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Journey Into Mystery #109

When Magneto Strikes!

Featuring: Thor
Release: August 4, 1964
Cover: October 1964
12 cents
Written by: Stan Lee, the monarch of the Marvel Age, at the pinnacle of his power!
Illustrated by: Jack Kirby, the prince of pageantry, at the height of his titanic talent!
Inked by: Chic Stone, the dean of line design, at the peak of his prowess!
Lettered by: S. Rosen, the sultan of spelling, at the little table in his studio!
18 pages

I don’t know what to make of these Thor stories since Kirby returned to the title. The art is certainly improved. This is very iconic Kirby, especially with Stone on inks. Everything very melodramatic, especially the posing.

And it’s cool that Thor meets Magneto. The battle between them starts off pretty well. Again, Kirby on that dramatic action depiction.

But the weaknesses of the story increasingly detract as the issue goes on. That battle which had been going well then moves to the now familiar trope where Thor loses his hammer and becomes Dr. Blake mid-battle, luckily just out of view of the villain. How did he lose it? He dropped it, then forgot about it.

After 60 seconds, the hammer turns into a walking stick. Sometimes that is what happens, and sometimes it is not.

X-Men #7

The Return of the Blob

Featuring: X-Men
Release: July 2, 1964
Cover: September 1964
12 cents
Written with all the spell-binding skill of: Stan Lee
Drawn with all the titanic talent of: Jack Kirby
Inked with all the vibrant verve of: Chic Stone
Lettered with all the words spelled right by: Art Simek
22 pages

The time has come for the next chapter in the history of the X-Men. The series began with the premise that the X-Men were students of an unusual school. We saw two issues back that they passed their final exam. Now, it’s graduation day.

We just saw Johnny celebrate his spring break. And we are almost a year (in publication time) away from Peter’s graduation. It’s possible the publication dates poorly reflect when this story is set within the Marvel Universe, but it’s also possible this unique private school does things its own way, and has a much earlier graduation date than the regular schools attended by Peter Parker and Johnny Storm.

It’s odd that Iceman is graduating with the rest given that he’s a couple years younger than them. Maybe he’s gifted. Or maybe it’s just a really weird school.

Amazing Spider-Man Annual 1

The Sinister Six!

Featuring: Spider-Man
Release: June 11, 1964
Cover: 1964
25 cents
Written by: Stan Lee
Drawn by: Steve Ditko
Lettered by: S. Rosen
41 pages

It’s 1964. You’re young. You don’t have a lot of money. But you know some math. Most comics cost 12 cents. This one costs 25. You could get two comics for that price! But wait… those two comics between them would only net you 42-46 story pages. This one promises 72 pages! 72 big pages, at that.

Indeed, this first story is 41 pages, enough to give you your money’s worth. But there’re over 30 pages of bonus features as well!

Plus, most of those comics will give you one super-villain, two at most. This cover promises a sinister six villains for your hard-earned quarter.

If you’re not yet sold to drop two bits, the first page should do it. Aunt May and Betty Brant have been captured by the Sinister Six, and Spider-Man has lost his powers! Now that’s a story!

X-Men #6

Sub-Mariner!

Featuring: X-Men
Release: May 5, 1964
Cover: July 1964
12 cents
Written: With the flair of Stan Lee
Drawn: With the air of Jack Kirby
Inked: With the care of Chic Stone
Lettered: On a dare by S. Rosen
22 pages

Once again, we see that Namor and Hulk are the binding that holds this nascent Marvel Universe together. Most of the heroes haven’t met each other, but they’ve almost all met Hulk or Namor. (Daredevil hasn’t met either yet, but we’ve only read two issues; he’ll meet Namor soon.)

My confusion about what to call Magneto’s group remains. It’s becoming clearer that “Evil Mutants” is how Xavier and the narrator refer to them. It’s less clear what they would call themselves. They were called the “Brotherhood of Evil Mutants” on the cover, and in the title, of their first appearance; however, that name has never shown up in-story.

Fantastic Four #28

We have to fight the X-Men!

Featuring: Fantastic Four
Release: April 9, 1964
Cover: July 1964
12 cents
Written by: Stan Lee (The leader!)
Drawn by: Jack Kirby (The king!)
Inked by: Chic Stone (The master!)
Lettered by: Art Simek (The letterer!)
22 pages

Stan’s been doing “clever credits” for a while now, giving all sorts of nicknames to the creators. This one happens to be Kirby’s most famous nickname. He is generally known today as Jack “King” Kirby. This is the first time we’ve seen the “king” nickname in our reading. Can’t confirm whether it’s been used anywhere else before. This project began 20 years into Jack’s rather prolific career.

We turn now to the story, where the Fantastic Four and X-Men meet for the first time. (Well, Human Torch and Iceman had already met…)

We begin with a statue of Thing that has been sculpted by the brilliant Alicia, working by touch alone.

X-Men #5

Trapped: One X-Man!

Featuring: X-Men
Release: March 3, 1964
Cover: May 1964
12 cents
Spell-binding story by: Stan Lee
Dazzling drawing by: Jack Kirby
Inking: Paul Reinman
Lettering: S. Rosen
24 pages

They’ve redesigned the cover box to make room for Beast.

