Reading the Marvel Universe – Page 56

Tales of Suspense #41

The Stronghold of Doctor Strange!

Featuring: Iron Man
Release: February 12, 1963
Cover: May 1963
12 cents
Plot: Stan Lee
Script: R. Berns
Art: Jack Kirby
Inking: Dick Ayers
13 pages

Confession time. I just made a dumb mistake here. Got confused by numbers and dates. This post should have come before my previous Journey Into Mystery post, as this issue is from February and the Thor story is from March. It’s a little confusing because both are cover-dated May. The Thor stories always seem a month out of sync in terms of their cover dates for some reason.

Robert Bernstein returns on scripting duties. He will be the regular scripter for a while. This is the first Iron Man story without Don Heck involved with the art (either as primary or finisher). This is perhaps why Tony looks so radically different from the previous 2 stories.

Maybe I’d recognize him better with black hair…

Though part of the problem is that his hair is brown in my omnibus (scanned above). Other modern recolorings make it black. It’s hard to speak intelligently to the coloring of these comics because of how wildly it varies between reproductions.

Iron Man is falling into a somewhat familiar pattern 3 issues in. After a very good origin issue, we get a sequence of pretty forgettable stories. Last issue, he fought Gargantus, and this issue introduces Dr. Strange. Neither of whom am I expecting to show up any time soon in a major motion picture.

Another familiar trope is that we’ve skipped the establishing of the hero. In this issue, the third Iron Man story, the first of which was set in a Vietnam jungle, we learn that children idolize Iron Man. So he, like the rest of the heroes, has fast become a sensation.

Amazing Spider-Man #2, Story B

The Uncanny Threat of the Terrible Tinkerer!

Featuring: Spider-Man
Release: February 12, 1963
Cover: May 1963
12 cents
Story: Stan Lee
Art: Steve Ditko
10 pages

I read this story in Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection vol. 1: Great Power. Scans are taken from Marvel Tales #139, a 1982 reprinting.

Spider-Man meets his 2nd elderly super-villain in a single issue!

OK, now I’ll have to admit that not every Spider-Man story is a masterpiece. But even at their worst, they’re a cut above. When the issues have an “A” and “B” story, it seems like the effort went into the “A” story.

Even here, we see a lot of the greatness at play. Steve Ditko’s art, of course. But also the coherence of the story, tangling together Peter Parker’s story seamlessly with Spider-Man’s.

The name “Cobbwell” brings to mind “cobweb”. Coincidence? Probably.

There is some type of rule that each of these superheroes must fend off an alien invasion by their second issue. It’s very out of place here.

Amazing Spider-Man #2

Duel to the death with the Vulture!

Featuring: Spider-Man
Release: February 12, 1963
Cover: May 1963
12 cents
Script: Stan Lee
Art: Steve Ditko
14 pages

Previous	#59	Next
Strange Tales #108, Story C	Reading order	Amazing Spider-Man #2, Story B
Amazing Spider-Man #1, Story B	Amazing Spider-Man	Amazing Spider-Man #2, Story B

He thinks I’m just a typical teen-age kid! Good! That’s the way I like it!

So I am going to try something new with this blog. I have mostly been stealing pictures I could find on the internet, but I now have a large nifty scanner working and want to try to make my own scans. Now, for various reasons related to my lack of independent wealth, I don’t own Amazing Spider-Man #2, but I have many reprints.

I’ve largely been reading comics in thick collections, which can be hard to scan with my flatbed scanner. But I have smaller reprints from this story. It was reprinted in Amazing Spider-Man Annual 7, but that is still a bit thick for optimal scanning, and the binding isn’t entirely perfect. I also have it reprinted in Marvel Tales #139. Let me try a few scans for comparison.

Tales to Astonish #43

The Mad Master of Time!

Featuring: Ant-Man
Release: February 5, 1963
Cover: May 1963
12 cents
Plot: Stan Lee
Script: Larry Lieber
Art: Don Heck
13 pages

I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: Ant-Man/Giant-Man vol. 1.

As with the Thor comic released the same day, this issue sports the spiffy new logo box with a picture of the lead character, the price, and the phrase “Marvel Comics Group”.

