a dud. It was an enjoyable climax, but it seemed a little rushed. Tough guy Krang sure goes out without much of a fight unless he puts up some resistance next issue, which I’m looking forward to. The bullpen promises that Krang will receive a nice, big, heaping bowl of justice, Namor style!

"First thing I do when I become ruler is find my left elbow"

MB: As I’d predicted, Subby’s devotion to Dorma proves itself the clincher, rather than the undoing, of his quest for Neptune’s Trident, which turned out to be a little less epic than I expected. Colletta’s inks (which, sadly, continue to make the close-ups a bit sketchy) are not the only thing this strip and Thor’s have in common, since each features a prince of the realm who bears a selfless love. Yet this resolution seems to be almost a rebuttal to Thor’s romantic woes, as Neptune extols Namor’s honesty—demonstrated by Stan’s particularly stirring dialogue—and spirit of self-sacrifice; also loved the recurrence of Namor’s old and loyal subject.

PE: Well, Neptune sure is a lot hipper than that old stuffed shirt, Odin, respecting and ewarding the younger generation rather than punishing them. Yeah, I agree with my colleagues that the story ended with a whimper rather than a Krang, but there's that gorgeous Gene Colan art to soak in at least. Even if 90% of the panels show Subby cradling Dorma and not much else. Except for a few lapses (see panels above and below), Colan's art alone continues to elevate this above the cartoons of Iron Man, The Avengers or Subby's title-mate. Speaking of which...

The Hulk
Our Story

The Hulk picks up the Ultimate Machine after it has killed the Leader. Needing to distance himself in order to think about his next move, he leaps away into the mountains. Back in America, General Ross has had his military scientists put together the last machine that Bruce Banner has ever created, using left over blueprints. They aren’t even sure what the weapon, dubbed T-Gun, will do. Rick Jones is still imprisoned for associating with the Hulk. He pleads to some military guards to let him call the White House, which they laugh off. The Hulkster reasons that his exterior is tougher than the Leader’s, so he tries on the Ultimate Machine, putting it over his head just like the villain did last issue. Even the mighty Hulk is unable to sustain the powerful pain of knowledge that the Watcher’s technology gives him. He rips it off his head before it kills him. Still, the machine allowed him to hear Rick’s pleas to the guards to call the White House. Since Rick was his friend, and it would give him something to do, the Hulk leaps toward the White House. The Watcher retrieves his technology so that no others will have it. General Ross and the troops spot the Green Goliath as he ends up by the White House. Taking a foolish gamble, they shoot him with the T-Gun, which Jade Jaws instantly recognizes since he still sort of has Banner’s brain. The T-Gun ends up being a device to test time travel, and he story ends with the Hulk somewhere in the far future, facing off against some strange, mutant-looking creatures.

Tom: If Professor Jack thought that last issue’s story was boring, then this tale might have put him in a coma. I understand it’s just a transitional tale to further along the Hulk’s adventures into a deadly future scenario, but I can always do without Rick Jones, whining Betty, and tool Talbot. General Ross is slightly amusing, just because of his overall ignorance about what’s occurring around him.

Jack: Hulk sure gets around! He hops from one continent to another, he was on the Watcher’s planet recently, and now he’s in the future. Bonus points to Stan Lee for not having him fight Thunderbolt Ross every issue.

PE: And for our finale... Hulk Beyond Thunderdome! Is it my imagination or does Esposito's art get worse with each passing issue? The "Hulk-talk" is annoying as well. It's not the way Banner talks nor is it the way the big green guy talks so is it some middle ground? And is that middle ground a New York dock worker? At least that endless Leader arc is over. Or is it?

Also this month

Kid Colt Outlaw #126
Millie the Model #134
Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos #26
Two-Gun Kid #79

December 1965: Among Us Hid The Inhumans!

2012-02-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

Journey Into Mystery 123

Our Story

The Mighty Thor has agreed to take the reporter Harris Hobbs to see Asgard. The Absorbing Man has ignobly attacked Odin, with Loki planning to take over rule of the golden realm after his cats paw has done his work for him. And that’s just the beginning! Arriving on the rainbow bridge with Hobbs, Thor sees that Heimdall is absent from his post as guardian. Knowing something is amiss, he hurries with Hobbs into the city to find the battle raging between the Absorbing Man and Odin. The All-Father slowly realizes that cosmic bolts and molecular cyclones are as easy for Crusher Creel to absorb as rock or metal. On Earth, another type of storm brews, as the lost Norn Stone is found in an Asian jungle by the witch doctor of a tribe threatened with Communist takeover. The stone having fallen from the sky, it is seen by the witch doctor as a sign from the gods that he is meant not only to turn back the communists, but to rule the world as well. Thor (with Hobbs holding himself together enough to take it all in), eager to join in the fray, is asked by Odin to hold his hammer for a moment. Seeing that any further battle will destroy his kingdom, Odin surrenders his scepter to “Loki the cunning”, who glows with greed, proclaiming the rule of a new age. The Absorbing Man feels the scepter should be his, and a mighty tug-of-war begins. All this has played out, as Odin knew it would; the two evildoers can’t let go of the scepter. Odin, his real power coming from within, hurls the pair, eternally bound to each other, to fly through endless space for an indefinite time. Thor returns to Earth with Harris Hobbs, whose memory even now fades; he questions if Thor even took him to Asgard. The witch doctor meanwhile, has adopted the name the Demon from some of the villagers he has sworn to his side, as he builds his army to conquer the world.

In the Tales Of Asgard, the approach of Ragnarok, the end of the world, seems imminent, as Odin watches dark writhing clouds from atop the highest mountain in Asgard. The crew of the Odinship, led by Thor, enters “The Jaws Of the Dragon”. As it’s rock head rises from the stormy sea, it is the efforts of Balder the Brave that save them, when he blows so hard on his mighty horn that the dragon is shattered into countless pieces.

JB: Nicely interwoven story here, hard to believe that the Absorbing Man has been with us for four issues. We get a clear picture of Odin’s real power source—himself, as he must finally see Loki for the villain he really is.

PE: Yep, a satisfying conclusion to The Absorbing Man storyline. Without peeking, I wonder just how long Stan can keep Loki exiled in space. It only took him a few issues to find Doctor Doom a way back. My money's on a short flight. One thing's for sure: Odin has got to have his eyes wide open by this time. Calling his son "god of evil" is just not said around the dinner table of a functioning family. The new sub-plot involving the witch-doctor turned Demon looks interesting. This strip is still flying just above-average for me.

JB: The Demon is an interesting character visually; mainly he ties us over as we approach the longest continued storyline that Lee/Kirby would do in the Thor run. Speaking of visuals, the cover is a sort of symbolic one. I love the panel of Thor and Harris Hobbs when they first arrive on Bifrost. I wonder just how far the distance to Asgard is from there, as Thor tells the reporter to walk with “slow and measured tread.”

MB: Although Stan leaves a few newer plot threads dangling with that cockamamie Norn-stone-enhanced witch doctor (aka The Demon), he ties up many more with Loki’s rebellion and Hobbs’s attempt to blackmail Thor. It’s fitting that Loki and his creation, the Absorbing Man, are banished together—although not permanently, I’m sure—as we learn the not-so-shocking news that Odin is far mightier than both of them. And Thor is lucky that he got only a mild reprimand for bringing Hobbs to Asgard; even after helping to save his dad’s bacon, I could see Thor getting one of those “Begone, churl! Thou dost presume too much!” speeches.

JB: If nothing else, the Tales Of Asgard segments flesh out the great supporting characters surrounding Thor, this time highlighting Balder (the one significant missing Asgardian in the Thor movie).

Fantastic Four 45

Our Story

As the building beneath them shatters (from the mighty foot stomp of Gorgon last issue), Johnny, Ben and Reed use their powers to save themselves from the fall. Johnny takes flight to find out where Dragon Man has gone when he took flight with Sue moments before. He catches them quickly enough, and creates a blinding light to temporarily blind Dragon Man, grounding him. Reed rushes to get his airjet-cycle ready to go in pursuit, but Sue, Johnny and Dragon Man return peacefully. Sue’s convinced the laboratory created creature that they mean him no harm. Leaving the others to figure out what to do next, Torch decides to take a walk when he calls Dorrie Evans to find she has another date. He wanders into a run-down neighborhood, and finds a vision to burn any thoughts of Dorrie out of his head: a lovely young girl with orange hair. She panics when he sees her, and a momentary storm appears, apparently created by her, and she disappears. The next day, Johnny isn’t much help to the team as they clean up shop at the Baxter Building, so he cuts out for a walk to guess where-- the sight of the beautiful sight from yesterday. Sure enough, he finds the girl again. She flees, but when she sees Johnny flame on, she relaxes, introducing herself as Crystal, and calling him “one of us.” He plays along to find out more about her, and she leads him (along with her mysterious, giant “dog” named Lockjaw, who appears out of nowhere) through a secret entrance into her world. She reveals that an absent leader named Blackbolt built their home for her kind. Johnny meets some of the others. First up is Karnak, able to find the weakest spot in any object and shatter it with a karate-style chop. Another is Triton, a green-skinned partly cloaked figure who seems to control powers of water. Next to appear are none other than Madame Medusa and Gorgon. As the Torch tries to piece together the mystery of this race he later coins “Inhumans”, Triton tries to capture him with fireproof walls that spring up out of nowhere, forming a cage that fills with water. The ceiling isn’t fireproof though, and Johnny burns his way to the surface to form the emergency “4” flare in the sky. Despite the delay of a scuffle between Dragon Man (solved by a tranquilizer shot) and the Thing, Reed’s latest gizmo, the airjet-cycle is ready to go, and they head to the scene of Johnny’s signal. As the Torch leads them to the scene of the entrance, a wall of rubble, courtesy of Karnak and Gorgon, tumbles down on them. Ben shatters it in time, as a heretofore-unseen Inhuman appears, smashing through a wall: Blackbolt!

JB: Despite the conceptual similarity between the Inhumans and the X-Men, these new characters, not really villains, can hold their own identities as worthy opponents. I always preferred these guys. It’s a nice entrance for Crystal, Johnny’s soon-to-be girlfriend of long standing. Dragon Man and the brief appearance of Sandman and the Trapster in jail, keep this issue a busy one.

PE: That Reed Richards is just as sweet talkin' a husband as he was a boyfriend. When Sue cautions him about getting too close to the battling Thing and Dragon-Man, he puts her in her place yet again: "Stop sounding like a wife and find me that gun, lady!" Lots of big-time intros this issue. The landmarks will start to come fast and furious, I suspect. Johnny is on the skids with his long-time girlfriend Dorrie just in time to meet up with Crystal , who will fall into the gf slot for several years to come. We also get our first looks at the other Inhumans (we've already met Gorgon and Medusa): Black Bolt, Karnak, Triton, and their mascot, Lockjaw. Reed unveils his Airjet-Cycle. Take a breath as it's going to get very busy around here for the next five to ten issues.

JS: It's been quite a long time since I read this issue, but I had forgotten we only get the tease of Black Bolt this issue. Fortunately, good times are on the horizon!

JB: Is there no end to Reed’s inventions? What a blast to ride in that airjet-cycle! It makes a great full pager, but it’s the cover that is the masterpiece of this issue; a mix of beauty and mystery.

MB: The slow reveal of the Inhumans continues, appropriately beginning as the Torch meets—and is immediately taken with—his soon-to-be flame (ha ha), Crystal, through the introductions of Lockjaw, Karnak, and the hooded Triton to a glimpse of Black Bolt at the finish. Unfortunately, Sinnott’s inks notwithstanding, Gorgon still looks like a bizarre caricature of his future self, some sort of cross between Castro and a farm animal. They’re taking their time with everybody’s favorite genetic offshoots, who will become such a significant cornerstone of the expanding Marvel Universe, although it’s a darned shame that neither of their ’70s solo series, in Amazing Adventures or their short-lived eponymous book, could make a go of it; what a waste.

PE: So, it's Johnny Storm who coins the phrase "Inhumans." That must have gone over well with his "inhuman" girlfriend, Crystal.

Daredevil 11

Our Story

Daredevil is caught eavesdropping on the villains at their headquarters by Bird Man. A brief fight ensues, ending with Daredevil’s seeming demise. The hero is okay, though, and he starts to put a plan in motion to find out the secret identity of the Organizer. He has it narrowed down to three prominent politicians in the Reform Party. As Matt Murdoch, he asks a skeptical Foggy for his help, and Foggy reluctantly complies, thinking that Matt is just jealous of him. In front of the three suspects at a gathering, Matt and Foggy bluff out loud that they have evidence in their office that reveals who the Organizer is. Sure enough, later that night, their law office is broken into. Daredevil uncovers a plot to kill the mayor when he overhears Deborah, Foggy’s old school crush and undercover villain, talking to the Organizer through one of his monitors. She agrees to work with Double D and the authorities since she didn’t want to go along with the murder plot and was marked for death by the Organizer. Deborah lures Frog Man into a trap and he is beaten by Daredevil. Daredevil switches costumes with him and goes on to meet the Organizer with Bird Man and Ape Man. Daredevil attacks them in his frog disguise, while secretly recording the rambling villain’s plans for city conquest. It’s broadcasted all over the television and radio waves so the police have the evidence. Daredevil retreats to recoup, donning his usual hero attire. Abner Jonas, the party candidate for Mayor, turns out to be the nefarious Organizer. He tries to set up another candidate with no luck. In the end, Daredevil defeats Ape Man and Bird Man, bringing the Organizer to justice. All is not rosy for our hero, as he leaves the law firm because of the poor business they have been having, rationalizing that Foggy by himself with Karen will be able to prosper more without him.

Now that's a Wally Wood panel!

Jack: First, the good news: Daredevil is now monthly! Now, the bad news: This is Wally Wood’s last issue. Even though he was only inking “Bobby” Powell’s pencils, the trademark Wood greatness made itself evident. Witness the va va voom shot of Debbie on page seven if you doubt Wood’s ability to impose his will on a penciller. As to the story, Stan’s wrap-up of Wood’s plot from last issue is standard fare, ending with a much too heaping helping of sappy romance. Next month, the Daredevil artist merry go round continues as John Romita takes over!

PE: If you were Wally Wood and you had to put up with Stan Lee's ego, you head for the door before too long as well. Stan explains in his intro the issue that he allowed Wally to script the first part "just for a lark... but now it's up to sly ol' Stan to put all the pieces together and make it come out okay in the end." Obviously, this guy could be a genius but he could be an ass as well.

Tom: I’m sure my fellow professors will probably disagree with me on this one, but this finale kind of sucked. Too much going on with secret villains, goofs dressed as animals, corrupt politicians, and the love triangle is getting depressing along with being boring. Last issue I kind of liked, but this conclusion started to drag. According to the bullpen, Stan the man took over writing duties. Could this have had something to do with it? The Organizer guy and his whole shtick grew tiresome, making me long for Mr. Fear to come back.

Gosh! Could that ring be a clue?

PE: This professor won't disagree, Professor Tom. This is one big stinky mess. First we get Matt Murdock, standing in a room with Foggy, thinking that two of the three candidates have "unusually fast" pulse rates. Then three panels later, as he and ~~Happy Hogan~~ Foggy Nelson are walking Karen Page back to the office, he thinks to himself, "Karen's heartbeat is unusually rapid. If only I could tell whether it's Foggy or me who is responsible." Why didn't he think the same of the three candidates? Maybe the politicians thought one of the partners was hot. And, while we're on the subject of super-sense, why is it that, with all his heightened senses, DD can't figure out who The Organizer is just by listening to his voice? Stan throws in a really lame explanation that Daredevil can somehow sense that the ring on the bad guy's finger is the same as the one on Jonas'. Heightened senses, my foot. And what kind of a dope is The Organizer if he can't tell someone else is in the Frog Man's suit?

Jack: Apparently, in Marvel Comics New York City, “Agent of Shield” is a TV show!

PE: How long before Stan explains that Daredevil, with his heightened senses, can actually read the thought balloons in the room? That last page is awash in dopiness.