The story begins right where the last issue left off, but then has a bit of time jump mid-story. It opens with a strange piece of narration. The narrator tells us Professor X “seemed” to lose his powers. Interesting phrasing. Why not just say Professor X lost his powers? Unless you know something about this issue’s twist ending I don’t.

I would warn you that spoilers follow, but I would argue the opening page narration has already spoiled the whole story.

X-Men #4

The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants!

Featuring: X-Men
Release: January 3, 1964
Cover: March 1964
12 cents
Sensational script by: Stan Lee
Dynamic drawings by: Jack Kirby
Imaginative inking by: Paul Reinman
Legible lettering by: Art Simek
23 pages

The Scarlet Witch seems to be wearing green on the cover.

Pedantic notice. The title of this comic is “The X-Men”. After 3 issues, I decided I was tired of typing that. It’s easier to just call it “X-Men”. I will be doing that from now on. Same for “The Avengers”. I’d already been doing that for “The Amazing Spider-Man” without really thinking it through.

I should be paying more attention to the taglines. They are dubbed “X-Men: The most unusual teen-agers of all time!” Last issue had the same subheading. In #2, it was “the strangest super-heroes of all time. The covers of the first two issues dubbed them the “strangest super-heroes of all”.

I feel it should be pointed out that we’ve already met some pretty darn unusual teenagers, notably Human Torch and Spider-Man. So the tagline may be somewhat hyperbolic.

This issue introduces the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Not what I would name my group of mutants. And it’s not clear who, if anybody, named them that. The cover of the comic and the title of the comic call the group that, but the group is not named within the story.

Professor X calls them “evil mutants”, but he has often referred to “evil mutants”. I could never tell if he was speaking generically, or specifically referring to Magneto’s group. I still can’t.

Designation issues aside, introducing a team of villains to battle the X-Men is a good idea, since they themselves are a team. It’s hard to show a team always fighting against a single individual, even though that’s mostly what the Fantastic Four have done. It’s a bit surprising they are yet to come up with a team of villains for them. They’ve come close. Red Ghost had his Super Apes, and that was now four, er, members who could each match one member of the FF. But I have trouble counting that as a team since they are apes. Dr. Doom recruited the Terrible Trio, so again we had 4 people, each meant to face off with one FF member; but that was not so much a team of super-villains as it was Doom and three henchmen.

The Avengers #3

Sub-Mariner!

Featuring: Avengers
Release: November 5, 1963
Cover: February 1964
12 cents
Written by: Stan Lee
Illustrated by: Jack Kirby
Inked by: P. Reinman
25 pages

We see a new cover box. Acknowledges that Hank is now Giant-Man and that Wasp exists.

Welcome to a special Mothers Day post. What makes this a Mothers Day post? Well, today is Mothers Day. Also, my mother likes the Sub-Mariner, and this is the issue where the Avengers meet Sub-Mariner.

Sub-Mariner doesn’t show up until page 15, but still gets the issue titled after him. Good for him.

In the first issue, Loki tricked the Avengers into attacking the Hulk.

In the second issue, Space Phantom tricked the Avengers into attacking the Hulk.

This issue, the Avengers just decide to attack the Hulk.

The X-Men #3

Beware of the Blob!

Featuring: X-Men
Release: November 5, 1963
Cover: January 1964
12 cents
Written by: Stan Lee
Illustrated by: Jack Kirby
Inked by: Paul Reinman
24 pages

Before we start dissecting the bizarreness of this comic, I’d like to draw attention to the cool title font. Hat tip I presume goes to Art Simek.

I have a bit of difficulty assessing this issue. I can see two different stories: the one on the page, and the one Stan meant to write. In the story Stan meant to write, he failed miserably. I am confident he meant to portray Professor X and the X-Men as virtuous heroes. But any reasonable reading of the issue shows them to be the villains. That latter interpretation is interesting to me, but clearly not intentional.

This issue makes clear that Professor X and the X-Men have questionable ethics, though I don’t think Stan intended it that way. He just didn’t think it through. But later writers will look to stories like this as evidence that Professor X has a dark side.

Tales of Suspense #49

The New Iron Man Meets The Angel!

Featuring: Iron Man
Release: October 8, 1963
Cover: January 1964
12 cents
Written by: Stan Lee
Illustrated by: Steve Ditko
Inked by: P. Reinman
18 pages

Paul Reinman on inks. It’s not often Ditko gets an inker. He usually does his own finishes. His first Iron Man story had Don Heck doing “refinement”. I think that’s the only other time we’ve seen anybody else finishing Ditko. Paul Reinman has been inking the X-Men comics, so he may be here to help keep their faces on-model.

Once again, that weird note at the beginning; we’ve seen something similar in every crossover. Stan thanks the editors of X-Men for letting the characters appear. You are the editor, Stan. But there may be legal reasons for this. Martin Goodman played all types of crazy games with shell companies and such to save a buck here and there.

The idea is it’s all one continuity, one universe. That’s why we read these comics together. But we don’t know that any character is part of that continuity until they cross over. At first, crossovers were sparse. It was a while before there was any hint Iron Man and Thor might be in this world. Crossovers have become increasingly common. After only two issues of X-Men, we learn they are a part of this world. The main story is a battle between Iron Man and Angel, but all the X-Men and Avengers will also show up.