Featuring: Captain America Release: September 9, 1965 Cover: December 1966 12 cents Stan Lee, sultan of script! Jack Kirby, lord of layout! George Tuska, archduke of art! Sam Rosen, tired of lettering! 10 pages
You’re too late! You can’t… threaten me… now! There are three sleepers… and… when they awake… the Third Reich will rise again!
The story’s title is, “The Sleeper Shall Awake!”
Coincidentally the exact thing my cat says to me every morning when she wants breakfast.
While I would prefer to read whole comics at once, we read the first half of the issue a little bit earlier, because the Captain America and Iron Man stories of this issue align differently with the Avengers series.
This marks a turning point in Captain America’s adventures, as we’d spent the last several issues focused on Captain America’s adventures in World War II, which don’t create any editorial headaches regarding continuity with Cap’s appearances in Avengers. But now Stan claims readers have demanded modern Cap stories.
So we jump back to the present and see Cap relating the Greymoor Castle saga of last issue to the Avengers. They even answer some plot questions about the story.
Bewilderingly, Hawkeye did not know Bucky was dead.
And then is quite insensitive about it. “It happened more than 20 years ago!” Two notes. It was less than 20 years. Captain America slept for most of those.
Featuring: Avengers Release: December 9, 1965 Cover: February 1966 12 cents Writer: Stan Lee Penciller: Don Heck Inker: Dick Ayers Letterer: Sam Rosen 20 pages
The blind fools! They do not realize that Doom cares nothing for them! He merely plays a role for purposes of his own! Truly, he is evil incarnate! If only the simple peasants could see it!
The Avengers fight Dr. Doom!
For maybe the first time, unless you count Avengers #1½–published in 1999 but set before Avengers #2–as canon: the untold first meeting of the Avengers and Dr. Doom.
Either way, it’s the first time any of these Avengers have met Dr. Doom.
Dr. Doom decides to trap the Avengers. Basically just because. His motivation shifts slightly over the course of the issue. At first, it’s because humiliating the Avengers will inspire fear in the Fantastic Four. Then it’s to take them prisoner and use them as bait for the Fantastic Four.
That which is written, is written… and an eternity of raging will not alter one instant of that which will be. Only one maddening enigma remains! Who knows that which is written? Who knows what will be — in the end?
This post was requested by a reader, Bill. Actually, what Bill requested was a brief history of Kang. But brevity is not my strong suit. So I’ll do what I can, which is a comprehensive history of Kang from 1962-2007, the year I stopped reading Marvel regularly.
Who is Kang? In short, he is Kang the Conquerer. He’d conquered the world of the future, and while Alexander wept for there were no new worlds to conquer, Kang found new worlds by setting his sights on conquering history. His story only gets confusing because he’s also gone by other names, like Rama-Tut, Immortus, Scarlet Centurion, Nathaniel Richards, Victor Timely, Whisperer, Iron Lad, and maybe Dr. Doom. And because there is a whole multiverse of Kang variants out there.
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we met Kang in Loki, portrayed by Jonathan Majors, and he plays a significant role in Ant-Man and Wasp: Quantumania.
This post is broken into 3 pages.
1962-1969 Meet Rama-Tut, Kang, Immortus, Ravonna, and the Scarlet Centurion.
1974-1990 Learn the truth about Immortus; witness the death of Immortus; meet He Who Remains, the Time-Keepers, Marcus, Nathanial Richards, and Nebula; witness the death of Immortus again; then learn the real truth about Immortus. (Still not the real truth)
1990-2005 Meet Mr. Mobius of the Time Variance Authority, learn the actual truth about everything, and meet Iron Lad of the Young Avengers.
Featuring: Avengers Release: November 11, 1965 Cover: January 1966 12 cents Writer: Stan Lee Penciller: Don Heck Inker: Dick Ayers Letterer: Artie Simek 20 pages
Let us each meet our fate with valor– and heaven bless you all!
When we left off, Ravonna had rejected Kang’s offer of marriage, so he’s now sending his armies to invade her kingdom.