Tales to Astonish 74

The Sub-Mariner

Our Story

As Dorma is encased in a plastic cage, Sub-Mariner battles for their lives against the hordes of Faceless Ones. While individually no match for Prince Namor, they try to overwhelm him with their seemingly endless numbers. Krang has been having troubles of his own with the citizens’ uprising. He’s got it under control, though, when he unleashes his Robo-Tank! It’s basically a big underwater tank piloted by a little robot guy that shoots down the citizens with electric bolts. Krang boasts to himself that once they regain consciousness, the rabble rousers will no longer have the determination to overthrow his regime. The ancient old dude that Namor met a couple of issues ago is trying to find him. Using his telepathic mind, he tracks him down to the Faceless Ones’ lair. The story ends with Dorma being held in Subby’s arms, while he promises the Faceless mob that they may win, but it will cost them dearly as he prepares for final battle.

Tom: So far so good, as Subby’s series continues to swim toward excellence. First chink in the armor though may be Krang’s moronic looking Robo-Tank weapon. It looked like it was being piloted by a distant cousin of that robot that was in the old Fantastic Four cartoons. Krang is starting to grow on me as villain. Before, all I remember him for was getting his ass handed to him by Dr. Doom in a sword fight in Marvel SVTU. He’s kind of like an underwater Fu-Manchu.

MB: Not so very long after Namor was barking at Lady Dorma to “unhand” him, he puts her well-being above his quest for the trident that could help him regain his throne, although I somehow suspect that this will turn out to be the final test. These Faceless Ones don’t appear to be as interesting as the Mindless Ones over in Strange Tales, and yet surely we don’t want to leave Dorma at their mercy in her giant Ziploc® bag; as in Night of the Living Dead et alia, their greatest strength lies in their numbers. The citizens of Atlantis, fickle though they may be, prove they are not beyond redemption by risking their lives to rebel against Krang.

PE: That hometown rebellion was the highlight of the issue for me (well, other than the usual wonderful Colan artwork). I thought it was more subtly handled than the usual Stan Lee action scene. For reasons that will become apparent as you read through this month's comics, I love that Krang orders his Robo-Tank to "perform function 'G'. This month, Marvel Comics was brought to you by the letter 'G'.

Hulk

Our Story

The Hulk has been sent to the Watcher’s dwelling by the Leader to claim the Ultimate Machine. However, another powerful alien brute has been sent by his home planet to obtain the same prize. The Hulk does battle with a big, red, amphibious monster that causes the Watcher to transport them to an abandoned planet to finish their extreme combat. Even though he is not permitted to interfere, the Watcher justifies his move by rationalizing that the two monsters could do too much damage to his scientific equipment, and put his own life in danger. The battle goes back and forth, on land and in the sea. Finally, the Hulk wins when he rips up the stone ground from underneath his opponent, and hurls him with all his might into the air. The Watcher has seen enough to declare ol’ Greenskin the winner, since the red beast would have been soaring in the air for days before landing. He transports the loser red monster back to his home planet and the Hulk gets to take the Ultimate machine back to Earth. Once he is back inside the Leader’s hangout, the Leader snatches the golden orb away from him and lets it form around his big head. At first the Leader is deliriously happy as he can feel the Ultimate Machine fill him with enough power to make all of mankind his slaves. His happiness is cut short as he soon begins to realize that something is wrong. He panics briefly, before seemingly dying as the Hulk looks on in bewilderment.

Bad art or bowel movement?

Jack: The pages used to reproduce this story for the Essentials volume must have been in bad shape, because the art looks terrible, even for the Grade Z team of Bob Powell and Mickey Demeo. Though it was supposedly “designed” by Jack Kirby, I’m hard pressed to see evidence of it. I found this story boring until the last page, where it suddenly gets interesting. The Leader is dead? Not so fast.

Tom: Great Marvel fisticuffs action. This story seems to be the precursor to when the Hulk series started turning into a regular smackdown each issue, with Jade Jaws always going up against some villainous opponent who would try to knock his block off. The big, red, fish critter that got defeated in this story is sort of a lost classic villain of the Hulk. He would come back again every once in awhile to engage the Hulk in further tests of fighting, but he never received the popularity of other Hulk antagonists like the Abomination, Rhino, Leader, or Absorbing Man.

Don't you mean BARRROOOOOM!?

Jack: I would mention that this story reminds me of Fredric Brown’s “Arena” and the Outer Limits episode “Fun and Games,” but that would just get me in more trouble.

PE: Don't worry Jack, Schow doesn't read this blog.

Avengers 23

Our Story

Having quit the Avengers, Steve Rogers takes a job as a sparring partner for a champion boxer, though he races back to Avengers mansion as soon as he hears that the Avengers have disappeared. They have been kidnapped by Kang the Conqueror and brought to his future world, where he wants to display his prowess so that Princess Ravonna will agree to marry him. The Avengers fight hard and are soon joined by Captain America, whose challenge to Kang led to his also being brought to the future. The battle is not going well and, when Ravonna spurns Kang’s advances, he sets his army toward destroying her kingdom, with only the Avengers poised to stop him.

Jack: Kang was always one of my favorite Marvel villains, and his appearance, which had varied from story to story up to this point, is really beginning to take shape under the guiding artistic hands of Don Heck and John Romita. Romita’s inks really dominate Heck’s pencils (as did Wally Wood’s last issue), making this a feast for the eyes, at least for this long-time Romita fan. It also seems like Captain America is starting to look the way I remember him looking from the early 70s. Last of all, I want to praise Kirby’s terrific cover!

PE: Kang says his century fears him but that's a hollow triumph when coupled with the major defeats he's suffered at the hands of The Avengers. He then decides that taking them on now that they lack any super power whatsoever would be great fun. Talk about a hollow victory! And none of the remaining Avengers (Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, Quicksilver) were even involved in the past quarrels, so how is that revenge? He is brilliant though, flying into town in a UFO that resembles the top of Avengers Mansion. The "Mighty" Avengers walk right into his trap, then look at each other quizzically and ask each other if there really was a 12th floor to Avengers Mansion. Heck's art gets completely lost in John Romita's inks. That's a good thing. The pleasure of "Jazzy" Johnny's presence will be felt only for only this issue, unfortunately, before we're subjected to the underwhelming duo of Heck and Ayers on art chores. As Ronnie Van Zant once elegantly put it: "Somebody show me the back door."

MB: Stan really puts the new Avengers to the test, pitting Cap’s Kooky Quartet Minus Cap against one of the Assemblers’ toughest foes, Kang. I’ve always found his relationship with Princess Ravonna interesting because, as her father points out, he really does love her, in his own weird way, and even she admits she might reciprocate if he weren’t such a, well, conqueror. We get an early Silver Age credit for legend-in-waiting John Romita, whose inking—like Wood’s—complements but does not overshadow Heck’s pencils (oddly, those training-camp scenes almost smacked, if you’ll pardon the pun, of Frank Robbins), while Stan’s obviously having a whale of a time writing Kang’s dialogue: “Silence! Your punishment will be swift and severe! Now go!”

PE: On the letters page, Stan admits that the "Marvel Pop Art Productions" logo that ran on the covers of all the Marvel Comics from August through November 1965 was a mistake. Ostensibly, it was used to try to draw in older fans looking for advanced reading fare.

Strange Tales 139

Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD

Our Story

Hydra’s “most potent hypnotic devices” are unable to wrest the secret of the Braino-saur from Fury’s subconscious, so their leader plans to wait and execute him after the world has surrendered. Stark reveals the Braino-saur’s purpose—to disarm the betatron bomb in orbit—and supervises its blast-off, while Jones and Dugan spearhead a last-ditch effort to locate and rescue Fury. Analyzing the guidance system of the captured Hydra-Ram reveals its point of origin, and the boys fire it up to look for Fury, who uses both his explosive shirt and an offer of assistance from the Hydra leader’s right-thinking daughter, Agent G, to escape his cell, so they shoot it out with human goons and battle the mechanical Hunter as S.H.I.E.L.D. arrives.

MB: After an enjoyably metafictional cover that depicts Dr. Strange reading Nick Fury’s adventures in Strange Tales, we’re mixing it up here at S.H.I.E.L.D. today: the cartoony Severin style has given way to Joltin’ Joe Sinnott’s finished art over Kirby’s pencils, while Hydra’s head honcho is referred to variously as Imperial Hydra and by his better-known name, Supreme. Somehow, that suits the ups and downs of this uneven strip, which seems to have overcome its sophomore slump with a combination of breakneck action, incredible gadgets, and trademark Furyisms (“We ain’t even got time to bake a cake!”). We learn all about food “reduced by energy compression,” and Howlers fans will be glad to see the climactic attack accompanied by a lusty “Wah-hoooo!”

JS: At least Hydra has their priorities right—the food service for their prisoners is top notch. Thanks Stan for the explanation how a pile of sand turned into a steak. If he hadn't explained how a pile of dust turned into a cooked slice of meat and then a sandwich, well, I might have been taken out of the story.

PE: Ironically, the problem I had with this issue is the art. I know. I know. Just two issues ago I was complaining about Severin's art and here I am complaining about a replacement. Sinnott's art is way too cartoony for me. It's not bad (Ayers on SHIELD would be bad), don't get me wrong, it's just not right for this strip. But for the science fiction trappings, this could be an issue of Sgt. Fury (complete with five o'clock shadow). I thought it hilarious when Imperial Hydra discovers that his own daughter has released Fury and moans "Where have I failed as a father?" Stan promises next issue will see "the long-awaited end of Hydra" but I think he's pulling our collective leg.

Jack: After getting used to John Severin, we get Kirby and Sinnott, which is not a bad trade off. I would like to know more about energy compression and its uses in food service. What was with the Hydra agent in the last panel holding a red, white and blue shield that read “Priority A-1”? Or was it floating in front of him?

Doctor Strange

Our Story

It’s a tag-team throwdown between Dr. Strange and Mordo, with the Ancient One out of his coma and able to give a wee power boost along with advice to the good doctor. Mordo’s power is supplemented by that of Dormammu, as Clea watches helplessly by the Dreaded One’s side. Dr. Strange uses his wits to make the Baron look bad, but as the story ends it looks like Dormammu has had enough of sitting on the sidelines.

Jack: This was an unusually exciting episode, even though it is basically just Dr. Strange and Mordo casting spells at each other. When will we learn Clea’s name? Ditko’s pencils and inks are very strong, producing some of his best art.

MB: As with the concurrent issue of Spider-Man, this story’s plot is no longer attributed to Ditko; he and Stan are simply credited with “art” and “script,” as they will be next month, but after that, things start to get interesting. Regardless of its pedigree, this excellent episode ratchets up the tension even further and, like the cinematic serials that form its structural model, begins with an exact rerun of the prior chapter’s ending. We haven’t seen this much interplay between Strange and the (conscious) Ancient One for a long time, and although the arc has yet to reach its climax with next issue’s Doc/Dormammu rematch, we can already see how the wisdom Eternity spoke of enables Strange to outfight Mordo in spite of his extra power.

JS: While I'm looking forward to the Dormammu showdown, I have to admit I'm a little disappointed that Mordo isn't living up to the arch-enemy I thought he would be when he was introduced.

Tales of Suspense 72

Iron Man

Our Story

The world has become Iron Man-crazy thanks to his defeat of The Titanium Man last issue. Well, most of the world loves Shellhead, that is. Not Countess, who still harbors a grudge against Tony for standing her up months before. To get even, she hires The Mad Thinker and his Android to find out Iron Man's real identity. To that end, The Thinker has his android kidnap Tony Stark to get to the truth. Stark isn't about to give up his moonlighting job however and a melee ensues. The Thinker once again is shown up for the fraud he really is when Iron Man blows up the villain's lair and his Android to boot. All is not peaches and cream though as, once he returns to his factory, Tony Strak is told that Happy Hogan has taken a turn for the worse.

PE: Pepper Potts has her character expanded this issue. She becomes more of a complex girl: usually she can't figure out who she loves more, Pepper or Tony (the scales usually tip in favor of the hunk in trouble that issue). Now, however, she's discarded her hatred for Iron Man and transferred it to Tony Stark. She now, in the words of Stark, has "a new hero worship for Iron Man." This could get complicated if she ever finds out who I.M. really is. It'll be an ever-revolving love/hate relationship.

JS: The android is a kooky creature to be sure, but when he gets Iron Manned, it's just plain silly looking.

PE: Why are newsrooms "thruout the nation" clamoring for Iron Man's real identity? Do they pay this much attention to the aliases of Giant Man, Captain America or Spider-Man? Why, for that matter, does everyone in this comic suddenly have the desire to have I.M. unmasked? Is this some sort of evil plot of The Mandarin's? No mention this issue of The Thinker's new look? He looks younger, more buff and that thing on his head's gotta be a rug. He's also got a bit more of the hepcat in his dialogue balloons (at one point, he tells Tony Stark that it's "deadly dangerous to defy the Thinker!") And here we go again. If The Mad Thinker is so smart and can figure anything out, why does he have to kidnap Tony Stark to find out Iron Man's true identity? Couldn't any villain perform that task?

JS: He must have been the Super Villain who was on call that day.

PE: The new, classic exclamations are piling up around here. My landlord asked why my TV was so loud and I answered "What in the name of a thousand transistors are you talking about?"

Captain America

Our Story

Captain America has just finished telling another bedtime story to Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and Pietro. Melancholy from thoughts of fallen comrade Bucky Barnes, Cap retires for the evening, but can't seem to get the past out of his mind. In his dreams he sees The Red Skull, during their last battle of World War II, laying defeated amidst the rubble. When Cap approaches him, The Skull explains that his beloved Third Reich will live on through his three "sleepers" who will awake in 1965. Cap discovers the secret of the "sleepers" when the first awakes in Bavaria. Our Man of Stars and Stripes engages the giant robot in battle but soon realizes that the contraption has no interest in little battles as it stomps off to rendezvous with his two slumbering brothers.

PE: As I surmised last issue, Stan was becoming weary of the WWII Cap dramas and transports him back to the present day for his solo adventures. Well, sorta... The major cliffhanger last issue: would Pvt. Steve Rogers be courtmartialed for desertion is explained away offhandedly by Cap in a couple of word balloons. I didn't buy Stan's explanation that the higher-ups in the Army knew that Rogers and Cap were one in the same so he could never really be in trouble. If that were so, why would Steve be nervous about his desertion? And did the higher-ups know who Bucky was as well? Anyway, it turns out that the stories told in the last few issues were actually camp fire tales told by Cap to his Avengers partners (including a too-friendly and over-admiring Hawkeye).

JS: What a disappointment! I was thinking we were in for a longer run of WWII tales.

PE: I thought the sequence where The Skull lies defeated and confesses to Cap that his dream ain't over just yet was very effective. Not knowing what the "Sleepers" were (I hadn't read this arc before), my mind wandered to The Boys From Brazil and its similar scenario. I do have a major continuity question though: after his Skull dream, Steve Rogers rises from bed and opens the metal box he took from the Red Skull before a cave-in prevented him from interrogating his nemesis further. Our hero comments that he's kept the box "all these years... waiting for this moment." Where did he keep that box? Did he have a locker somewhere that survived the twenty years he was in hibernation? What else was kept in that locker besides that cute pic of Bucky he keeps framed next to his bed.

JS: The idea of the sleepers is far better than the execution. THOOM! THOOM! THOOM! THOOM! indeed.

PE: I like the first part of this arc well enough. There's the mystery of the sleepers and the enormity of the first weapon when it's woken, the anticipation of an appearance by The Red Skull (you know it's going to happen eventually), and the ease in which Stan slides back and forth between the 1940s and 60s. I just can't stand this art. Tuska's Nazi burgomeister could have stepped out of a Mad parody and the Sleeper (which should be awe-inspiring) resembles a coffee pot with boots. We should be happy it doesn't have trunks, right? What Kirby could have done with this strip! Art aside though, I'm still looking forward to future installments.

The X-Men 15

Our Story

Iceman and The Beast are captured by The Sentinels and taken into their underground fortress. There The Beast is bombarded with a Mental Psycho-Probe and forced to relate how he became The Beast and an X-Man. His partners manage to release Iceman from a glass prison but, on the way to rescue Hank, are rendered immobile by The Sentinels. The head Sentinel, Master Mold, delivers an ultimatum to his creator, Bolivar Trask: create enough Sentinels to rule Earth or die.

