Featuring: Iron Man Release: April 9, 1963 Cover: July 1963 12 cents Plot: Stan Lee Script: R. Berns Art: Jack Kirby Inking: Don Heck 13 pages
I read this story in The Invincible Iron Man Omnibus vol. 1.
If there’s one thing I associate with Kirby (and there’s a lot more than one), it’s stylish headpieces on women.
That outfit seems pure Kirby.
Beyond that and maybe some of the machinery, the issue mostly reminds me of Heck’s art. I’m guessing Kirby’s art is really pretty loose design and layout, leaving a lot of the details, particular facial details, to Heck’s finishing. Just a guess.
Anthony Stark leaves costume behind, figuring it will be safe. This is called foreshadowing.
The world beneath the surface seems pretty crowded. I guess there’s lots of room down there, enough for a few underworld kingdoms. Kala is the third ruler of a subsurface kingdom we have met, after Moleman and Tyrannus. She won’t be the last. Let’s see who Thor fights next month…
What do I do now? I’ve never been beaten before! But this time my spider powers were not enough! Is this the end of Spider-Man?
I read this story in Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection vol. 1: Great Power.
I’m going to go ahead and confess that I don’t know what the title of this comic is. I often don’t. Many times, the title is in quotes to make it clear. Even though what’s in quotes is often preceded by the name of the title hero with a “versus” or a “battles” after.
For example, Fantastic Four #15 had the opening text: “The Fantastic Four Battle… The Mad Thinker and His Awesome Android!” With the latter part in a much bigger font. Online sources vary.
This is even more confusing because the arrangement of the different pieces make the order unclear.
Possible titles:
Doctor Octopus
Spider-Man Versus Doctor Octopus
The Strangest Foe of All Time… Doctor Octopus
Spider-Man Versus the Stranges Foe of All Time… Doctor Octopus
The internet generally doesn’t agree on which of the above makes sense. For my part, I’m trusting the table of contents in the collection I’m reading this in.
The title page describes Doctor Octopus as “the only enemy ever to defeat Spider-Man!” Not sure that’s accurate. Vulture and Tinkerer both handed Spider-Man initial defeats last issue before Spider-Man was able to come back and win in round 2. Which is basically what’s going to happen in this issue.
Featuring: Ant-Man and Wasp Release: April 2, 1963 Cover: June 1963 12 cents Plot: Stan Lee Script: H.E. Huntley Art: Don Heck 13 pages
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: Ant-Man/Giant-Man vol. 1.
With the return of Egghead, Ant-Man gets his first recurring villain. We’ve only seen so many recurring villains, with many new (but often forgettable) ones cropping up. Fantastic Four recurring villains so far are: Namor, Dr. Doom and Puppet Master. Thor of course keeps fighting Loki. Human Torch has now fought Paste-Pot Pete twice and Wizard thrice. And I think that’s it. So far, no recurring foes for Spider-Man, Iron Man, or Hulk (unless you count the US military).
They dedicate 2 pages the recapping the last battle with Egghead. At this point, the writers have mostly seemed to pay little attention to details, continuity, or consistency. Yet here they stick pretty close to the actual story in the recap, including some dialogue. Mostly new art and script, but a very close retelling.
Yeah, yeah. We already read all this.
Remember that in the 1960s, comics weren’t yet published online. You had to find them at a local vendor, so it was possible to miss an issue. This recap would help keep readers of that era up to speed if this happened.
We now have a new status quo. Ant-Man and Wasp are teammates. She thinks they should date. He is stuffy. They are both eager to battle evil and such. Wasp is sometimes overeager to prove herself. Even though she’s the one who can fly. While he… catapults.
Featuring: Thor Release: April 2, 1963 Cover: June 1963 12 cents Plot: Stan Lee Script: R. Berns Art: Jack Kirby Inking: Dick Ayers 13 pages
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor vol. 1.
Another Cold War story, but this one tying itself closely to current events, seeming to be set during the Sino-Indian War.
Thor takes quite the interest in particular geopolitical concerns.
This allows us to align the comic’s timeline with our own. The Sino-Indian War mainly took place October-November 1962, about 6 months before this comic came out. And since it takes some number of months to go from concept to the comic being finished, printed, distributed and appearing on stands, they were drawing from pretty current events.
Featuring: Iron Man Release: March 12, 1963 Cover: June 1963 12 cents Plot: Stan Lee Script: R. Berns Art: Don Heck 13 pages
I read this story in the Invincible Iron Man Omnibus vol. 1.
I also have it reprinted in Marvel Collector’s Item Classics #5 from 1966, and include scans from that reprint below.
Robert Bernstein has been scripting more and more Marvel books. We just saw him in our last Human Torch entry and his name is showing up on Ant-Man and Wasp stories.
As we’ve discussed before, the comic treats Stark’s military work as entirely noble, as opposed to the more nuanced take the movie would have decades later. It’s about changing attitudes. But this comic really seems to push it. Stark invents a disintegrator ray, and notes among its applications that it could destroy a metropolis. Surely we recognize that as a purely evil application? That’s not much better than building a nuclear bomb.
We all get this is evil, right?
Hulk’s origin had a subtle swipe at weapon-building, given that Dr. Banner was a victim of his own bomb. But it’s not clear to me how intentional that was on the part of Lee or Kirby. Or whether it’s interpretation that comes from reading the comic through a modern lens.
Featuring: Human Torch Release: March 12, 1963 Cover: June 1963 12 cents Plot: Stan Lee Script: R. Berns Art: Jack Kirby Inks: Dick Ayers 13 pages
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: The Human Torch vol. 1.
The Sorceror is a hermit who is mean to kids who trespass on his property. In return, Johnny is extremely mean to him. I thought Johnny was being quite the bully to a harmless hermit who just wants to be left alone.