This treatment of Kang makes more sense to me than his previous appearances, and it better conveys his title of “…the Conqueror”. That he commands a legion of troops ready to invade kingdoms. His last attempt to conquer the 20th century involved sending a robot Spider-Man against the Avengers. Invading with an army just makes more sense to me.
The crown is still yours by my leave only! ‘Tis Kang who is the power here! Though countless worlds have fallen before my banner, yours have I spared… but only because of love for you!
Serendipitous timing. We get to see a major battle between Kang and the Avengers just in time for Kang to make his big screen debut in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania this Friday, portrayed by Jonathan Majors. We had met Jonathan Majors as Kang before in the Loki series.
This story is particularly notable for introducing Kang’s great love, the Princess Ravonna. She was portrayed by Gugu Mbatha-Raw in the Loki series.
John Romita is a new name in the modern Marvel reading, but we’d seen him before in our looks back, as he was the Captain America artist in the 1950s. We’ll be seeing more of him, and have more to say soon.
Sherigail we recall is an alias for for Morrie Kuramoto. We haven’t seen him in a while, with Rosen and Simek dividing up most lettering between them. He married Gail Masuoka in 1955, and they had a daughter Sheri– hence the pen name. As a young adult, Morrie had seen his possessions confiscated and his family sent into prison camps by the US government for having Japanese ancestry. He was able to enlist in the military to escape imprisonment. He worked as a letterer after the war, and continued to do irregular lettering work until his death in 1985.
Featuring: Marvels Release: December 14, 1993 Cover: February 1994 $5.95 Writer: Kurt Busiek Artist: Alex Ross Letterers: Starkings w/ John Gaushell Editor: Marcus McLaurin Assitant editor: Spencer Lamm Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco Cover design & logo: Joe Kaufman Interior design: Comicraft 45 pages
The real story was the people who’d been scared too long. Who’d been wound tight by talk of mutant menaces and hidden conspiracies and shadows under the bed.
I’ve mentioned before I want to frame our reading around the Marvels miniseries from the 1990s. That hasn’t really been obvious yet. We read Marvels #0, which retold a few pages from Marvel Comics #1. And we read Marvels #1, which paralleled 1940s Marvel comics. But our reading is concentrated in the 1960s. Finally, we get to Marvels #2, which parallels the 1960s Marvel stories, ranging from Avengers #6 (May 1964), the 191st entry in our reading, through Tales of Suspense #69 (June 1965), the 404th entry in our reading. Quite the range. We are reading it after completing the Iron Man story from Tales of Suspense #72, because we’d first needed to tie up some continuity ends.
We’ve hinted before at the theme of this comic, and I’d like to just discuss it up front. The two centerpiece stories are the wedding of Reed and Sue in Fantastic Four Annual 3, and the attack on the X-Men by the Sentinels in X-Men #14. The writer Kurt Busiek had noted in his own Marvel Universe research what we also found in our reading here, that these events must occur on nearly consecutive days. That’s not obvious from any comic, but does follow from a close reading of the many interconnected comics. And the two stories make for quite the juxtaposition.
The contrast between these two arcs becomes the central tension of this issue. The Fantastic Four wedding is the celebrity event of the century. The press covered it, crowds of fans gathered, famous people like Tony Stark and Millie the Model attended. The Fantastic Four are super-powered heroes and beloved by the public.
The X-Men are also super-powered heroes. But where the Fantastic Four gained their powers from cosmic radiation, the powers of the X-Men are innate, based on an accident of birth, perhaps from radiation their parents had been exposed to. The “Children of the Atom”. And that difference is big enough that the same public who cheered on the wedding of the FF members would listen with interest and nods of approval as Bolivar Trask went on the airwaves to declare mutants a menace and announce he’d created robot-hunting Sentinels to hunt and kill the X-Men.
We read the Heroes & Legends retelling of the wedding, which focused on this very tension in the form of a child, who was a huge fan of the Fantastic Four, but afraid of the X-Men. He learned better by issue’s end.