PE: A good enough second chapter to this story line but The Sentinels still look like little play robots to me, no sense of danger at all. We get a few more high-falutin' gizmos: The weapons mounted inside the Sentinels' bunker are labeled "Nature Activator Rays" by Xavier. Later, Hank McCoy falls victim to the Mental Psycho-Probe. I always wonder if Stan ever did any homework with these contraptions or if he'd just throw two cool-sounding words together and fly by the seat of his pants.

Sentinels by Mattel?

JS: Once again, I'm able to appreciate the Sentinels knowing how they will be used in the years ahead. Sure, they're probably the most impractical means of dealing with Mutants (and not very effective at this stage in their development), but there's something about them that remains interesting. I'll be curious to see if the next generation of Sentinels will be described as being of the Master Mold size.

MB: Now monthly for the first time, as Daredevil will be starting with his next issue, our merry mutants take the battle inside Master Mold’s fortress in the second segment of the original Sentinels trilogy. I’ve now learned that penciler “Jay Gavin” was a pseudonym for Werner Roth; this time out, the King and Dick Ayers are the Moe and Curly to his Larry, and—to give a single example—the anguished shot of Trask in page 7, panel 4 looks like he wandered in from a totally different mag. Just as we learned about Xavier’s hateful upbringing with Cain Marko while the Juggernaut battered at the gates, this battle is intercut with the biography of the bouncing Beast.

PE: And a lazy origin it is, Professor Matthew. There's nothing that smacks or originality to it. It's cut and pasted from other heroes. Exposed to radiation. Picked on as a kid. Misunderstood. Interchangeable with a half dozen other super guys.

JS: It did come across as a 'filler' origin story. But I was never a big Beast fan until he got the blue fur...

The Amazing Spider-Man 31

Our Story

Spider-Man busts up a robbery by the henchmen of The Master Planner (a villain who's crossed paths with the web-slinger under a different guise) but the bad guys still manage to cart off the expensive scientific equipment to their undersea lair. Meanwhile, Peter Parker has his first day at ESU, a whirlwind of activity that nearly succeeds in knocking the teen flat. That finally occurs when he gets home and his Aunt May collapses and must be taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Distraught, the teen spends his days sleepwalking through his classes and seeking out crime at night in order to pay bills with his photography. Parker is so muddle-headed at school that he doesn't notice the new students around him, including future girlfriend Gwen Stacy and future best friend Harry Osborn. Believing Peter to be egotistical (rather than sleepy) the fellow classmates chirp about his bad manners. When Spidey breaks up another robbery of equipment, The Master Planner vows it will be the last time Webhead meddles in a bad guy's business.

PE: Gosh, it's confusing keeping all the Master Planner verbiage straight this issue. Why, in one sequence, Plan "G" is carried out and Task Force "R" is sent to recover the spoils of said plan. It's no wonder these henchmen bumble as much as the superheroes. Can you just imagine all these teams on the battlefield. Captain America yells out "All right, Hawkeye, execute Plan "G" now!" and both sides execute their own Plan "G" at the same time? It could get ugly! What's even more confusing is that Professor X has Iceman execute a "Plan G" in this month's X-Men. I wonder if Marvel superheroes have some kind of protocol for this if they're working together on a case. "Now, look," says Professor X, "under no circumstances are we to execute Plan Z while we're helping out Iron Man. I've studied his paperwork and his Plan Z is the opposite of ours."

JS: Do you think Stan was being lazy, or was he cribbing the alphabet soup planning from some other source?

PE: I'm not sure how this story went over with 1965 readers -- too much talking heads, not enough action? -- but to this Marvel maniac, one who knows what happens years in the future to the newly introduced Gwen Stacy and Harry Osborn, this is pure eye candy. In one issue we're introduced to the girl who finally won Peter Parker's heart (for the first time) and then took a tragic header off a bridge and the man who would become Peter's dearest friend, a junkie, a schizophrenic and, finally, the apple that didn't fall far from the tree. Ditko's version of Gwen hypes the bombshell aspect whereas, with time and other artists, we come to know her as a "nice girl." I remember being an eleven year old kid when "that event" happened in The Amazing Spider-Man #121 and actually shedding a few tears. Nothing that I'd read in a comic book had ever had such an effect on me and nothing has since. If pushed, I'd offer that run of #121 through #149 as my Golden Age of Spider-Man (yep, Spider-Clone included!). Now, what were we discussing?

MB: This is certainly a “major life changes” issue for Peter, featuring not only the oft-ailing Aunt May’s biggest health challenge to date, but also the start of his career at ESU and the debuts of Harry Osborn [insert Dragnet sting], Gwen Stacy, and Professor Warren. It bespeaks Stan’s maturing scripting, and Spidey’s impressive array of characters and subplots, that we’re quite happy to have the business with the Master Planner—whose identity I believe I remembered while reading this story—take a decided back seat. For the girl who became Peter’s tragic love interest, Gwendy seems awfully shallow here, yet what’s really disorienting is to see her and Harry, so firmly associated with John Romita, rendered by Ditko, who is now no longer credited as plotter [Dragnet sting optional] and reverts to the panel-heavy format to cram it all in.

JS: Unfortunately knowing that Aunt May still has quite a few decades left in her makes her 'episodes' far less dramatic.

Aunt May is going to die. Take three.

PE: A fabulous issue, one of the best Spideys thus far. I'm not quite sure why The Master Planner wants his real identity hidden from the world he's about to conquer but I'll chalk it up to a good mystery. This is one of those issues that makes you want to skip ahead and read the next one right now!

JS: Despite her occasionally exhibiting the early warning signs of Ditko-head, Gwen Stacy is a unique looking babe in the Marvel Universe. Now, how much longer before we get normal looking characters in Spider-Man?

1965 Year-End Review

At the end of 1964, Marvel was publishing seven monthly superhero comics, two bi-monthly superhero comics, a monthly war comic, three bi-monthly westerns, and four humor comics, two of which were monthly. From a distribution standpoint, things did not change very much in 1965. By the end of the year, the two bi-monthly superhero comics had just gone monthly (Daredevil and X-Men), and one of the bi-monthly humor comics was about to end its run (Patsy Walker).

More important to us, though, were the changes in the contents of the superhero books. New artists like Wally Wood and John Severin were changing what the comics looked like—no longer was Marvel a three-person company made up of Lee, Kirby and Ditko, with occasional contributions by other creators. This trend would pick up steam in 1966, as Stan Lee’s (alleged) attempt to write all of the comics singlehandedly would slow down.

As for the contents, new heroes and villains were introduced, many of whom would last a long time in the Marvel Universe: Ka-Zar, Medusa, the Absorbing Man, Hawkeye, the Black Widow, the Juggernaut, and Hercules were all either introduced or featured more prominently in this year’s issues. Reed Richards and Sue Storm tied the knot, and the Sleepers awoke.

And the MU professors are eternally grateful for two events that occurred in comics with an August 1965 cover date: Sub-Mariner replaced Giant-Man in Tales to Astonish, and Nick Fury replaced the Human Torch in Strange Tales. Those two series changes alone led to a significant improvement in the content of the monthly books (and a more than significant improvement in our mental health-Prof. P).

By the end of 1965, the Merry Marvel Marching Society was in full swing, Marvel merchandise was being sold in house ads, the Bullpen Bulletins were beginning to take shape, and the Marvel revolution was about to begin. In 1966, things would explode, as a TV series would bring Marvel characters into millions of homes.

Also this month

Marvel Collectors' Item Classics #1
Millie the Model #133
Modeling with Millie #44
Patsy and Hedy #103
Patsy Walker #124 (final issue)
Rawhide Kid #49
Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos #25

SOME HIGHLIGHTS

Marvel Collectors' Item Classics was created for much the same reason as Marvel Tales: to make money off comics that had already been published. Not that that was a bad thing since the collectors' market at the time was microcosmic and finding those elusive first few issues of your favorite Marvel title was nigh impossible. Back then, not many readers cared about 9.2 grading and mylar bags so reprints in a big jumbo package was the proverbial "present under the Christmas tree." The first issue reprints (in their entirety, says Stan "The Man"): Fantastic Four #2, The Ant-Man story from Tales to Astonish #36, Tales of Asgard from Journey Into Mystery #97, and The Amazing Spider-Man #3. The title would continue to reprint, chronologically, Fantastic Four and a variety of other strips (with a retitling of Marvel's Greatest Comics with its 23rd issue) until it was reduced in size with #34 when it focused exclusively on FF reprints. It lasted 96 issues.

Marvel Collectors' Item Classics! #9: The Pre-Torch Strange Tales!

2012-02-19T07:00:00.000-08:00

DIGGING DEEPER

The Pre-Torch Strange Tales Part One

by Peter Enfantino

How in the hell did fans of the pre-MU comics manage to support their fiendish habit on a meager budget in the early days of fandom? Imagine attaining a dog-eared copy of Menace #1, loving it, and realizing there are ten more issues out there somewhere just clamoring to be part of the wasteland that is your library! Then once you have those 11 issues, you'd want to collect all the other pre-MU horror and fantasy titles. But wait, that's not enough, how about those gritty war titles? The westerns? And don't forget that Atlas actually published superhero comics as well in the 1950s. Not too many, but just enough to make a serious dent in your allowance. According to the reliable source I use (more on that later) there were 4488 issues of 330 titles published. If you're a completist, you'd look once over either shoulder, throw down a couple of tens for Love Romance #15, and insist to collector friends it was only because it contained Bill Everett's "Don't Cry, My Heart!" I wouldn't mock you, friend, as I had every issue of Night Nurse at one time. Ah, but now it's quite a bit easier thanks to modern technology and the almighty dollar.

With the advent of Marvel's wonderful Masterworks series, suddenly fans could enjoy the Golden and Silver Ages of Marvel Comics, printed on archival paper. At the onset, the company (understandably) kept their publishing schedule stocked with the better-known titles such as Fantastic Four and The Amazing Spider-Man. Once the line got up and running and began to sell in higher numbers, chances were taken and some of the lesser-known titles were dusted off and given a bright sheen. Titles that the majority of collectors had only seen hanging on pegboards at conventions could now be enjoyed at a relatively affordable price. To date, 174 volumes of Marvel Masterworks have been issued with 9 more already planned through the next seven months. At $60 a pop (or $35-40 on Amazon), these are obviously much more affordable than trying to collect the originals (just by way of example, if you were to seek out the first ten issues of Strange Tales you might be looking at about $4300 for the "real things" as opposed to $40 for the Strange Tales Masterworks Volume One on Amazon or eBay). Marvel has, in recent years, also been reprinting their better selling titles in a trade paperback format and one can hope they'll apply this attractive repackaging to the more "niche" books.

Since Marvel University's scope only covers the titles and numbers published from November 1961 on, I thought it might be interesting to have a look in the way-back machine at some of the books that provided the foundation for the coming Marvel revolution. We'll begin with the first ten issues of Strange Tales, published from June 1951 through September 1952. Strange, of course, became a showcase for first the Human Torch (#101-134) and later Dr. Strange (#110-168), and Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD (#135-168), before being dry-docked for a few years. But here's where it gets complicated. After Issue #168, the comic was re-titled Doctor Strange and continued the numbering until #183, when it was cancelled in November 1969. When Marvel decided to resuscitate the title in September 1973 (with another supernaturally-tinged hero, Brother Voodoo), they continued the numbering from the old series yet again. Brother Voodoo ran from #169 (Sept. 1973) through #173 (April 1974) and then relinquished the title to the Golem for three issues, Warlock for four, and Dr. Strange and golden age monster reprints for the balance before hitting the comic graveyard again with #188 (November 1976). The title Strange Tales was used by Marvel a few more times over the years (the most notable being as an anthology featuring 10 page stories starring Cloak and Dagger and Dr. Strange) but I believe contemporary comic readers are not fond of the anthology concept so the "reboots" are always short-lived. Thus far, Marvel has seen fit to issue the first 48 issues of Strange Tales in five Masterworks volumes.

More important than a preserved monster?

The original Strange Tales was filled with tepid "horror" and fantasy stories. There's a reason why you won't see too many of the "strange tales" from the first half dozen issues reprinted in those glorious 1970s Marvel monster showcases (Where Monsters Dwell, Beware, Dead of Night, etc.). The stories aren't involving and the pretty pictures accompanying them really aren't that pretty. There's a lot of very sketchy art.

"The Egg" (from issue #2) is representative of the sort of bland "horror" and fantasy that made up the first few issues of Strange Tales. Canadian scientist Sir Alexander Laurier is summoned to the estate of Sir Humphrey Devonshire one cold Christmas Eve, where he is shown aerial pictures of a giant egg discovered on the Arctic Circle. The next day, a group of four of the scientists fly up (without notifying any authorities whatsoever) in a cargo plane and confront the huge white oval. Since this is the snow-covered Arctic Circle, you'd assume the colorist would naturally leave the ground around the egg a nice white tone rather than the orange or green they settle on. Curiously absent from the professors are any kind of instruments, gauges, pencil and paper or, believe it or not, snowsuits. This would have to be the warmest icy environment ever recorded. The professors decide that this is the greatest discovery man has yet to find but, rather than study it a bit, they feel it best to ram a hole into the egg with a nearby log. Through the hole geysers a black goo that eats anything around it, including two of the scientists. Only one, Laurier, manages to make it back to civilization, where he tells of the world-eating ooze. Deemed a nutcase by the society he's trying to protect, Laurier is institutionalized, but escapes and convinces an old friend to loan him a dive bomber and a one thousand pound bomb. Armed only with steel nerves, prayers, and a really big explosive device, the ostracized professor flies right into ground zero and blasts the goo to... well, smaller bits of goo, I guess. Once on the ground, it's discovered that the egg was actually a spaceship, the first wave of an invasion of aliens from the planet Goo. Okay, I made up that last bit about the planet name but all the other events in the story, we're told, are based on an actual incident. Only the names and the clothing choices were changed.

This was a time before horror comics were saturated with explicit gore and implicit sex, so the first few issues were mild, but over the course of the first thirty or so issues the violence escalated. The first Comics Code-approved issue was #35 and soon after began the rain of "I Withstood the March of the Giant Blowfish" tales that populated Strange Tales when we first fell into its stratosphere circa November 1961. The most striking aspect of Strange Tales, to me, is the captivating cover art throughout the run, contributed chiefly by Carl Burgos, Joe Maneely, and Sol Brodsky.

Take, for example, the cover of #52 (reprinted at the bottom of the page). According to Atlas Tales, a wonderful website that's dedicated to pre-Marvel Universe Atlas (I guarantee you'll spend hours lost in its Marvel-ousness), the art may or may not be by Carl Burgos. Take a good look at its deceptively simple scene. What the hell is going on there? Since this is a "Strange Tale," it could be just about anything. Is it a giant man dwarfing a small village (at which point we ask, "How Can We Not Find You?") or some crazed killer up the road waiting to pounce? It's a shame that, for the most part, the contents of ST didn't live up to the wonder and awe that filled the comic consumer when viewing the cover. But, of course, with 4 to 5 stories per issue, there were bound to be some highlights. Here are some stand-out stories from the first ten issues:

The Evil Eye (6 pages, art by Bill Everett, from ST #4). Scientists assume that the huge object deep in space which has popped up in their telescopes is a new star but the closer it gets to earth, the more apparent it becomes that it's a giant eye. Only one man, Professor Lyle Chambers knows the secret of The Evil Eye but is he mad or is he responsible for bringing this monstrosity to our atmosphere? Death, destruction, and wild scientist hair equals everything you could ask for in a 1951 science fiction comic story. And it's got a nice art job by the legendary Bill Everett to boot. Just about anything Everett worked on was worth... looking at.

The Room Without a Door (7 pages, Joe Maneely, from ST #5). Obsessed with time travel, nutty Professor Wilkins has turned his back on science and instead seeks the "truth" through black magic. His colleagues all plead with him to stop the madness but Wilkins won't listen. One day, he sees an article in the newspaper about the relative of Roxanna Narrse, a famous witch who was burned at the stake in 1692. The old woman, Albitra Narrse lives in an old house that, she claims, contains a "room without a door" and Wilkins makes it his goal to attain the old house. He pays the back taxes owed on the rickety mansion and has Albitra tossed out on her ancient behind. Wilkins tears the house apart until he finds the fabled "room without a door," a small box covered with wallpaper. He breaks the box open and is transported back in time just as he always had hoped. Unfortunately for the professor, he ends up in 1692 and he's burned at the stake as a witch. Nonsensical and clumsy but enjoyable nonetheless if only for Joe Maneely's art. Albitra Narrse is about as crone-ish as you can get.