One of my gateways into the world of superheroes as a child was Batman: The Animated Series. A frequent feature of the show was villain origins that cast them in a sympathetic light. Often they were fired or otherwise screwed over by a corporate bigshot. Riddler, Clock King, Mr. Freeze… all were given origins where you could at least see why they were upset, even if supervillainy is rarely justified.

Professor Weems has such an origin. Fired based solely on his age. With the twist that he had been so excited to show his grandson his lab and his work. Not sure that would even be legal today. They’d at least need some better official story.

Journey Into Mystery #91

Sandu, Master of the Supernatural!

Featuring: Thor
Release: February 5, 1963
Cover: April 1963
12 cents
Plot: Stan Lee
Script: Larry Lieber
Art: Joe Sinnott
13 pages

I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor vol. 1.

Joe Sinnott is best known as an inker. We’ve seen him twice so far in that capacity, inking Kirby for the introductions of Thor and Dr. Doom, respectively. This is the first time we see him as the primary artist.

This event was teased already because I chose to read the last Fantastic Four slightly out of chronological order and because I accidentally read the last Strange Tales out of chronological order.

But this is one of three comics released February 5 to sport the spiffy new Marvel logo. The others are Tales to Astonish and Patsy Walker. We are not currently including the Patsy Walker stories in our Marvel reading, not until she becomes more intertwined with the superheroes than she currently is.

There’s a lot going on that will become a feature of Marvel covers for years. The first is that there’s a little box with the picture of the lead character. Now, Journey Into Mystery is still an anthology title. There are two other scifi/fantasy tales within this very issue. But Thor is the star, now. And that little box makes that clear.

Then we get the price, 12 cents. That’s been the price of all the comics since Fantastic Four #3 raised the price from 10 cents. Usually, the price has been in a circle somewhere on the cover. Now it’s in this new logo box.

And then the phrase “Marvel Comics Group”. Previously, there had been the letters “MC” in a little box on the covers.

Here’s how it all looked on the cover of Fantastic Four #1.

INTERLUDE: Strange Tales #108, Story C

The Iron Warrior

Featuring: Merlin
Release: February 12, 1963
Cover: May 1963
12 cents
Script: Stan Lee
Art: Steve Ditko
5 pages

I found this story on this blog.

In an earlier story in this same issue, we saw Human Torch battle the Painter.

We read one earlier Merlin story in the pages of Tales of Suspense, also by Lee and Ditko. That was a modern tale, whereas this one takes us back to Arthurian days.

This era of these “weird tales” is soon coming to an end, as their pages will be given over entirely to these upstart superhero comics soon. We’ve read the occasional one, usually featuring legendary figures who will also appear in our superhero stories.

Merlin is actually quite the important character to our Marvel tales, featuring prominently in Black Knight and Captain Britain tales, though it’s not clear this issue is meant to have any connection. There was a short-lived 50s series called Black Knight in which Merlin was a major character, which will be quite important to our tale. We’ll read a couple of those stories as Prelude issues when they start to impact the stories we are reading here. They were also set in King Arthur’s court.

This is the tale of the jealous Sir Mogard, who challenges Merlin to a duel. Just as we saw in the last Merlin tale, the villain gets what’s coming to him.

Don’t hear the word “bandy” often; last time I heard it was from Gandalf.

This tale also involves a Black Knight, who in the classic series served Merlin against Modred. The original Black Knight was Sir Percy in disguise. This one turns out to be an empty suit of armor brought to life by Merlin. There will be other Black Knights to come.

Strange Tales #108

The Painter of a Thousand Perils!

Featuring: Human Torch
Release: February 12, 1963
Cover: May 1963
12 cents
Plot: Stan Lee
Script: R. Berns
Art: Jack Kirby
Inking: Dick Ayers
13 pages

Kirby is back with Ayers inking after 2 issues of Ayers on main art. They will go back and forth some, but Ayers is going to be the more regular artist at this point. This is the second script we’ve seen by “R. Berns”, Robert Bernstein, who just provided the script for the last Iron Man story. We’ll see him in a few more places.

The basic idea of this comic is fun. The Painter has magic paint that makes whatever he paints come to life. The ending is somewhat absurd, and the story has some severe structural problems.

The splash page is pretty heavily expository and overly explains the plot of the issue, when really it should just be teasing it.

I mean… that’s pretty much the entire story.

We get a couple pages showing how Human Torch regularly helps police capture common crooks. This isn’t the type of thing we see any other FF members doing. It’s a regular activity for Ant-Man and semi-regular activity for Thor.