Now who’s abusing his power?
Torch tells him: “You can’t have it both ways. If you want freedom of movement, others must have it as well!” But that hardly makes sense. In context, Torch is saying: “If you want to leave your own property, you have to let others onto it.”
Anyways, the Sorceror is not harmless. He’s actually a sorceror and has found Pandora’s Box. Which contains a bunch of evils, also called imps. We meet some of them: Flood, Hatred, Forgetfulness, Sleepiness, Paralysis, Cold, Disease, Foolishness, Laziness, Fire, Fear. They range from human traits to natural disasters.
We learn a bit of Greek myth, how Pandora released the evils but Circe put them back. Not clear what connection Circe will have to the Eternal named Sersi we will eventually meet.
Always a woman. Eating that apple. Opening that box.
In the last post, we spoke about characters getting ruined by having lame ambitions. The Sorceror has access to all the evils of the world. And what does he want to do with it? Rob a bank. Boring.
Have better ambition!
Has it been 2 years already?
The most interesting thing in this story to me is that Johnny notes it’s 1963. He had noted in an issue of Fantastic Four that it was 1962, suggesting at least a year has passed. I am fascinated by trying to track how much time has passed and am looking for clues. But I must be careful reading too much into a single line of dialogue stating the year. As writers will almost always claim their story is happening in the current year, whether or not that makes sense.. But Reed is already in his ’40s by 1961 when we meet him. So he only has so many decades of superheroing left in him.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆, 39/100
Characters:
Johnny Storm/Human Torch
The Sorcerer
Flood
Ben Grimm/Thing
Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic
Sue Storm/Invisible Girl
Pandora
Circe
Hatred
Forgetfullness
Sleepiness
Paralysis
Cold
Disease
Foolishness
Laziness
Fire
Fear
Story Notes:
Johnny notes it’s now 1963
The box contains hundreds of imps
In end, Sorcerer frozen with fear from Imp of Fear
Featuring: Fantastic Four Release: March 12, 1963 Cover: June 1963 12 cents Script: Stan Lee Art: Jack Kirby Inking: Dick Ayers 20 pages
I read this story in Fantastic Four Omnibus vol. 1
In general, the desire to be king of the city’s gangs is an uninteresting motivation. The FF villains are better when they think bigger than the Thinker seems to be thinking here. The lack of a good supervillain plot cheapens the new villain out of the box. Nonetheless, the Thinker (sometimes called the Mad Thinker) will become a major FF adversary.
Featuring: Ant-Man and the Wasp Release: March 5, 1963 Cover: June 1963 12 cents Plot: Stan Lee Script: H.E. Huntley Art: Jack Kirby Inking: Don Heck 18 pages
This is the first we have seen of H.E. Huntley. It is a pen name for Ernest Huntley Hart, known as Ernie Hart. He is freelancing at this point, and will do only occasional Marvel work in the 1960s, but he was an active Marvel writer and artist going back to the 1940s, perhaps most famous for his funny animal comics. He created Super Rabbit in 1943.
In this issue, meet our next Marvel superhero star, the Wasp. In yet another moment of serendipity, she was introduced the same day as Sgt. Fury!
But we already know why he became Ant-Man…
For the last 7 issues, Ant-Man has starred in solo adventures in the pages of Tales to Astonish. Going forward, he will now have a partner. Wasp will be the second female star added to our cast, after Invisible Girl. Most women we’ve met are relatives or romantic interests. No females are yet lead characters, as Wasp seems to get second billing to Ant-Man. And Invisible Girl is the member of the Fantastic Four given the least focus and respect.
Sgt. Fury, and His Howling Commandos/Seven Against the Nazis!
Featuring: Sgt. Fury and the Howling Commandos Release: March 5, 1963 Cover: May 1963 12 cents Story: Stan Lee Art: Jack Kirby Inking: Dick Ayers 21 pages
I read this comic in Sgt. Fury Epic Collection vol. 1: The Howling Commandos.
So why are we reading this comic in with the superhero stories? Well, the answer is probably obvious, but let’s think it through a little. What else is Marvel putting out in March of 1963 that I could be reading?
Two western comics: Gunsmoke Western and Rawhide Kid. And a few later time-travel stories will intersect these heroes with our superhero comics, so they’re not irrelevant. The problem is there are so many western comics, going back to well before we started our reading in 1961. The original Two-Gun Kid debuted in 1948, the same month as Annie Oakley #1. Kid Colt, Blaze Carson, Tex Morgan, and Tex Taylor debuted soon after. Point is, we are nowhere near a good jumping on point for the western stories.
There are two romance titles out this month, Love Romances and Patsy and Hedy. As we’ve mentioned, Patsy Walker will eventually become a superhero. But there are also a lot of these comics going back to the 1940s. Patsy’s had a regular feature since 1945.
(Notice that’s also Jack Kirby on the Love Romances comic. So he’s telling a lot of stories in a lot of genres this month.)
There are four fantasy anthology titles, each with a superhero feature we’ve been reading as the lead story. One pure superhero comic.
And now a war comic set in World War II. Why read the war comic with our superhero reading and not the westerns or romance comics?
Featuring: Thor Release: March 5, 1963 Cover: May 1963 12 cents Plot: Stan Lee Script: R. Berns Art: Joe Sinnott 13 pages
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor vol. 1.
The somewhat awkward title of this story underscores they haven’t yet decided that Thor’s magic hammer should have a name.
I look forward to the first battle with Loki where he doesn’t steal Thor’s magic hammer.
Now, the title also sounds pretty ominous. For we know that if Loki were to steal Thor’s magic hammer, the thunder god would be helpless within 60 seconds. Indeed, that is what happened in both of Thor’s previousencounters with Loki, both of which involved Loki stealing his magic hammer.