Uninhabited (6 pages, Russ Heath, from ST #6). The story's been told a million times before (or maybe it's been told a million times since?). Earth crew land on the moon, where 15 rocketships have landed and mysteriously disappeared, and find nothing there. Nothing that should alarm them. Then, one by one, the crew begin disappearing and only when we're down to our final spaceman do we find out that it's the moon itself that's swallowing up our boys. As I said, the story itself doesn't scream award-winning but the art, by Russ Heath, elevates it to Weird Fantasy-worthy. That's saying something since WF (and its sister Weird Science) pumped out the best science fiction comics of the 1950s (and, some would argue, of all time). Heath was only 25 years old and had just started drawing for Atlas three years before but he already had a style that separated itself from the mostly generic work being done on the company's anthology books. Heath would later find fame at DC working with Robert Kanigher on their war books (in particular, the "Haunted Tank" strip he co-created with Kanigher for G.I. Combat). Oddly enough, his most famous pieces of art may have been the jobs he did for a toy company that ran on the back covers of comic books for several years. "204 Revolutionary War Soldiers! Only $1.98!" screamed the ad and millions took the company up on its offer. There were several variations on that art (one depicted Roman soldiers). Heath's overhead splash to "Uninhabited" is a classic worth framing. It fills the reader with a sense of unease and wonder. What could this guy be running from (or to)? His climax, where we see our sole survivor being sucked under the moon's surface, while his thought balloon lets us know he can feel something chewing on him from below, perfectly illustrates why, in some Strange Tales, it's even creepier not to see the monster.

It's no coincidence that when Gene Colan began drawing strips for Strange Tales, the title took an immediate upswing in quality. As I've noted above, Maneely, Everett, and Heath all drew Strange Tales beautifully but Gene Colan penciled his Strange Tales differently. Those familiar with Colan's later work on Marvel's Sub-Mariner and Daredevil strips might not recognize his style here (though it does rear its head now and then). His two contributions to the first ten issues of Strange Tales, He Wished He Was a Vampire (5 pages, from ST #7) and The Old Mill (5 pages, from ST #8), are jam-packed with visual delights (I wish that I could do more than sample here but I'm afraid Marvel's legendary legal department may swoop in and shut us down) obviously inspired by film noir. Amidst a lot of stories that look similar, Gene's stories are like a bucket of ice water dumped on a sleeping man. "He Wished" is the amusing story of a boy who wishes he was a vampire and then discovers he was adopted as a child and his real father is a card-carrying member of the undead. Again, not a story that evokes discussion afterwards but one that's infused with chills and a nasty sense of humor.

Strange Tales grows up

"The Old Mill" could be tagged as "The Beginning of the EC era at Atlas" as it has a wallop in its climax worthy of a Tale from the Crypt. Our narrator goes to work for the sadistic mill owner, Kurt Braun, who believes in taking a slice of hide for every dollar he pays. Initially willing to put up with the abuse to earn a wage, our man soon finds working for Herr Braun to be more than taxing, it could cost him his life. After Braun catches his worker mislabeling a bag of wheat, a fight ensues and the mill owner is killed. The next day, village men come to pick up sacks of flour and discover one labeled Kurt and one Braun. Our story teller has disappeared. Two milestones here: a gruesome death (albeit one handled off-screen and left to our imagination) and a killer who gets away. No swift justice doled out to the murderer. The mill owner's corpse doesn't rise from the sacks and reassemble to meet his killer on the moors as he escapes. Well, maybe that did happen after our climax. Who knows?

The Genius of Gene

Tap! Tap! Tap! (4 pages, Joe Sinnott, from ST #7). Of all the stories I picked as the best of the litter from the first ten issues, this is probably the weakest. Communist sub commander Zorko (played by a never- more-sadistic Ernest Borgnine) orders his men to submerge while helpless crewman Gorz, who had been making repairs outside the sub, drowns. Once at the bottom of the ocean, the crewmen hear a mysterious tapping outside the ship, a noise that gives away their location on the bottom of the sea. The destroyer topside cripples the sub and when it surfaces, all can see the crewman stuck outside the ship, hammer still held in his hand. Nope, not much to it but I loved the almost Jack Davis-like panels of the sweating crewmen, terrified of two menaces: the dead man who may have come back to exact his revenge and the all-too-real threat of the American destroyer above them.

Fame (4 pages, Manny Stallman, from ST #8). Vance Roamer will do anything to hit it big in show business. The problem is, Vance has no talent and he's constantly reminded of the fact by casting agents and directors. The would-be thespian hits on a grand idea to make people notice: he rents a nice tuxedo, top hat and cane and performs before the biggest audience he's ever had. Everyone wants him. He's in the spotlight. People reaching out for him. Vance Roamer knows there only one way to achieve a greater fame in the end... so he steps off the rooftop. Wow! A Day of the Locust -esque look at the desire for fame and how it can destroy you. A unique Strange Tale, for me, in that the art (not credited but attributed to Manny Stallman) takes a back seat to the searing script. Vance Roamer isn't the usual bad guy that terrible things happen to, he just wants to be an actor. Roamer's final step off into his adoring fans is a lasting image. Not bad for a 4 page comic story.

The Monster's Son (5 pages, Jim Mooney, from ST #10). Turns out the Frankenstein Monster was a brilliant scientist as well and created himself a son. Why he did this is anyone's guess. The first wife was a nag and he decided not to give it another shot? So the Monster creates a life-like mask for his son and then releases him into the world. Our narrator travels to Castle Frankenstein to investigate this strange tale, stumbles on the monster who's still alive, and falls to his death while trying to escape. Of course, in the climax, the monster unmasks the man to show us our narrator was his son the whole time.

The Frightful Feet (5 pages, Bill Benulis, from ST #10) Carl hunts rabbits to separate them from their feet until the rabbits begin to recognize the yellow shoes the hunter wears and they hide. Carl goes chasing a stray rabbit one day and falls in a huge rabbit hole. The rabbits gather round the fallen man and somehow separate Carl from his feet and make his feet lucky charms (complete with key chain!). I can see some poor kid being ruined by the cutey pie bunnies turned carnivore. Issue #10 has a stronger than usual line-up. In addition to "The Monster's Son" and "The Frightful Feet," we're treated to the apocalyptic "The Boy Who Was Afraid," and "The Hidden Head," a cautionary tale about plastic surgery involving a Hitler twin (the punchline of which is spoiled on the splash page!). Like "The Frightful Feet," this one comes with a delightfully gruesome art job.

The Stories
(I've indicated an artist where the art is signed with *. Other artist credits come from Marvel Masterworks 85: Strange Tales Volume 1 (Marvel, 2007) )
#1

The Strange Men - Who Are They? (Paul Reinman)
The Beast (Manny Stallman)
The Room That Didn't Exist
A Call in the Night (George Tuska)

#2
The Egg! (Morris Marcus)
Trapped in the Tomb! (Norman Steinberg*)
The Pin! (Russ Heath*)
The Island of Madness (Ed Moore)

#3
The Shadow! (Joe Maneely*)
The Man who Never Was! (Les Zakarin/John Romita*)
Invisible Death (Mike Sekowsky)
The Madman! (Maneely*)
Voodoo (Bill LaCava)

#4
The Evil Eye (Bill Everett)
Dial... City Morgue! (Sol Brodsky)
It! (John Romita)

#10

The Man on the Beach! (Bill LaCava)

#5
The Room Without a Door (Maneely*)
The Little Man Who Was There (Jim Mooney)
The Trap (Manny Stallman)
My Brother Harry (Tony DiPreta*)

#6
Uninhabited (Heath*)
The Eyes of March! (Sy Grudko*)
The Back Door! (Pete Morisi*)
The Killers! (Harry Lazarus)
The Ugly Man (Vern Henkel)

#7
My Brother Talks to Bats! (Maneely*)
He Wished He Was a Vampire (Gene Colan*)
Tap! Tap! Tap! (Joe Sinnott*)
Who Stands in the Shadows (Pete Tumlinson)
The Horrible Man (Werner Roth)

#8

#52

The Old Mill (Colan)
Fame (Manny Stallman)
The Storm (Vic Carrabotta)
Something in the Fog! (Ed Goldfarb/Bob Baer)
If the Shoe Fits (Maneely)

#9
Blind Date (Sekowsky)
The Strange Game (Marty Elkin)
The Man from Mars Bob Fujitani)
Drink Deep, Vampire (Sinnott)
The Voice of Doom! (Bill Benulis)

#10
The Boy Who Was Afraid (Bernie Krigstein)
The Monster's Son (Jim Mooney)
The Frightful Feet! (Benulis)
The Hidden Head (Ed Winiarski)
Keep Out! (Dick Ayers)

Next Up: Delights from Issues #11-20.

November 1965: Dr. Strange Meets Eternity! Plus The Sentinels Strike!

2012-02-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

Tales of Suspense 71

Iron Man

Our Story

Thinking his friend, gofer, and chauffeur Happy Hogan dead, Iron Man seeks to avenge him by taking down his killer, The Titanium Man, on worldwide television. Once Shellhead uses his reverser ray on the commie sonnavagun, it's just a one-two punch to victory. Happily, Hogan is revealed to be on life support (well, happily in that he ain't dead just yet) and at a nearby hospital. Iron Man skips his victory parade to be with his valet. The (COMMIE ALERT!) Russians cry foul and head home to lick their wounds.

PE: Evidently Tony Stark is a genius but lousy at taking a pulse. He's so worried about Titanium Man's patented "Shatter-Blast Ray" that he doesn't even realize Happy Hogan has been carted away to the hospital right under Shellhead's nose. We don't even know what's ailing our favorite coffee fetcher. All we know is that only one surgeon in the world can save him and luckily the doctor on duty at the hospital knows how to reach him. This is a bizarre little story in that Iron Man defeats Titanium Man early on and the rest of the tale is merely wrap-up. Lots of soap opera pap as usual with Pepper Potts and her on/off love affair with both Tony and Happy.

MB: Once upon a time, when “I.M.” stood for “Iron Man,” rather than “instant messaging,” there was a super hero…ah, skip it. I missed the middle chapter of our little Titanium Trilogy, but the ending is enjoyable, especially with more of that ol’ Heck/Wood magic in the air, and Shellhead certainly hands “the Commie Colossus” a big propaganda defeat. Just as heartening for the reader is the fact that, since there’s nothing like seeing one of your two prospective main squeezes at death’s door to pull a girl off the fence, it seems Happy’s close call may decide Pepper in his favor once and for all, enabling Tony and us to move on with our lives.

JS: I found the fighting between the metal Men to be uninspired artistically, but the rest of the issue looks great. If I had to guess I'd say that Wally Wood's inks are responsible for that.

Captain America

Our Story

The Nazis are about to stuff Celia Rawlings, Captain America, and Bucky into a V-2 missile aimed at Winston Churchill's office but they obviously haven't been keeping tabs on exactly how many lives Cap and Bucky have. A blow to the head awakens Cap in time to thwart his captors' plans for 10 Downing Street but Celia is fatally wounded in the battle. Once the Nazis have been put on ice, Professor Rawlings agrees to reset the missile's target for a Nazi stronghold. After his sister succumbs to her injuries, the professor goes mad and detonates an explosive in Castle Greymoor and the fortress is destroyed. Cap and Bucky just barely escape with their lives.

MB: The Kirby/Sinnott team that I’ve lauded in this month’s FF looks decidedly different when it becomes a Tuska Sandwich, with George’s pencils interpolated over Jack’s layouts, although Joltin’ Joe’s strong line keeps things relatively under control. Tuska’s buck teeth—as distinctive a stylistic trait as Gil Kane’s much-maligned “up the nose” shots—are well in evidence; mind you, if George HAD buck teeth, I wouldn’t make fun of those, because he couldn’t help that, but I mean, come on, in page 8, panel 4, Dr. Rawlings looks like a freakin’ Neanderthal! That said, and aside from Stan’s increasingly annoying faux-German accents, this is a satisfactory climax to the Greymoor Castle three-parter, with a denouement reportedly to follow.

PE: So ends the saga of Castle Greymoor with little fanfare. The art's not very good and Stan seems bored with Cap or at least confused with what to do with him. Next issue begins one of the most beloved storylines in the Captain America canon. I hope it still holds up.

JS: Me too, as this was disappointing all around. To be fair, I watched the Joe Johnston Captain America film between the prior issue and this one, so perhaps I've subconsciously raised the bar as far as my expectations are concerned.

The Amazing Spider-Man 30

Our Story

There's a new cat burglar in town and his victims include J. Jonah Jameson. Enraged that he's been violated and convinced the police won't help, JJJ puts up a $1,000 reward for info leading to The Cat's arrest. Seeing this as a way of getting ahead, The Amazing Spider-Man begins tracking the hoodlum down. Convinced he'll be humiliated if Spidey catches the bad guy and gets the bounty, JJJ contacts Freddy Foswell and orders him to reach out to all his underworld connections to catch the robber before our wall-crawling hero has a chance. In the meantime, Peter Parker suffers a blow when Betty Brant informs him that Ned Leeds has proposed marriage.

PE: The cat burglar storyline is a bit confusing at first. Is the cat burglar that robs JJJ's safe the same "cat" who's masterminding the robbery of Tony Stark's truck? To further confuse things, the burglar acts as though he's a loner rather than a man with a crew and one of the henchmen is pictured talking to his "boss" on the phone. These threads are never tied up (at least they're not in this issue) and leave at least one Professor scratching his balding head. Something that never occurred to me before this issue is that Betty must be at least a few years older than Peter (in fact, Parker probably has not only graduated from high school but also from "jailbait" status). How old is Betty supposed to be? Mid-twenties? In any event, it's a smart choice Stan made to let Betty head down a different romantic path. Yeah, I know. You're thinking, "Gee, Professor, that's easy for you to say now that you're a Monday Morning Quarterback with Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson in the rear view mirror." But take away the fact that I can see the future. If I was a "with it hep cat comic reader" in 1965, I'd be begging Stan to drop the Betty/Peter subplot anyway. There's enough of that romance twaddle over in Iron Man. That's a very effective final panel symbolizing the Amazing gulf between Peter and Betty.

JS: In the panel where Betty tells Peter Ned asked her to marry him, I'd swear her head has twisted all the way around. That's a new trick, even for Ditko.

PE: Seven years later, Roy Thomas would resurrect the "The Claws of the Cat" title for a sadly short-lived series starring a super-powered femme with art chores by some heavy-hitters like Wally Wood, Jim Starlin, and Bill Everett. The female Cat character would later be transformed into Tigra, the Were-woman.

MB: Okay, I have to come right out and say this: J.J.’s “I have the perfect scheme to foil that accursed Web-Spinner—oops! My plan blew up in my face again” routine is wearing decidedly thin. If you have the compensation of a villain like the Scorpion, that’s easier to take, but I’m afraid the Cat Burglar just isn’t cutting it. According to Danny Fingeroth, reprint editor for Marvel Tales, there is an error on pages 3 and 12 of this story, whereby the thieves are supposed to be working for the Master Planner, rather than the Cat; the fact that I have absolutely no memory of the upcoming “famous Master Planner trilogy” doesn’t bode well for him, either...

PE: Ah, that explains it! Thanks for the explanation, Professor Matthew (and Danny Fingeroth). I traveled a bit into the "future" and stole a look at the letters page of #34 to see if any eagle-eyed readers had noticed the boner. Richard Weingard of Castro Valley, Ca calls Stan on the carpet for mixing up too many "bosses" and "cats." Stan blinks and tells Little Dicky that he complains too much but no acceptance of a mistake. The famous "Master Planner trilogy" begins next issue and The Master Planner may not be who we think he is.