Fantastic Four #14

The Merciless Puppet Master

Featuring: Fantastic Four
Release: February 12, 1963
Cover: May 1963
12 cents
Script: Stan Lee
Art: Jack Kirby
Inking: Dick Ayers
22 pages

I read this story in Fantastic Four Omnibus vol. 1.

Kirby got a fill-in for almost every book he draws in the last couple months… except for this one. This is clearly his baby in a way the others are not. That is also evident in the fact that Lee does all the scripts. That the Human Torch, Thor, Ant-Man, and Iron Man stories have rotating scripters and fill-in artists tells you where they fall on the totem pole compared to Fantastic Four.

I’ve struggled some (actually, for years going on decades) with the question of what order to read these stories in. I’m not alone. Marvel has published indices dedicated to chronology. The Marvel Chronology Project has painstakingly ordered the events of each characters’ lives to make sense. The Complete Marvel Reading Order is focused on what makes the “best” read, which includes keeping stories together.

So far, I’ve mostly focused on release date, catalogued in Mike’s Amazing World. Going in order by date has yielded several insights. I can see when Kirby suddenly had lots of fill-in artists take over. I can see cool facts, like that Thor, Ant-Man, and Spider-Man were all introduced the same day. It’s added a lot to my understanding of the context of these stories to go in time order.

Since most issues have been self-contained and there’s been minimal crossover, there’s been no reason to go in anything but date order. But the stories will become increasingly complex. And it might be nice to read single story-arcs together to appreciate them best.

I did some light fudging last time. Fantastic Four #13 was released January 3, yet I chose to read it after two comics released January 10. Similarly, this comic was released on February 12, but I am reading it before two comics released on February 5. That is because issue 14 picks up right where #13 ended, with the FF still not back from the moon. This will become more common, that the ending of one story will lead into the beginning of the next, and I won’t always be able to place such stories together. But this was easy enough to do.

It says “Part 1”, but there seem to be no other parts. Part 1 of 1?

As an example of something lost in the shuffle if I don’t go in strictly chronological order… this is the first issue we see something pretty cool. There’s a new logo added to the cover, with the word “Marvel” appearing for the first time. I’ve been calling this the “Marvel Age”, and now we see why. This line of titles is officially taking the name “Marvel”! But it didn’t actually begin here. It began last week with Strange Tales and Journey Into Mystery. We’ll read those next.

Fantastic Four #13

He is sworn to watch, but never interfere…

The Fantastic Four Versus the Red Ghost and His Indescribable Super-Apes!/Menace on the Moon!/The Watcher Appears/Duel in the Dead City!
Featuring: Fantastic Four
Release: January 3, 1963
Cover: April 1963
12 cents
Story: Stan Lee
Art: Jack Kirby
Inking: S. Ditko
22 pages

I read this story in Fantastic Four Omnibus vol. 1.

The great Steve Ditko provides inks for Kirby’s pencils. We last saw this legendary combination in Incredible Hulk #2.

This issue is the first to get to the heart of what I think the Fantastic Four should be about: exploration of the wondrous; an adventure into the imagination. Kirby is famed for his creativity, but this is the first issue where he’s really letting it flex. This issue is bursting with ideas, many tangential to the main story. The FF head to the moon, learn the blue area has a breathable atmosphere, find the ruins of an ancient civilization, battle a super-villain and his super-apes, and meet the enigmatic Watcher. Plus glimpses of the past and future, and of the destruction of a world. That’s a comic bursting with ideas.

PRELUDE: Marvel Mystery Comics #10

Well, that was anticlimactic.

The Result of the Most Famous Battle in Comic Magazines
Featuring: Human Torch and Sub-Mariner
Release: June 15, 1940
Cover: August 1940
10 cents
Credits: Bill Everett, Carl Burgos, and John Compton
1 page

No credits appear on the page. The art reminds me most of Burgos’ style. I borrowed the credits from the previous issue; the GCD agrees.

The finale of the epic is a single page. A single page.

Betty Dean finally gets her way and convinces Torch and Namor to call a truce. It makes sense for the fight to end in a draw, to disappoint neither set of fans. But letting Namor go is entirely unsatisfying. He crashed a train, flooded a tunnel. Who knows how many people died on his rampage?