I Brought the Mighty Cyclops Back to Life!
Featuring: Cyclops
Release: February 29, 1960
Cover: July 1960
10 cents
Credits: Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers
7 pages
Online sources suggest the writing is by Lee or Lieber or both. Fair guesses. Kirby’s and Ayers’ signatures appear.
This is our first look at the Tales of Suspense series, a fantasy anthology just like Journey Into Mystery or Strange Tales or Tales to Astonish… We’ll be getting to know Tales of Suspense shortly when it too starts spotlighting a superheroic character. But for now, let’s flash back to the year before the debut of Fantastic Four to a story featuring the Cyclops of legend.
I bring us here because we just saw Mr. Fantastic travel to the Hidden Isle to battle a Cyclops. It may well be the same Cyclops. Some similarity. That one was entirely bald, but it had a couple years to get a haircut.
This is the story of Duncan and Amanda. She refuses to marry him because he’s a spoiled rich brat and she wants a rugged man. However, she is happy to go boating to lost islands in the middle of the ocean with him.
They stumble across the Cyclops frozen in ice. Duncan believes it dead and wants to bring its corpse to America for profit. But the Cylops was not dead– the ice kept it in suspended animation. So being frozen in ice can keep you alive and free from aging. Wonder if that plot point will come up again?
Anyways, mayhem ensues. The pair escape the island and the fickle woman agrees to marry the man, now that he’s proven himself in battle with a Cyclops.
This comic also features a Medusa story. We already read one Medusa story and I have plans to read her earliest adventure. Perhaps we’ll visit this story some day as well.
Rating: ★★½, 44/100
Characters:
- Duncan
- Amanda
- Cyclops
- Ulysses
Story notes:
- Duncan knew legend of Ulysses and Cyclops
- The Marvel superhero comics usually stick to even rows for their panels; this allows a looser structure.
- Same Cyclops from FF? MCP says yes; CMRO doesn’t list the character in FF#9, but does recognize this character as Polyphemus, who will appear again in Sub-Mariner #29
Next: Strange Tales #103
Previous: Fantastic Four #9