Fantastic Four 44

Our Story

Alternately titled “What A Way To Spend A Honeymoon”, our story opens with Ben and Johnny getting bored with Reed and Sue’s domestic bliss (the world’s greatest dishwasher?). Johnny heads to his Corvette Stingray for a spin. A shock wave like an earthquake shakes the ground around him, and Medusa appears, armed with a vacuum gun (as in no air, no flame), having been hiding in the jump seat of Johnny’s car. She orders him to get a move on, before she can be caught by her pursuer: a mysterious being named Gorgon. Shock waves are felt in the Baxter Building, as an unknown person literally climbs their skyscraper home by smashing his feet in to create steps in the walls. Reed gets his hand stomped on when he reaches after said person, and Ben sets off in pursuit up the wall, but not before the mysterious man steals the F.F.’s helicopter. Johnny meanwhile has obliged Medusa, driving her hours' distant to wilderness adjacent to the state university where Reed went to school. Demanding some answers, Johnny is stunned unconscious by Medusa’s vacuum gun. The heat of the torch’s flame awakens a being beneath the surface, no less than Dragon Man, the laboratory-created being whom we saw back in F.F. 35. Initially violent, remembering humans as his enemies, Dragon Man feels differently when he sees Medusa, who reminds him of the kindness shown to him by another female: Sue Storm. The stolen helicopter lands nearby, revealing its thief as Gorgon, the being pursuing Medusa. Dragon Man doesn’t appreciate Medusa being threatened, and steps in, flame breath and all. Medusa escapes in the Corvette, and Dragon man soon follows, lifting the car up with him! Gorgon gets back in the chase with the helicopter. Back at the Baxter Building, Reed is stretching outside, scouting the immediate area, when Dragon Man flies by, grabbing Reed, in turn pulling Ben and Sue in a train across the sky to a deserted building. Gorgon soon arrives, and shows how he, who caused the earlier shock waves, can direct tremendous energy with precision by stomping his powerful feet. He causes the footing under Dragon Man to collapse, sending him plummeting down through the floors of the building, and holds his own against the others. He demands they turn Medusa over to him, saying she is one of his own kind. As Dragon Man finds his way back and takes flight with Sue, Gorgon causes the whole building to collapse with a stomp of his feet.

MB: That purring sound you hear is Professor Matthew luxuriating in the fact that The Sinnott Era has finally begun, which means we’ve graduated from meat and potatoes to filet mignon. He also inks this month’s Captain America story in Suspense and, according to the Bullpen Bulletins, he’ll be working on—be still my heart—S.H.I.E.L.D. I can’t think of a better subject than the advent of the as-yet-unnamed Inhumans to occupy Joltin’ Joe’s mighty pen on his first time out (not counting FF #5), even though we still haven’t met more than two of them, or learned what the deal is with Gorgon and Medusa, but the Dragon Man is a nice bonus.

JB: Professor Matthew may sing the praises of inker Joe Sinnott, and rightly so. I had a friend years ago who had a complete Fantastic Four collection (which he sadly one day sold) and we used to compare Sinnott to Vince Colletta. I love Vince’s work on Thor, but it didn’t look quite as fitting here, so a newly distinct visual era has begun for the F.F.

PE: Finally! I think we're finally getting to that block of iconic stories that made this one of the most revered comic books of the 1960s. It only took us 44 issues to get to this point, but I'm intrigued. Not so interesting is the home life of the newlyweds. Reed is fixing home appliances (probably converting his spare Neuro-Solar Vaporizer into a Cuisinart) and Sue is modeling kitchen wear (unless that's her idea of exciting Reed), while the other two team members sit and whine. LOL-dialogue award this issue goes to Sue: "I never heard of anyone with such powerful feet!"

JB: A whole lot of flying is going on this issue; imagine looking up in the sky to see Dragon Man, Corvette in hand, pulling Reed, Ben and Sue, then soon after, Johnny and Gorgon following! This is a worthy introduction to Gorgon that really showcases his powers. I always found the Inhumans to be very interesting, and we’ll see a lot of them in the months to come--a nice change from the Frightful Four.

JS: This is the first comic we've reviewed at MU that I actually own an original of. In fact, I have a nice run of FF starting here, with the Inhumans, Silver Surfer, Galactus, and Black Panther appearances (unfortunately not including issue #48). As a result, I'm looking forward to the next several week's worth of issues. I always liked the Dragon Man, but all told, things really picked up for me starting with the next issue.

Strange Tales 138

Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD

Our Story

In true serial fashion, this episode jumps back to just before the end of the prior one to show us how Fury, ensconced in a “televiewer tube” 40 miles above earth, located the launch site—which he destroyed anyway, just to be on the safe side—seconds too late to stop Hydra from putting its betatron bomb into orbit. Stan actually messes with the continuity slightly by having Imperial Hydra (as he is now called) summon his daughter to tell her about the launch, whereas she was present for it last ish. We’re also treated to a diagram of Hydra’s ten divisions.

As Imperial Hydra orders his diplomacy chief, Fox, to announce his surrender terms, nations are rioting in panic over the presence of the bomb, which cannot be shot down without covering the earth with deadly fallout. Tony Stark is about to show Fury his top-secret new Braino-saur when Hydra’s Tiger assassin force attacks his plant and captures Fury, although Stark protects himself with a bullet-proof cubicle. The Rhino heavy-weapons division provides a tank that busts out of the factory and launches a “sky missile jet,” taking Fury to his face-to-face with Imperial Hydra.

MB: It’s tantalizing to notice that the animals after which Hydra’s divisional chiefs of staff are named include Owl and Rhino, but it seems unlikely that they will turn out to be the Marvel villains we know and love under those monikers…then again, one is called Beaver, so perhaps it’s best they remain symbolic. Stark sensibly reminds us that if Fury must be written off, others will step up to take his place in the war against Hydra. And we get another look at the boardroom of Imperial (get it?) Industries International, where a sliding wall panel conceals the entrance to Hydra’s lair.

JS: Did any of you guys have a giant Hydra See N' Say growing up?

PE: I was afraid we might see Jerry Mathers as the Hydra engineer. I'm really digging this series now, complete with the Severin artwork. His Tony Stark is the picture of a playboy millionaire. Yeah, as we've mentioned ad nauseum, SHIELD borrows generously from the James Bond series, but it also seems to predict the grander scale that Cubby would lavish on the series in the years to come. The boardroom shenanigans at the climax only emphasize that Stan thought of this strip as something more than just another kiddie comic. It's a layered, complex story so unlike the outer space operas being foisted on readers over at Fantastic Four. I suspect that Stan's hype in the final panel that Fury has become "the biggest, greatest overnight sensation in Marvel history" is just that: hype. I like this series so much I won't even question why the Hydra boys never think to give Fury a head shot when they discover he has a bullet-proof suit. I'm sure it's the adrenaline that leaves them a bit scatter-brained. Nor will I mention what is surely the silliest name for a Marvel gizmo: Tony Stark's Brainosaur!

JS: Agree with you on the Brainosaur, but I wasn't as fond of this issue as I have been the first several. I'm expecting Fury to be more James Bond and less like Maxwell Smart. I thought he was captured a little too easily. And where exactly did Stark get his bullet proof cubicle? Was that in a just-add-water pill?

Jack: I am really enjoying John Severin’s art on this strip. It doesn’t look like anything else at Marvel right now. While the Supreme Leader of Hydra thinks that each division has a sense of pride due to being named after an animal, I’m not sure how excited they are over in the Mole Division. And what good is Tony Stark? He’s not much help, even though he’s a genius and a super-hero.

Professor Pete after watching all 120 episodes of Batman

Dr. Strange

Our Story

Dr. Strange has finally reached the dimension of Eternity. He wanders around for awhile until he meets Eternity, a godlike fellow. The big E studies Dr. Strange and learns that he’s an all-around OK guy who wants more power in order to defeat Mordo and Dormammu and save mankind. Taking a page from the Great and Powerful Oz’s book, Eternity tells Doc that all he needs is already within him. Dr. Strange toddles home and is shocked to find that Mordo has kidnapped the Ancient One! Dr. S. travels to Mordo’s lair and confronts him and the Dreaded One.

MB: Don’t know if the senior faculty will consider Eternity’s first appearance as a Landmark, but it sure had a big impact on me, especially as I imagine the James Earl Jones-type voice that would intone his portentous words. His distraction by “world-shaking matters,” his approval of Doc as a worthy disciple for the Ancient One, and his enigmatic verdict that Strange needs no additional power, only wisdom, to defeat Dormammu and Mordo all strike me as drama of the highest order. And that finale, with both the Ancient One and Clea in peril as “the mighty antagonists stand face to face,” demonstrates Steve and Stan at their absolute zenith.

JS: This installment was certainly jam-packed with nice visuals, and sure, it's cool to finally see Eternity... but after the long build-up, I felt like we finally got to Wally World and found it was closed.

Jack: This is definitely a landmark entry in the series, with the first appearance of Eternity and a dynamite full-page Ditko drawing. Ditko is at his best here—too bad he’ll be gone in under a year.

PE: Two votes for landmark is good enough for me. Consider this issue thusly awarded.

JS: Also worth noting—it's time for the good Doctor to get a haircut.

Tales to Astonish 73

The Sub-Mariner

Our Story

With his very life being sapped out of him by the Diamonds of Doom, Namor summons the powers of all the nearest surrounding sea life to give him the strength to endure. As if the diamonds alone weren’t enough to contend with, a pretty big bad guy who dubs himself the Demon of the Diamonds suddenly appears and is trying to make the hero his own personal slave. With a new surge of strength, Namor battles the demon. It’s a violent brawl until some giant electric eels, under Subby’s command, take out the demon along with absorbing the energy of the diamonds, rendering them harmless. Namor learns that he must find the site for the Trident quest’s next challenge on his own. Some more aquatic creatures approach Namor and, through their communications, he finds out that Dorma is at the mercy of the Faceless Ones. After a long struggle in his mind about what to do, Subby decides that saving Dorma is more important than finding the elusive Trident. Back at the main palace in Atlantis, Krang and his men fight with the citizens who are rising against his tyrannical dictatorship.

Tom: It’s hard for me not to keep on gushing after each review of this series about how great I think it is, but I just can’t help it. Maybe it’s because of all those horrible Torch stories in Strange Tales or the bumbling antics of Giant-Man that previously stunk up this comic book. Either way, I’m continually impressed by the storytelling and artwork. A lot of it also has to do with the fact that I’m a fan of old mythology and Namor’s stories borrow somewhat from the tales of old.

Jack: I like the way the story moves back and forth between Namor’s quest and the rebellion against Krang, as well as Lady Dorma’s plight among the faceless ones. But how can Subby think her love for him has never faltered? Wasn’t she the one who got him into this predicament in the first place? By the Wiggling Worms of Wagoor, Sub-Mariner is starting to talk like a cross between Thor and Dr. Strange!

Tom: Namor’s change of heart for Dorma initially comes off as kind of generic, out of character for the arrogant sea king given his dismissal of her display of affection a couple issues ago. Still, that’s what makes Namor interesting compared to his fellow super-hero colleagues in the Marvel Universe, as he often walks that edge between heartless villain, and heroic champion of his underwater people.

PE: The perils Namor is subjected to on this trek seem to get progressively easier for him to handle. Colan's art is really starting to define the Sub-Mariner I grew up with (though there is one very badly drawn panel that shows The Demon of the Diamonds in a pose that no one save Reed Richards could possibly execute). Where did Krang mount his underwater cameras to keep an eye on Namor? Every fifty feet on the ocean bottom? Video-packing Sea Bass that trail the Prince of Atlantis? My new exclamation around the University this week has been "By the rotting reefs of coral!?

This Demon will be in need of a good chiropractor soon.

MB: The splash page of this story is also missing from my poor plundered copy of Sub-Mariner Special #1, but looking at the art, it’s clear that Colletta continues to compromise Colan’s pseudonymous work. (As one of this month’s Bullpen Bulletins tells us, “Everybody’s favorite guessing game these days is trying to figure out the real identity of the ‘Sub-Mariner’s’ powerful penciller, ADAM AUSTIN!”) It’s interesting to note that when Astonish and Strange Tales replaced the reviled Giant-Man and Human Torch strips with Subby and S.H.I.E.L.D., they gave both newcomers the 12-page lead spots instead of promoting the survivors, the Hulk and Dr. Strange, out of their respective 10-page backup features.

Hulk

Our story

The Hulk has been incapacitated by a combination of the Leader’s synthetic goons’ attack and the mounting stress of turning into human form with a bullet lodged in his melon. Though displeased with the Hulk’s latest temper tantrum, the Leader puts him on an operating table for an examination. He finds the bullet and uses his technology to evaporate it. The Leader also gives the green monster a healthy extra dose of gamma radiation that makes the brute even stronger and more durable than before. The Hulk feels somewhat indebted to the villain for saving his life, a fact that the Leader doesn’t hesitate to throw in his face whenever he gets the chance. The evil genius has been spying on the Watcher at his base on the moon and has discovered that he has tons of advanced technology that the Leader could use to help in his world conquest. He dispatches a leery Hulk to the Watcher’s planet. The Watcher is friendly with Jade Jaws once he arrives, reminding him (and us) that he is forbidden to interfere with the earthling’s adventures. The Ultimate Machine that the Leader wants the Hulk to bring back is a gold, floating sphere. As the Hulk wonders out loud why the Leader just couldn’t have done it himself, his question is answered in the form of a mighty fist that punches him in the face. Another powerful alien, who has also been observing the Watcher, has arrived to claim the same device.

Tom: This issue was more of a lead-in for the hopefully exciting donnybrook that will be happening next issue. Thank God that at least they finished up that whole drama of "the bullet being lodged in the Hulk’s head" storyline because I was getting quite sick of hearing about it.

A certain M.U. professor after a recent, long plane trip.

Jack: For the first time in awhile, I enjoyed a Hulk story! I had to wonder, though, why the Hulk would let the Leader put him through some pretty hairy tests. Was he so grateful to have the bullet out of his brain that he’d stand for this? Awfully calm and patient of him! As for the Watcher, he’s a character I always liked, and having the Hulk visit his home planet is neat. Bob Powell’s art this issue is a step up from the Mickey Demeo dreck of prior months, though I peeked ahead and it’s back to the dumps next month.

Tom: It’s interesting to see how the Leader might have sealed his own outcome of continuing losses to the Hulk in the next fifty years or so by giving his arch-rival even more power than he already had. While the Hulk had beaten the Thing one-on-one and had held the Avengers to a standstill, he never seemed like the super power that he would later become in the 1970s. I guess this is where he got his steroid boost. At least he showed his gratitude by humoring the Leader for endurance and strength tests that were Rocky-esque, reminiscent of the training montages in the movies. The artwork was also, dare I say it Professor Jack, somewhat better than in previous issues……?

Journey Into Mystery 122

Our Story

Merely stunned last issue by the Absorbing Man, Thor rises again to resume the battle, attempting to strike his opponent with enough speed that Crusher Creel’s absorbing ability will be less effective. Loki gets tired of waiting for what he thought would be an easy defeat of Thor and moves his plan to stage two. He uses the attractor beam of Ularic to summon the Absorbing man to Asgard. Thor recognizes what the beam of light is but is distracted from following when a window smashes above him and he hears cries for help. It turns out to be Jane Foster, who has caused the window to shatter by setting off a gas explosion. The gas escapes through the window and Thor returns to the form of Dr. Blake, as Jane has fallen unconscious. At that instant, the hooded man who kidnapped Jane takes a photo. He reveals himself to be Harris Hobbs, the reporter who had suspected that Blake and Thor were one and the same. First things first, Dr. Blake gets Jane to the hospital, making sure she’ll be okay. He then takes a call from Hobbs, agreeing to meet the reporter in a quiet wooded location to discuss the matter. Hobbs wants Thor to tell him the story behind his secret identity, the “scoop of the century.” The Thunder God is angered by Hobbs’s insolence, but cannot harm a human, so he has another plan. Thor creates a time vortex, and takes Hobbs first into Earth’s distant past when dinosaurs still roamed, then to the far flung future, where our planet has long since been abandoned by humanity and is about to collide with another world. Thor’s intent is to humble Hobbs into keeping his knowledge a secret, and it works … kind of. Hobbs vows to destroy the photo but pleads for Thor to take him to see Asgard, even if he forgets his experience afterward. Impressed by the human’s courage, Thor agrees, as he must return to see what is happening in the city of the gods. What has happened thus far is that the Absorbing Man has realized it is Loki who gave him his power, and has agreed to help the God of Evil in the plan to overthrow Odin (only after Loki sends Creel into a frozen world to show him who his master is, vowing to return him there should he not cooperate). After defeating Odin’s royal guard, the Absorbing Man enters the throne room and makes clear his intent of conquest, returning a bolt of cosmic energy back at Odin.