Here, the arc will play out within Phil Sheldon, the photojournalist who specialises in shots of the people he’s dubbed the Marvels. A person who idolizes heroes like the Fantastic Four and Avengers, but fears mutants like the X-Men.
It’s entirely irrational, just like all forms of bigotry.
That’s enough belaboring of themes. Let’s dive into the story. As we do, we’ll try to draw the parallels between what’s happening on the page and our reading.
I’ll note that the title is called “Monsters”, which brings to my mind Thing and Hulk. The latter doesn’t appear, and the former is a minor player at best.
It’s 20 years after the events of Marvels #1. Phil Sheldon is now an established freelance photojournalist happily married with two kids. We see hm doing freelance work for Barney Bushkin at the Daily Globe. The shadows on the page somewhat obscure Phil’s eyepatch, a lifelong injury sustained last issue by getting too close to a superhero battle.
We remember meeting Barney in Amazing Spider-Man #27. He’s nicer than Jonah, but asked too many questions for Peter’s tastes.
I was chosen to be– keeper of the flame! But now– the torch has– gone out!
Captain America is certain there is somebody behind Power Man. Since he knows nothing about Power Man, I’m not sure where that certainty comes from.
The Avengers have been ordered to disband by the city. That’s enough for most of the team, but not for Captain America. He thinks they stand for something bigger than obeying laws.
This leads the Avengers to fight amongst themselves. They do this a lot. But this time, the fight dissolves the team.
Featuring: Avengers Release: August 10, 1965 Cover: October 1965 12 cents Written with the usual Stan Lee madness! Drawn with the usual Don Heck magnificence! Inked with the usual Wally Wood magic! Lettered with the usual Artie Simek mistakes! 20 pages
When I took command, the Avengers were at the height of their power, their prestige, their fame! And now– look what I’ve done!
Yesterday was Don Heck’s birthday! He would have been 94 years old, but he passed away at the age of 66.
The story opens with a lot of chastising.
Well, first Hawkeye is fixing a fuse. The narrator seems to mock that the artist chose to begin the story in such a “prosaic” way. Stan, if you want the stories to open differently, you have to write the stories.
The machinery seems unusually detailed. I suspect that has a lot to do with Wood’s inking.
Featuring: Avengers Release: July 8, 1965 Cover: September 1965 12 cents Wham-Type script by Stan Lee Pow-type pencilling by Don Heck Zowie-type inking by Wallace Wood Rather nice lettering by Artie Simek 20 pages
There’s something about being an Avenger… that seems to get into your blood and never let go!
The creative team is almost never mentioned on the cover of these (or any) comics. This is certainly the first time we’ve seen the inker advertised. Stan knows he’s lucky to have Wally Wood, and perhaps already knows he won’t have him much longer.
We saw Wood inking Heck in Tales of Suspense #71, which comes out one month after this one. So this is properly their first collaboration.
The cover is a rare Kirby/Wood collaboration, and pretty awesome. A team I think many would like to have seen more work by.
We see a rare feat of teamwork for these new Avengers. They seem to be defeating the Swordsman when he disappears.
He finds himself in the lair of the Mandarin. Who wishes to destroy the Avengers, though he’s never met them*. His foe is Iron Man, who used to be an Avenger. And it follows that he must destroy these Avengers, which don’t include Iron Man. Because Iron Man is his foe. And… the Mandarin’s plans may just be too crafty for my little brain.
Featuring: Avengers Release: June 8, 1965 Cover: August 1965 12 cents Writer: Stan Lee Artist: Don Heck Inker: Dick Ayers Letterer: Artie Simek 20 pages
“Marvel Pop Art Productions”? This phrase started appearing on covers these last couple months. The letters page explains that fans object to these magazines being called comics, perhaps as that implies they are humorous and juvenile. So Stan is going to start calling them “pop art books”. I started reading these things about 25 years later and heard they were called comics, so I’m not sure this rebranding will stick.
Swordsman tries to join the Avengers but is rebuffed after a fight.
