The Coming of… Sub-Mariner On the Trail of the Torch/Enter the Sub-Mariner/Let the World Beware!/Sub-Mariner’s Revenge! Release: February 8, 1962 Cover: May 1962 12 cents Credits: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby Inks: Sol Brodsky (uncredited) 23 pages
Famously, Human Torch meets a random amnesiac hobo and decides without permission to burn the hobo’s beard off his face. The hobo looks like a character Torch read about in a comic, which convinces him to toss the hobo into the ocean. I would argue this behavior on the part of the Torch is inappropriate. But nobody on the team is setting a better example.
I read this comic in Marvel Masterpieces Golden Age Marvel Comics vol. 1. My copy of the book is filled with printing errors: pages missing or repeated; and, the copy seems off. The colors and inks seem pretty blurred, compared to scans I’m finding online. The coloring wasn’t great in those days to begin with, so it’s hard to tell without seeing the comic what it actually looks like, as reproductions vary widely. It’s particularly tricky as Everett wanted to make the undersea scenes murky.
This story is the beginning of a serial and doesn’t reach a satisfying conclusion in and of itself. It concerns Namor of the race of Sub-Mariners, recently come of age. He learns from his mother Fen of the ravages done to their people by the experiments of the surface dwellers, (who the comic refers to as the “white men”) and leads a crusade against the surface. His first step is to destroy a lighthouse. We’ll have to tune in next issue to see more.
The surface world will never recover from the destruction of the lighthouse; they may as well surrender now.
It begins in a familiar fashion, from the viewpoints of ordinary sailors, leaving the Sub-Mariner as a mystery in the background. Namor will become the point-of-view character soon, but first we learn who he is in snatches, as the humans do. An undersea diver notices oddities, like evidence that somebody had recently been there, even though they are the only ship in the area. It’s a mystery to investigate, a deadly one as it will turn out. It’s a technique we’ve seen frequently in superhero films (plus many a movie before them). Famously, when Batman first dons the suit in Batman Begins, the movie shifts its point-of-view to that of criminals. They only know something strange is happening, that they see out of the corner of their eye and hear above them– and that their numbers are thinning. This comic gives us a similar scene with divers.
The Return of the Gorilla-Man Release: January 9, 1962 Cover: April, 1962 12 cents Credits: Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers 7 pages
The issue has no credits. The Grand Comics Database identifies the artists as Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers, and guesses the writing credits are due to Stan Lee and Larry Lieber. I think Marvel only had two writers at the time, so this is a reasonable guess.
The Menace of the Miracle Man/The Monster Lives!/The Flame that Died!/In the Shadow of defeat!/The Final Challenge! Featuring: Fantastic Four Release: December 12, 1961 Cover: March, 1962 12 cents Credits: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby Inks: Sol Brodsky (uncredited) 23 pages
I read this comic in Fantastic Four Omnibus vol. 1. The issue has signatures for Stan and Jack. The Table of Contents for the Omnibus credits Sol with inks.
The price of the comic has jumped up from 10 to 12 cents. Not sure we’ll be able to afford to continue this series at this rate.
The Fantastic Four battle Miracle Man, a largely forgotten villain. We see he can: fly; become a giant; change into water, metal, or gas; control elements, storms, thunder, and lightning; slice a tree trunk in half with his finger; withstand the Thing’s strongest blow; etcetera. How can the FF defeat such a villain? Well, there’s a twist I’ll let you read for yourselves.
It Walks Erect! Release: May 19, 1954 Cover: September, 1954 10 cents Credits: Bob Powell 5 pages
I read this comic reprinted in Weird Wonder Tales #7, December 1974. Credits are not given.
Another hop back in time. Dr. Nagan isn’t actually called Gorilla Man here. That moniker will come later. But it seemed a worthy flashback so we can keep straight Marvel’s three gorilla men.
Featuring: Gorilla Man Release: November 20, 1953 Cover: March, 1954 10 cents Credits: Robert Q. Sale 6 pages
I read this story in the Agents of Atlas collection.
Robert Q. Sale signed the issue as the artist. Not certain who wrote the words. I don’t know Sale. An internet search reveals little about him. He pencilled some 500 weird or war comics in the ’50s and ’60s, sometimes under the pen name Bob Q. Siege. He’s a very good artist, capturing vivid facial expressions, effectively evoking the nightmarish and kinetic mood.
Featuring: Gorilla-Man Release: November 9, 1961 Cover: February, 1961 12 cents Credits: Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers 7 pages
This is a tangential story, but it seemed worth including. Unlike Henry Pym last issue, Herr Radzik is a mad scientist bent on evil. He’ll also become less prominent of a character.
He is an evil scientist who invents a ray to switch bodies. He first changes places with a cat (I perhaps would have stayed there) and then decides a gorilla will be the ultimate form. His ambitions involve stealing money as a gorilla, and such. But, once he puts the gorilla into his body, the gorilla is able to use its new human brain to outsmart him and lock him in a zoo.
The Man in the Ant Hill Release: September 28, 1961 Cover: January, 1962 10 cents Story: Stan Lee and Larry Lieber Pencils: Jack Kirby Inks: Dick Ayers 7 pages
I read this in Marvel Masterworks: Ant-Man/Giant-Man vol. 1. The story gives no credits, but the collection does. Some online sources break that down as crediting Stan with the plot and Larry with the scripting.
The opening splash pages serves as a title page and cover for the story.
Marvel stands on the precipice between its era of short sci/fi tales and its era of superheroes. This comic comes out the same day as Fantastic Four #2 and fits squarely in the former category, a short cautionary sci/fi tale about a mad scientist. Not clear what the theme is. Be careful of inventing stuff, I guess.
The Fantastic Four Meet the Skrulls from Outer Space/Prisoner of the Skrulls/The Fantastic Four Fight Back!/The Fantastic Four… Captured! Release: September 28, 1961 Cover: January, 1962 10 cents Credits: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby Inks: George Klein (Uncredited) 24 pages
I read this in Fantastic Four Omnibus Volume 1. The Table of Contents credits the issue to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby; I don’t see any credits in the issue itself. Online sources cite George Klein as the inker.
Hey, it’s the Skrulls! They were just in that movie last month!