In Tales Of Asgard, “The Grim Specter Of Mutiny” is a reality now, as the frightened warriors of Asgard take sides. Some stand with Loki while others remain faithful to Thor, as a battle breaks out. Just as the ship enters the deadly waters of the Pillars of Utgard, the crew spots Balder the Brave blowing a huge horn atop the head of the ship.

JB: I commented last time on how beautiful the art was, but personally I find the imagery this month much more powerful. If last issue was essentially an impressive but drawn-out battle, this one offers much more variety. The cover is subtly awesome, and the vision of earth’s future looks frightening indeed.

PE: Two bits of lapsed logic here: first, our narrator credits Jane Foster with "daring" for causing a gas explosion in an upper floor building to catch the attention of the Thunder God. I'm not so sure "daring" would be the adjective I'd apply to someone who blows up the room they're in in order to be rescued. Further, when Thor bursts into the room, Jane Foster has collapsed and our hero decides that this is a job better suited for his alter ego, the lame Doc Blake. However, I'd question whether transforming back into a human guise inside a gas-filled room is a great idea. Wouldn't it be wiser to fly "Brainy" Janey to a safe locale (say, a padded cell) before stomping your stick? What I like most about this story is that it actually feels as if the events may resonate throughout the rest of the series. The actions of Loki here cannot be ignored by Odin as they have been in the past. That is, unless Loki gives Odin a blast of his "Memory Loss Beam." They gotta have one of those around Asgard somewhere.

MB: Those expecting a definitive wrap-up to the Thunder God’s already epic battle with the Absorbing Man are in for a surprise as Loki, ever full of tricks, commandeers his creation for his own royal ambitions. Thor, too, proves himself no slouch as a strategist when coming up with a way to stop Harris Hobbs from blowing the whistle on his i.d. I liked Hobbs in his initial appearances, so I’m sad to see him stoop to kidnapping and endangering an innocent to get his story; I’ve a sneaking suspicion Odin will take a very dim view of his presence in Asgard.

JB: Good point about Loki, Professors Matthew and Peter; I don’t think Odin can ignore Loki’s actions any more. I wonder why over the years he never renounced the God of Evil as his stepson and exiled him permanently from Asgard? The Tales Of Asgard is mainly a chance to get to see more of the Warriors Three, as they came to be called: Hogun, Fandrall, and Volstagg.

PE: When you think about it, The Absorbing Man has to be Marvel's most powerful villain, right? He's like Ridley Scott's Alien. Unstoppable but for a couple of loopholes. At times, Stan must have felt that, though he'd created a great boogieman, he'd kind of painted himself into a corner with this one. How many times was Crusher Creel defeated by being sent into space or dropped in water?

JB: These seemingly unbeatable villains are a problem, as you guys point out. It’s funny that Loki thought of a way in a second to prove himself Creel’s master, yet Thor (and Odin later) could easily have sent the Absorbing Man into a future like where he took Hobbs.

PE: Considering that earlier in the story, Loki is advised that the #1 offense in Asgard is bringing a mortal to dinner, I'd say you're right on the money about Hobbs, Professor Bradley.

The X-Men 14

Our Story

Professor Xavier has granted his X-kids a vacation, the first one they've had in years. And well deserved, after defeating the mighty Juggernaut last issue. Unfortunately, the best laid plans of mice and mutants go awry when a new menace raises its mechanized head. Dr. Bolivar Trask is convinced that mutants will take over the earth and enslave homo sapiens. To curtail the threat, the well-meaning but quite mad scientist has created a score of robots known as "Sentinels" that will do as he commands. Trask is in for a rude surprise, however, when Xavier challenges him to a televised debate and his Sentinels go rogue. Suddenly, the vacation is over for X and the X-Men.

PE: This was one of the issues that obviously inspired Bryan Singer when he was working on the screenplay for his X-Men film. Elements of Dr. Trask can be found in the Senator Kelly character played by Bruce Davison. Since I was never much of an X-Men fan when I was a kid, I never noticed how much the Sentinels look like Galactus (who was still several months away from public disclosure over at FF). Why does Iceman have yellow boots and yet his trunks freeze white? Has this important point been brought up before? Go one way or the other but, as is, he looks mighty ridiculous.

JS: I guess because they were released in 1981, you're not familiar with one of the greatest X-Men stories, Days of Future Past. That's where you'll find Senator Kelly enter the scene. Of course, the Sentinels origin is a key milestone in the history of the X-Men. I can't wait to get to the Neal Adams Trask/Sentinels storyline that's still a few years out.

MB: Ho, hum, another day, another potential Landmark Issue as we meet some of the X-Men’s most relentless and formidable foes, the Sentinels, and their ill-advised creator, the mutant-phobic Bolivar Trask. Even though these Mark I versions look a little clunky—courtesy of the Kirby/Gavin/Colletta artistic mélange—their presence alone conjures up future glories with Neal Adams, Dave Cockrum, and John Byrne. I missed a few of the earliest issues this go-round, but I believe this is the first we’ve seen of the kind of anti-mutant hysteria that Trask whips up with such depressing ease (perhaps Stan’s suggestion that we’re all bigots under an extremely thin veneer), which would become a very potent theme in the Chris Claremont era.

Her libido is meltin' his bongos!

JS: Professor Bradley knows what I'm talking about. These original Sentinels felt a little too small for my taste. The ones I think of can hold a mutie in the palm of their hand.

PE: Scott and Hank put into action their long-awaited and much-anticipated "Operation Duo-Smash," which translates into "we'll both attack at the same time." But, it seems, the Sentinels have been holding scrimmages as well. Though The Sentinel will eventually rank as one of the X-Men's most well-known villains, this story is just a bit too sketchy for me. I get it: scientist creates genocidal weapon to rid the world of an impure species. In 1965, this must have been a pretty controversial concept for a little kid's comic book and Stan and Jack should be applauded for their guts. In time, the story may flesh out and I'll appreciate it a bit more. For now, I'll rate it a little above average (for those guts and concepts) and cross my fingers for the next issue. Stan also found himself climbing out on a limb using the word "libido" and the open-to-interpretation expression, "You're meltin' my bongos!" I've already forgotten "Rotten, wretched reefs of Ragnarok" or whatever the exclamation was, this is my new pick-up line down at the Coffee-a-Go-Go! On the letters page, Stan announces that the book is so popular it's been shifted to monthly status.

JS: Hang in there, Professor P. The best of X is yet to come.

The Avengers 22

Our Story

Angry at being declared illegal, the Avengers bicker and go their separate ways. Unable to find good jobs, Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch briefly sign on with The Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime, before realizing that they are crooked and getting into a big fight. This does not end well when the Ringmaster calls the cops and the Avengers are busted for disobeying the court order to stop being themselves Captain America, disguised as a press agent, gets Power Man to confess to framing the team. Another battle ensues, and Power Man almost singlehandedly fights the foursome to a draw. The Enchantress decides he is not worth her trouble and disappears; Power Man gives up, admitting that the blonde immortal was the only reason he was putting up a fight. The city council reinstates the Avengers’ superhero team permit but Captain America leaves the other three, disgusted by their lack of character.

Jack: I love that Thor and Iron Man are said to be busy, but Stan has no idea where Giant-Man is! High-pockets is really persona non grata at this point.

PE: The once-Mighty Avengers get taken down to the level of carnival sideshow. A hero hasn't been this down in the dumps since the Hulk joined the very same circus way back in Hulk #3. What's amazing is that a trio of supposedly smart superheroes could fall for such a scheme. But they're obviously not as dumb as the local cops, who come running to arrest the Avengers after recently-paroled Ringmaster reports that The Earth's Mightiest Heroes are robbing his carnival! It took several issues but we now find out that Quicksilver's blinding speed increases his "natural strength a hundredfold." Does that mean he has the strength of a Spider-Man? I don't buy that for a second. I smell a reconfiguring of power some day soon.

MB: At this stage of the game, especially with so many strips using the serial format, it seems rare for a Marvel mag to end by wrapping things up so neatly, yet aside from Cap’s last-panel bombshell, this one ties up those threads from last issue admirably. Cap’s one-on-one with Power Man is eminently satisfying, summed up in his line, “And remember—you’re fighting the weakest [Avenger]! My partners are all younger—and have greater powers!” I’m not normally a big fan of the Ringmaster and His Circus of Crime, but they were well used here, and seemed like an otherwise natural destination for the carnival-like powers of the unwitting ex-Assemblers.

PE: Back to the really bad Heck art. I assume the disguise Captain America takes to trick a confession out of Power Man is Heck's idea of what Steve Rogers would look like in 1965 had he not gone into suspended animation in the 40s (above left). And could someone explain to me how, super soldier formula notwithstanding, a human being's arms can bend back like that comfortably (above right).

PE: The intro of the in-team squabbling and Cap's dopey exclamation in the finale only add fuel to my theory that this is a book that doesn't need super-villains. In the letters page, Stan promises that a clue as to the whereabouts of Giant-Man can be found in the pages of the upcoming Tales to Astonish #76. I... cannot... wait. Letter writer Charles Hutler of Kearney, New Jersey, insists that he has "read over 200,000 comics in my life and I think that makes me a fairly important comic (or pop art) critic now." Not one to stand down from hyperbole, Stan "The Man" displays a bit of incredulity at Chuck's statement: " We figure that if you read as many as ten each day (and there aren't that many published) that would be 3,650 per year. At that rate, which is more than humanly possible, it would take almost fifty-five years to read 200,000 comics!" In a more serious exchange, we get an explanation as to why 90% of all Marvel bad guys are commies (reproduced below).

"Enclosed, please find my $16.15"

Also this month

Kid Colt Outlaw #125

Millie the Model #132

Modeling with Millie #43

Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos #24

Two-Gun Kid #78

October 1965: Get Me to the Church on Time!

2012-02-08T06:00:00.000-08:00

Daredevil 10

Our story

A mysterious villain known only as the Organizer has gotten a crew together to take New York City by storm. His henchmen are dressed up as an ape, a frog, a cat, and a bird. Each of these criminals has a skill that the Organizer uses to pull off daring thefts and heists. Foggy lets Matt and Karen know that he has been selected by the third party for the upcoming elections as a candidate for D.A. They all go to a yacht party where he introduces them to all the big wigs who are associated with the reform party. Foggy’s old classmate Deborah, from high school, is at the party--she is all over him and a romance looms on the horizon. The Frog-man criminal tries to crash the party, but Matt dresses up as Daredevil and they battle in the ocean. The villain makes his escape after detonating a grenade. Later on, the Bird-Man tries to steal the third party’s campaign funds, only to be thwarted by Double D before he luckily escapes back to the Organizer’s secret hideout. The four animal men are addressed by the Organizer via monitor. Pissed off that Daredevil has become a nuisance, an evil scam is concocted. While on hero patrol, Daredevil is alerted that a man is stuck inside a bank vault. He helps open it to save the man, but it was all a ruse as the Cat-Man was waiting for him in the vault. The other animal men attack and Daredevil has to flee, making the cops think that he was part of the heist. The newspapers report that Daredevil has become a wanted suspect. Foggy invites Karen to a party that Deborah is throwing for him. While they are there the animal crew crashes it, kidnapping Deborah. Double D tries to stop them and punches out Cat-Man so the police can put him in custody. Worried that the Cat will talk, the Organizer dispatches Ape-Man to kill him with a grenade. Daredevil is able to stop him and follow the villainous Ape Man back to his headquarters. While eavesdropping on a ledge, he finds out that Deborah is in cahoots with the villains in an attempt to control Foggy.

PE: This goofy little masterpiece is the type of story Mighty Comics ran in the mid-1960s ("Steel Sterling vs. The Monster Master," as collected in High Camp Superheroes, Belmont paperbacks, 1966). You can throw all believability right out the window with this one and just relax and enjoy. The bad guys' real-life names all have something to do with their aliases: Hawk becomes Bird Man, Monk becomes Ape Man, 'Frog' Le Blanc looks like a frog and, to further the coincidence, used to be a frogman for the Navy! Even the cartel's name is uninspired. As Cat-Man later tells the police: "I'm a member of a gang called 'The Organization' ... The head man is called 'The Organizer'!" You can tell Wood is having a blast. The cameras on the villains' chests are dubbed "Creepy-Peepys." Matt Murdock falls overboard and instantly becomes Daredevil (I can shut down my "sense of belief" long enough to accept the body suit but how in the heck did he put on the mask before hitting the water?). The Organizer, meanwhile, must be comics' most generous ringleader. His animal men screw up every assignment they're given and yet the hooded villain constantly peps them up (like a motivational speaker) with "Great job, fellas!" and "Well, you've done a wonderful job, Pig Man." These sixth-tier bad guys couldn't steal free brochures from a corner stand without messing things up. This all adds up to one of those classic stories where you don't really care if it doesn't all add up.

Tom: Got a lot going on in this issue. It was pretty good, but I’ll have to reserve judgment until the next issue’s conclusion. So far, Wally Wood appears to be equally adept at writing as he is with drawing, though I suspect he may have just came up with the plot for this one.

PE: Quite the ringing endorsement from Stan "The Man" Lee on the credits page. He acknowledges that Wally Wood has always wanted to write a story and he, being the big-hearted guy he is, agreed to the demand. "What follows is anybody's guess!" exclaims Stan to the bewildered masses screaming out for more Lee masterpieces.

Jack: Ape Man? Cat Man? Bird Man? Frog Man? Are you kidding? I enjoyed the story, though the art seems to go back and forth between seeming more Bob Powell’s work and more Wally Wood’s work. Wood supposedly wrote the script and did the art over Powell’s layouts, but it looks like Powell’s work in many places more than Wood’s. The best way to tell is to look at the girls, and they are not up to Wood’s usual standards of beauty. I did like the Yacht party and the corny villains—Frog Man’s alter ego looked like something out of Mad Magazine. What else would The Organizer call his band of ne’er do wells but The Organization!

PE: The continuing romantic Marvel morass gets more and more complicated every story I read. It's not the situations that confound, it's the interchangeable characters. If I'm confused, I can only imagine how Jack, Stan, Don, Wally and the gang felt. What keeps Matt Murdock from accidentally calling Karen Page Pepper? Literally, the two women are the same. Here, we get Karen simultaneously wondering if Foggy is really in love with her or is using her to get to Deborah and wondering if Matt will be at the party. It takes a lot of notebook paper to keep all these soap operas straight, believe me.

Fantastic Four Annual 3

Our Story

The day has finally arrived! Reed Richards and Sue Storm are getting married. Or maybe they’re not, if Doctor Doom has anything to say about it—and he does. In his castle in Latveria, Reed’s formal rival has a weapon to make every super foe in the known Earthiverse do his bidding: a powerful emotion charger. It fans the evil in the hearts of evildoers everywhere, leaving them with one thought—revenge! Lucky for the Fantastic Four, every hero in town is on the guest list too. Nick Fury and his Shield agents have a brainwave camera to foil the Puppet Master’s attempt. The X-Men arrive in time to send the Mole Man and his subterraneans back down where they belong. Dr. Strange sends the Red Ghost and his apes to another dimension. Thor flies by as the Super Skrull jets into town (is this Thor #142 yet?). Captain America and the new Avengers deal with the Cobra and Mr. Hyde, the Enchantress and the Executioner. Daredevil makes probably the biggest save, maneuvering a runaway truck loaded with a vortex bomb bound for the Baxter Building off a pier at the dock; it gets there just in time to send Attuma and his invasion force back to the bottom of the sea. It is the Watcher, however who finally wants to see the wedding and get on with his day, and decides to put a stop to the madness. He whisks Reed away to his home world, and gives Reed a crash course on how to use a device even more amazing than Dr. Doom’s emotion charger. Forbidden to interfere directly, the Watcher has bids Reed to use the device and save the day. Returning to Earth, Reed does just that, sending each and every bad guy back in time to before they launched their attacks. Their memories, including Dr. Doom's, are wiped clean of the incident, leaving an exhausted Reed and Sue to finally tie the knot.

PE: Stan and Jack goofiness galore! A seasoned, evil, notorious super-villain of the first tier, Doctor Doom, actually admits to owning an Emotion Charger! No wonder he keeps it behind his Murphy Bed. SHIELD has a brain-wave camera that can detect when someone's mind is under control? Super-duper!, but I could have told Reed how to safeguard his wedding day. Dr. Strange pops up and banishes The Red Ghost and his Super Apes to another dimension. Why not simply have the Doc hang out by the door and transport any bad guy who shows up to the Dreaded Doorways of Dogma or wherever they'll end up? I know. I know. No story then. Alright, then I'll just admire all the new weaponry on show here: The Red Ghost's Electrode Scrambler (perhaps a little too close to this month's Molecule Scrambler Ray wielded by Titanium Man?); Hydra's Vortex Bomb; The Mandarin's brand spankin' new Nerve Ray Ring (I wonder which other ring this replaced?)

JS: Don't forget the Watcher's Super-Villain vaccuum. Which I guess is the only way you can resolve a story of such epic scope and still leave time for the wedding ceremony.

JB: I expected to be overrun by all these villains and heroes in this issue, but what the hell… I just had a good time! I don’t think there’s ever been one of these all-cast stories that’s actually a great comic, but this one was a lot of fun. Maybe we should just direct newcomers to Marvel University to this tale to get an introduction to every title all at once, and they can pick their favourite one from there. I like the Enchantress’s short do, and my lol villain moment was the Super Skrull, due to face off with Thor again in a couple of years. Apparently Dr. Doom’s emotion charger has no space/time limits; where was Loki hiding? I thought it a little unfair that Stan and Jack were the only wedding guests to be turned away; maybe they’ll get revenge in the coming months.

PE: Despite the plethora of good guys and bad guys this is an average Marvel comic book, no more or no less. Each villain is introduced and dispatched within a given amount of panel space. The artwork looks rushed for what is being touted as the most super super spectacular ever written! One shining moment stands out however: the appearance of Attuma. Blink and you'll miss the blue-skinned Atlantean who has intercepted Dr. Doom's emotion telegram aimed at Namor, the Sub-Mariner. Attuma and his army rise from the bog of New York's waterfront (which should have killed them all in the first place) just in time to be the recipient of Hydra's runaway Vortex Bomb! This brief, but priceless, passage reminded me of Peter Bogdonavich's What's Up, Doc?, wherein all manner of silly coincidences collide for 90 minutes.

MB: This is one of those kitchen-sink stories that can be great or terrible, but since it’s Stan and Jack (who give themselves a cameo and sneak in an Irving Forbush name-check), and the occasion is the wedding of Sue and Reed, I’m not going too far out on a limb to classify this one closer to the “great” end of the spectrum. Not much to say about the plot, since there barely is one aside from “At Doom’s behest, virtually every major Marvel hero and villain squares off before Stretcho and Sue tie the knot in a big two panels.” It’s interesting to note that Spider-Man, Marvel’s biggest star outside the FF, gets only two panels himself, and to see how poorly some of those other characters Kirby doesn’t normally draw, such as the Mandarin, look.

PE: The roll-call for Marvel heroes is virtually complete, missing only Namor and Hulk who, Stan tells us in two footnotes, are busy with adventures of their own. This smells fishy to me as no other Marvel hero this month stops in the middle of their own adventure and makes time for Sue and Reed's wedding. It seems ironic to me that Stan and jack litter the aisle ways with heroes but not with the guy who'd be most natural at raising a hand come objection time: Namor. I wonder if the two titans of four colors simply forgot to include the Tales to Astonish co-stars. As for the line-up of villains, only one omission stands out for me: how could Paste Pot-Pete be left off the roster? It'll be interesting to see how long it takes for the matrimony to register in the regular monthly title.

Tom: Okay, maybe this wasn't the grestest issue ever, but it is definitely historic. I've always been a big fan of these issues that tried to throw everyone in the universe into the story. You get to see some unlikely match-ups like Dr. Strange vs the Red Ghost. I agree with Peter that the omission of Namor is a little surprising. It would have been cool for the Hulk to have made an appearence but not having him show makes sense since Banner's identity as the green monster is still a secret. A fun read that's a classic in my book.

PE: In addition to the 23-page lead story, this 72-page monster gives us reprintings of "Captives of the Deadly Duo," the Doom/Namor team-up from issue #6; "A Visit with the Fantastic Four" and "The Impossible Man" (both from #11).

The Amazing Spider-Man 29

Our Story

The Scorpion busts out of jail and decides to make good on the promise he made to put both J. Jonah Jameson and The Amazing Spider-Man in the ground. Meanwhile, Peter Parker's having girl problems again when Ned Leeds returns from Europe and sets his sights on Betty Brant. The Scorpion attacks JJJ at The Bugle but, luckily for the publisher, Spidey arrives on the scene before much damage can be done. During the melee, Betty is "emotionally upset" and Ned, acting the hero, takes her to the doctor. Enraged by Leeds' actions, Peter/Spidey amps up his battleground tactics and makes The Scorpion sorry he ever decided to bust out of jail. In our finale, we learn that Aunt May could just be hiding a medical condition from her superhero nephew.

PE: I know that it's been established that the Marvel prison wardens are about as intelligent as the Marvel nurses but... seriously, Steve Ditko expects us to believe that his captors will hand over The Scorpion's outfit to him because he's been acting up and think maybe if he's geared up, he'll calm down. Bad idea on so many levels. Other than that obvious glitch in good sense, this is an enjoyable thriller and, coupled with Scorp's debut (back in #20), builds the foundation for what would become one of Spider-Man's most formidable foes. Even the "General Hospital" sub-plots of the return of Ned Leeds and interchangeable affections of Betty Brant (Ned or Peter? Peter or Ned?) don't bother me here as much as the same kind of nonsense that permeates Daredevil and Iron Man. I'm more annoyed with the "vile JJJ" overkill. We get that the guy is a nasty skinflint and an egotist but it seems as though every panel he populates in this installment exists only for the reason to pile on the egregious behavior.

MB: This story became an ex post facto collector’s item because, until it materialized in Marvel Tales #168 in 1984, it was the only Ditko Spider-Man issue never reprinted, due to the absence of the comic-book equivalent of a viable negative. Taken on its own merits, it is unremarkable despite the return of a great villain, the Scorpion; alas, J.J.’s “I hate Spider-Man but only he can save me from my own evil creation” shtick seems like a rehash of Scorpey’s debut in #20. True to form, they probably brought him back a little too soon, then—if the Marvel Comics Database is to be believed—overcompensated by shutting him out for five years, after which he appeared in Captain America #122 (2/70), and didn’t come home to Amazing until #145 (6/75).

PE: Well, that's a shame then as I think this villain, with a little bit of seasoning, could have been every bit as evil and insane as The Goblin. I have fond memories of The Scorpion/Mister Hyde team-up in Captain America and The Falcon #151-152 (July/ August 1972) as it segues beautifully into what I still consider to be the best written comic story arc of all time.

JS: I'll cast another vote in favor of The Scorpion, although I'd like to better understand how his tail works. It seems to grow or shrink as needed to fit within any particular panel.

PE: (SPOILER ALERT) Aunt May's gonna die some day! Aunt May's gonna die some day! Here we get the second in a series of "health incidents" that will spin wheels for the next fifty years.

JS: Mark my words, when she does go, she'll be back.

Journey Into Mystery 121

Our Story

Returned to Earth by Loki last month: the Absorbing Man. His mission: defeat Thor. Crusher Creel absorbs every metal and rock he can get his hands on to gain the upper hand. While the people of New York flee the streets, he grows to giant proportions, able to change his size by absorbing enough material. Jane Foster is still held prisoner by the mysterious hooded man, watching the battle on the TV. In Asgard, no one suspects that Loki has imprisoned Ularic, and with many of the realms warriors out on routine patrol, his plan to overthrow Odin gets a step closer. While Creel can return every blow Thor throws at him (including the Uru hammer), he can’t match the Thunder God’s skill. Only when Thor stops to help a small child, does the Absorbing Man knock Thor to the ground, apparently unconscious. Round one victory for the bad guys.

In Tales Of Asgard, the Odinship is drawn closer and closer to the “Maelstrom” that are the stone Pillars of Utgard. Reaching out from the sea, the rocks are said to be the “feet” of the dragon, waiting to destroy any sea vessel foolish enough to approach. A mutiny is barely held in check.

JB: Continued tales may have given Marvel comics much of their greatness, but possibly this Absorbing Man saga, which goes on for another two issues after this, could have been condensed a little with no ill effects. If we didn’t have the TOA, the battle might have drawn a yawn; or we could have some more supporting character development.

PE: I actually liked this one enough to anxiously await the next pulse-pounding issue. It beats the hell out of the three-part yawn being passed as an "epic" just finishing over at Fantastic Four. This is now the best display of Kirby in a monthly comic. I find Crusher Creel to be an... absorbing villain. The panel where he cries out to Thor "You won't get a chance to hurt me again, ya hear?" made me think of a wounded child. Like The Avengers, Thor should have talked Tony Stark into cleaning up his messes. The amount of damage he does to city streets and buildings displaying the awesome power of Mjolnir is disturbing.

JB: Still, this installment of the four- months of “Pop Art” productions offers a good deal of just that. The cover is impressive. The kid at the end wasn’t even afraid - anything for an autograph!

MB: With the preliminaries gotten out of the way last issue, the rematch between Thor and the Absorbing Man is a worthy tussle, even if Creel’s ability to mimic Giant-Man seems a bit out of left field, however photogenic it may be. Again, the Kirby/Colletta team seems better suited to this book than to certain others, and is on especially fine display in “Tales of Asgard.” But even as one “who had the good fortune and foresight to read Thor [sic] #120,” I’m confused by the scene with Jane, as I guess I’m supposed to be—who was that masked man?

PE: Two good points there, Professor Matthew. How did Crusher suddenly gain the power of height? Is Stan/Jack trying to say that if The Absorbing Man absorbs a whole bunch of stuff he can get real big? That hooded man scene seems to have changed tones form #120 when he almost seems to be a friend of Jane's or at least someone she knows. Now there's an "air of menace." Could it be the father she thought long dead (who somehow survived the explosion at the steel mill he worked at) come back to blackmail Jane into talking lame Doc Blake into operating on his volcanic face? Stay tuned.

Strange Tales

Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD

Our Story

Fury, who’s had a million-dollar bounty slapped on his head by Hydra, examines the saucer captured last ish, and receives from weapons design a tricked-up hat, tie, shirt, and armored suit. In the Balkans, a Hydra traitor and three S.H.I.E.L.D. agents die in a vain effort to pass a microfilm to Fury, who tells Agents Dugan and Jones that it contained the location of the launching site for the betatron bomb Hydra is about to put into orbit. While they mount an aerial search, we’re introduced to über-exec Leslie Farrington and his flunky, Brown, either of whom may be the Supreme Hydra, and the S.H. clashes with his daughter, Agent “G.”

MB: I’m a sucker for those overhead multiple-image screens, which remind me of The GREAT John Frankenheimer’s Seven Days in May, so that was a nice note on which to open. The scene with Stark’s unnamed Q-clone reminds us how much the ’60s spy milieu is indebted to 007, and this episode gives us a good sense of both the life-or-death stakes and the global reach of the conflict between S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra. But it earns the Sloppy Scripting Award for the appearance of fellow ex-Howlers Gabe Jones (also glimpsed on the security detail with Fury in the concurrent FF annual) and “Dum-Dum” Dugan as Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. with no explanation whatsoever.

Jack: The James Bond copying is getting out of hand with the obligatory segment where “Q” shows Bond—I mean Fury—all of the new gadgets he’s invented. By the way, if every Hydra agent who fails is killed, what’s the point of signing up? What are the perks? Was this the 60s version of Al Qaeda, where they were promised virgins in the afterlife? What are Dum Dum and Gabe doing working for SHIELD? The head of Hydra appears to want to take over the world for his daughter because they used to be poor. I am a little disappointed in this pedestrian motive!

JS: I think Fury might disagree that having several agents fire at him at point blank range is the best way to demonstrate that his suit is bulletproof. I guess all the shooters were wearing the same designer outfits, since they were basically shooting directly at each other from all sides...

PE: SHIELD spares no expense to keep their head honcho in one piece, including a hat that has a mirror in the brim! Quite a technological advance there. I believe I was the lone holdout last issue. I believe I was the lone holdout last issue as far as Severin's art goes. I'm sold now. I love the feel of an old newsreel Severin gives this strip. Yeah, it's a complete rip-off of Bond but it's got a goofy earnestness to it that 007 never had.

JS: I'm still picking up a G.I. Joe vibe, but it's just one more interesting thing to enjoy about the series.

Dr. Strange

Our Story

Seeking the meaning of Eternity, Dr. Strange probes the Ancient One’s mind, battling barriers and traps before he can establish trust and learn the secret. Once he finally gains the knowledge he needs, he flies off to a secluded spot, where he speaks a potent spell and walks through a door to another dimension.

Jack: A very good story with nice Ditko art—this quest is finally getting somewhere!

JS: Praise the lord and pass the cupcakes! Of course, if the Ancient One held the secret to contacting Eternity in his head, did Strange need to go and get it for him? I do look forward to seeing how this wraps up.

MB: Zowie! Steve and Stan kick it back up a notch—and then some—as Doc finally makes a breakthrough in the quest for Eternity. Since fully half of the pages in this story are devoted to Strange seated at the Ancient One’s bedside, Steve keeps things interesting to look at by visualizing some of the sorcerous elements (e.g., the shield created by the Ancient One, the mental images of himself that Doc sends into his brain, Strange’s hallucinations), and by giving the proceedings a cinematic feel with multiple “camera angles,” most notably that atmospheric bird’s-eye-view shot in page 4, panel 5. I like that we’re reminded of how powerful the Ancient One really still is, when we’re used to seeing him depicted as a feeble, frail old man constantly at death’s door.

Tales to Astonish 72

Sub-Mariner

Our story

The quest for the Trident continues as Namor tries not to let the giant seaweed monster destroy him. Knowing that the creature is too powerful, Namor quickly swims around him in a circle which creates a powerful whirlpool that traps him temporarily. Before the monster can escape, Subby finds a metal trap door that he must use all his strength to open. Inside, a small fish with a diamond in its mouth approaches with the next clue. Neptune’s voice can be heard resonating from the fish. Namor knows right away that the diamond is the next clue and that he has to go to the farthest reaches of the ocean to find the Diamonds of Doom. Back at the palace, Krang has been continually spurned by Dorma, who he wants to force to marry him. He tortures her with poison gas before making an example of her to all the peasants, banishing her to the realm of the faceless ones. Krang’s guards hand Dorma over to Zantor the merciless. Zantor is a kind of keeper of the faceless ones. He lowers an entrapped Dorma into their lair and it appears she is doomed, as the mysterious castaways start to approach her from the shadows. While this is going on, Namor reaches the diamonds of doom. Much to his surprise, some type of monster doesn’t await him, guarding the treasure. The diamonds themselves are the real threat; as Namor gets near them, they start to sap his power, making him black out, and possibly causing his death.

Tom: The creators threw in a couple of nice touches to keep this serial moving along at its exciting pace. The whole Dorma and Krang scenario got switched up before it started getting old. I’m curious to see what these faceless ones look like next issue.

PE: It's nice to see a female supporting character in the Marvel Universe, albeit one in peril, who has a little more to her than "Does he love me, do I love him" or the standard good looks and nothing much else. Lady Dorma's sub-plot plays out almost as intriguingly as Namor's.

Jack: Has anyone else noticed that Subby talks like Thor? They both seem to have attended the same British public school. Though Namor’s quest is beginning to get repetitive—he locates the next thing he seeks, there is a scary monster there that just about defeats him, he defeats it and moves on—the good writing and excellent art make these stories enjoyable. I love the subplot with Lady Dorma, especially Zantor, who looks like a late 60s movie villain!

Tom: Namor’s whirlpool concoction was a bit of a letdown for the conclusion of the battle against the seaweed giant, but I’m being picky. It was a good move to have the diamonds as the hazardous danger themselves, instead of some other giant monster.

MB: Seaweed Man—now there’s a villain to strike terror in the hardiest of heroes; I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of him in future issues. Namor certainly doesn’t seem like too much of a proto-feminist, the way he was barking at Dorma in our first installment (“Unhand me, woman! Have you forgotten that none may touch the royal personage??” Okay, this guy’s sleeping on the couch tonight!). But it is interesting to see that she literally gets equal time, with exactly half the pages devoted to her many trials and tribulations with Warlord Krang.

Hulk

Our story

The military continues its barrage on the Hulk as he is trapped in the cave. With little recourse, he accepts the Leader’s offer of safety and the two are transported to the villain’s secret hideout in Italy. The Leader gives the Hulkster the guided tour as we see his army of pink humanoids milling about, with new humanoids being hatched from eggs, instantly fighting each other as they are bred for combat. The Hulk doesn’t want anything to do with the weirdo Leader’s plans of world domination. He tries to attack him but is knocked out cold from sleeping gas that the Leader was secretly and slowly subjecting him to. When the Hulk awakens, he feels the change coming on into Banner. This will lead to his death because of the bullet still lodged in his skull. He tries desperately to forestall the transformation by using the Leader’s technology, with no luck. Figuring that if he’s going to die he might as well go out with a bang, the Hulk starts wrecking the joint. The Leader sends some of his humanoid goons to stop him as the story ends with the Hulk passing out after a brawl with them.

Tom: While last issue kind of lagged, this story was better, with a bit more insight into the Leader and his kooky plans. I liked his bizarre laboratory, especially since we get to see him working on some amphibious humanoids for when he goes after Namor’s kingdom once the above-water countries are under his control. The Leader was probably getting a little bit ahead of himself, though; as I am pretty sure an epic war between his army and Namor’s never materialized.

Jack: If Hulk has Bruce Banner’s brain, why does he speak like a palooka half the time? By the way, the art still stinks!

Tom: The Hulk’s surly demeanor, with Banner’s brain in partial control, is a nice surprise. I’m sure we are all aware of how the Jade Giant has had quite the identity crisis over his brief tenure at Marvel so far. My favorite incarnation of the Hulk was in the 1980s, when they made him gray-colored with a street thug attitude. Much better than the dumb caveman Hulk of the 1970s, in my humble opinion. You can almost kind of see a little of the gray Hulk incarnation in this issue. That General Ross sure is a genius. His latest suspicion is that the Hulk is a robot created by Banner. What?!

PE: Stan hypes in the final panel that in the next issue the strip will take off in a somewhat different direction. I hope "The Man" means we're about to buckle up and take off from the land of mediocrity.

Avengers 21

Our story

The Avengers are getting along about as well as The Fantastic Four, as Hawkeye continually needles Captain America, leaving Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch to keep the peace. In the Amazon jungle, a soldier of fortune left over from Baron Zemo’s band finds his way into Zemo’s old hideout, where the Enchantress helps him become super strong by way of the same device that had created Wonder Man. The new bad guy is dubbed Power Man, and he and the Enchantress return to New York to wreak havoc with the Avengers. The combination of Power Man’s abilities and The Enchantress’s spells makes the Avengers look like a bunch of rowdy fools, and the City Council passes a law declaring them a public menace and ordering them to disband! Old military man Captain America, not one to buck authority, fears this is the end of the super group he has now run into the ground.

PE: The team spends most of the story holding each other back from pummeling each other.

Scarlet Witch: Hawkeye, stop teasing Captain America.
Hawkeye: I'll blacken his eye. pretty lady. Just watch me.
Cap: I'm tired of your impertinence, Hawkeye, I'm gonna pound you, son.
(Here Scarlet Witch intercedes by blasting Hawkeye with a hex)
Cap: Be careful, Scarlet Witch, we're partners after all. We don't want to hurt each other.

Sheesh, what crap this script is.

The Enchantress attended the Stan Lee
School for Naming Villains.

MB: I’ve had the Marvel Triple Action reprint of this story since 1973, which means that for several years it was probably the earliest Avengers issue I’d seen. That goes a long way toward explaining my fondness for the REAL Power Man—not that Cage guy—whom I’d met in (wait for it) Avengers Special #1, and especially for Heck, whose work I thus encountered early on under the best possible circumstances, i.e., inked by Wood. It would be some time before I made the acquaintance of Wonder Man in #152, so the fact that Erik Josten’s powers tied in with his didn’t resonate with me per se, but I thought Power Man’s origin was well-handled in general, and of course I’ll never turn down a visit by the sexy Heck/Wood incarnation of the Enchantress.

A Wally Wood
Scarlet Witch.

PE: Well, The Enchantress would look nicer if she wasn't constantly portrayed as a talking head in the corner of a panel. Even Stan makes light of the "Power Man" moniker. He says he hopes everyone likes the latest villain as Marvel's running out of words to put with "-Man." I think it takes a lot of imagination to go from Wonder man to Power Man.

Jack: Don Heck’s pencils must have been pretty tight, because this doesn’t look very much like Wally Wood’s work. Again, look at the girls—The Enchantress and the Scarlet Witch do show signs of Wood’s loving care. It’s funny that The Avengers have an emergency fund to pay for all of the damage they cause. I also wonder where The Executioner is, since Power Man is hitting on The Enchantress pretty hard! This issue’s letters column includes a missive from Mike Friedrich, who would later write for Batman.

Not to worry--she doesn't go for humans.

Fantastic Four 43

Our Story

The conclusion of our trilogy finds finds Reed and Sue making an escape from the Frightful Four. Reed having attached anti-gravity discs on Medusa, the Trapster and the Sandman (with the Trapster’s paste), only the Wizard and the Human Torch are free to pursue them. With a likewise anti-grav Ben in tow, the soon-to-be-married Richards hop in Johnny’s sports car and head for the Baxter Building. The plan is to get Ben where Reed’s own machinery can reverse the effects of the Wizard’s Id machine, which enhances the darker side of the human mind, and has turned the already bitter Thing against his teammates. The Human Torch, apparently converted to the dark side as well, is only faking—Sue having diffused the Id machine before the evil F.F. could use it on him. They get suspicious when the Torch isn’t much help in thwarting Sue and Reed’s escape. When Medusa and the Wizard find the Id machine has been tampered with, they subdue Johnny. Reed and Sue have their hands full getting an angry Ben into an experimental chamber. Finally they do, and gas Ben so he’s unconscious. Reed gets to work on “fixing” Ben’s mind, at the risk of doing more damage if he fails. The Thing wakes up, and smashes free of Reed’s equipment, causing a deadly electrical buildup. Everyone gets out of harms way, but it’s unclear whether an unconscious Ben has been helped or harmed. More trouble is on the way; landing atop the roof are the Frightful Four. The Sandman seeps through some tiny cracks in the roof and breaks the ceiling above to let his cohorts enter the Baxter Building. They have the Torch floating outside, attached to a human-sized anti-grav disc, and the Wizard threatens to let Johnny drop to his death unless the good F.F. surrender. Ben wakes up, and, surprise… he’s one of the good guys again! He grabs the Wizard, smashing his anti-grav master control. Johnny does drop, but can flame on now, and flies to his teammates aid. The Frightful four are taken by surprise and defeated. All, that is, except Medusa, who manages to escape.

JB: Fantastic Four. Frightful Four. Or five, or six… There’s so many it’s hard to keep track! Ben’s somehow the most appealing member, good or bad. If the bad F.F. didn’t have so much in fighting, they might have fared better.

PE: I love the Miniature Resonance Cap "which will have the effect of dynamite on an oil fire." The little weapon that could looks like a toddler's roll of TNT.

JB: I’ve always liked the Sandman, and thought of him as an F.F. villain, even though he got his start as a Spiderman foe. Medusa’s quite a cutie; it’s no wonder Johnny doesn’t have the heart to stop her from escaping. Even the police don’t believe it’s really Reed on the phone at the end!

PE: I'm not sure what The Wizard means when he says "Now we're ready for our greatest attack -- our final victory."

JS: Wizard—you just completed your final virtory! What are you going to do??? (I've got my money on Dislneyland.)

MB: At last we’ve reached the finale of our ever-shifting matchup between, uh, lessee, the Frightful Six and the Fantastic Two, although we now learn that Johnny was merely shamming, thus displaying more gravitas than expected from the literal hothead, and I like that this was withheld from the reader as well as the other characters. Between big-domes Reed and Wingless, there’s an overabundance of kool, Kirbyesque frammistats on display, so the battle for the mind and soul of Benjamin J. Grimm comes down to who has the better frammistats; you do the math. The Torch goes two steps back by letting Medusa escape, and if the cover-up is worse than the crime, his over-sensitivity on the subject is perhaps the greater annoyance…but I speak with the 20/20 hindsight of knowing that Medusa will turn out to be a hero in the end, and that we’re going into a major Inhumans mode once we’ve got this wedding business out of the way.

PE: Who's the egghead running the desk down at the 31st precinct? Why, it's Sgt. Donnegan! I was somewhat disturbed to see that The Fantastic Four have been stealing from The X-Men's playbook. I know that X and his mini-Xes are invited to the wedding and all but does that give Reed the right to call out "Plan R" to Sue during battle? Of course, Stretch had to rewrite that particular move since it was originally designed for a guy with really big feet. Here it simply means "Sue, use your invisible force spheres." Why he can't just tell his fiance what's on his mind I'll never know.

Tales of Suspense 70

Iron Man

Our Story

Iron Man is still locked in mortal combat with The Titanium Man as part of a televised smack-down, devised to pit the good (USA!) against the evil (COMMIE ALERT!). Of course, the big-hearted Iron man never imagined a Russkie would cheat and use weapons not in the fight manual but, alas, he'll learn very quickly. But Tito's not the only pain in Tony Stark's iron-clad butt as the Countess de la Spirosa is intent on paying back the millionaire playboy in spades for standing her up. She breaks into Tony's hotel suite (does Stark rent a room or just buy the hotel?) and discovers his experimental power pack. Sensing this is something big that she can use against him, she steals it just as the Shell-headed dope discovers he's forgotten to bring it along to the fight. Luckily, Happy Hogan agrees to track down the naughty Countess and brings Iron Man the device. Determined to get the gizmo to Shellhead, Happy ventures out onto the battlefield and is blasted when Iron Man ducks from a Molecule Scrambler. Vowing to avenge his fallen gofer, Iron Man stands tall and strides toward The Titanium Man. To Be Continued.

PE: Senator Harrington Byrd is fast becoming a clone of J. Jonah Jameson (the Senator even sports the clinching cigar). His irrational hatred of Tony Stark and, as an extension, Iron Man has become laughable. Also laughable is the fact that Iron Man forgets his new gizmo back at the hotel. Could a brain the size of Tony Stark's actually forget such an important device? Then he has the nerve to think to himself, after he's sent his bodyguard/chauffeur/drink stirrer Happy Hogan after his jilted bad girl, "If only Happy hadn't failed me!" Excuse me, you absent-minded clod? Though the fight between Titanium and Iron Men smacks of a heavyweight bout, I'm not sure America would put its name behind what could end up being murder. Am I being naive?

JS: I did a double take when I saw the carnival panel I was sure I read before, and sure enough, we even get a liner note that Stan swiped them from the previous issue. Gotta give 'em credit for being forthcoming about being lazy. Or respecting that that kids might actually notice!

PE: I can just picture Stan Lee's office at the Marvel Bullpen: notes tacked all over the wall to keep him straight on which villain has which deadly ray: Mole Man - Flatulence Charger. Doctor Doom - Ionic Pentameter Displacer. The Mad Thinker - Encephalon Neuro Microwave Thought Enhancer. The Titanium Man - The Molecule Scrambler Ray. Picture this: Stan realizes he's mixed his notes up and suddenly the ray gun The Mad Thinker invented in FF #5 is being used by Rama-Tut in Avengers #14 but it's too late to stop the presses. Stan Lee spends the next two months just waiting for the mountain of mail from George R. R. Martin, Don McGregor, Roy Thomas, and all the other Marvel kiddies, screaming for his head. What a life!

JS: Good thing they scheduled those 10 minute rest periods in their fight. Without those, Iron Man surely would have been doomed.

PE: Iron Man warns Happy he's not safe on the battlefield and then ducks as Tito sends a molecularly scrambled ray his way, leaving Hogan right in the path. I'm not sure what a molecule scrambler is supposed to do (and why it's not in the weapon cache of The Molecule Man) but Happy's head is still where it's supposed to be. Monumental cheat at the climax as Happy Hogan is all but pronounced dead. Was it his clone? His twin brother from Ireland, Hoppy? A hologram devised at the last second by Iron Man to make Tito think he has the upper hand? Whatever it is, I smell revisionism as soon as we meet again next issue. My money is on amnesia. Hogan will never remember that he discovered Iron Man's secret identity.

JS: What? Happy — not dead? I refuse to believe it! I have to say the scene surprised me, so I'll go on believing it until the next issue.

Captain America

Our Story

Discovering that Bucky has been taken captive, Captain America heads for "the most desolate part of Britain" and mysterious Greymoor Castle. There, the traitorous Dr. Cedric Rawlings seems hellbent on teaching his home country a lesson for spurning him. Cap arrives at the castle and finds Bucky strapped on a stretcher loaded with explosives. Before he can release his sidekick he's attacked by Nazis dressed in suits of armor and gassed. Cap, Bucky, and Rawlings' sister are loaded into the V-2 missile, now aimed at 10 Downing Street and Winston Churchill.

PE: I've gone from thinking that the World War II scenario would be the perfect breeding ground for the imagination of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee to thinking maybe a contemporary climate might do this strip a bit of good. The exit of Kirby probably has a lot to do with that vibe and the addition of George Tuska, who has never floated my boat, can't help. Too much of his art has that "Dick Ayers taught me everything he knows..." look to it, his figures interchangeable and indistinct.

JS: I was initially excited to see that they were starting this issue off with the plane takeover that happened offscreen last issue. Until I turned the page and realized they intended to cover that in the splash page and two additional panels. At that point, why evem bother? They must have had the pages to fill.

MB: This appears to be the first time we’ve seen Golden Age vet George Tuska’s work in the Silver Age, providing finished art over Kirby’s layouts. I don’t remember him coming up before, except as the guy alluded to back in March for having reportedly punched out Bob Powell, but given the almost-decade-long run on Iron Man in his future, perhaps Tuska had the last laugh. In this first Suspense outing, he neither embarrasses nor distinguishes himself, and in truth, the same might be said of Stan’s run-of-the-mill script.

PE: I had to laugh when Captain America enters the creepy dungeon where Bucky is being held, trussed up like a present at George Michael's 50th birthday party, hears Bucky's muffled "Mrrff...mrrffff...mmmrrrfffffff!" and uses the "experience of a thousand battles... the caution of one who has been both the hunter and the hunted" and perceives there might just be a booby-trap here! It wasn't the big black Ajax bomb with the lit fuse strapped to Bucky's midsection? The dynamic between Steve Rogers and his suspicious Army Sergeant (who's convinced that Rogers is a deserter) will be resuscitated years later by Steve Englehart when he has Steve Rogers join the police force and clash constantly with Sergeant Muldoon (who may or may not be a crooked cop - Stay Tuned!).

JS: Gosh. The Nazis decide the mad doctor's sister will share the fate of Cap and Bucky. Will said mad doctor sit back and watch as his sister is strapped to a rocket? I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that we haven't seen the last of Celia or our dynamic duo.

Also this Month

Marvel Tales #2
Millie the Model #131
Modeling with Millie #42
Patsy and Hedy #102
Patsy Walker #123
Rawhide Kid #48
Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos #23
Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos Annual #1

SOME HIGHLIGHTS

Marvel Tales #2 (72 Big Pages!) features reprints of: X-Men #1, "The Ringmaster" story from Hulk #3, "The Origin of Dr. Strange" from Strange Tales #115, the Lee/Ditko sf story "A Monster Among Us" from Amazing Adult Fantasy #8, and The Avengers #1. In addition to a new Lee/Ayers/Giacoia story, Sgt Fury Annual #1 also reprints issues #4 and 5 in their entirety.