cyclops – Page 5 – Coke ⊕ Comics

Tales to Astonish #46

..When Cyclops Walks the Earth

Featuring: Ant-Man and Wasp
Release: May 2, 1963
Cover: August 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.

We have met Cyclopes twice before. (Yes, I had to google how to make “Cyclops” plural.) It is not clear what connection if any this character has to those two. Dr. Pym notes that according to myth, there was a whole race of Cyclopes, who came from Thrace. Of course, this turns out to not be a real Cyclops, but a robot sent by alien invaders (basically identical to the Gargantus story). Perhaps the others we have met were real Cyclopes. Or perhaps all were sent by the same alien invaders.

This comic is most notable for introducing flying ants to Ant-Man. Riding a flying ant is a better way for him to keep up with Wasp than his catapult. It’s not clear it’s technically the introduction, as Ant-Man appears with flying ants in Fantastic Four #16, which was released a month earlier than this issue, but which I’ve decided to read after this one. Mainly because here he really seems to be meeting flying ants, whereas there he acts like riding flying ants is just something he does.

PRELUDE: Tales of Suspense #10

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.

Fantastic Four #9

The End of the Fantastic Four!/Sub-Mariner Gives the Orders!/The Fury of Mr. Fantastic/The Flame of Battle/Vengeace is Ours!
Featuring: Fantastic Four
Release: September 4, 1962
Cover: December 1962
12 cents
Script: Stan Lee
Art: Jack Kirby
Inking: Dick Ayers
23 pages

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

As with the Thor story which premiered the same day, this features full credits. In fact, the credits are more complete than the Thor story, as they spotlight the lettering of Artie Simek. The coloring of Stan Goldberg is still omitted, and anyways lost in the reproductions I am looking at.

This is a pretty famous story. For decades to come, when people refer to how Stan Lee changed superheroes, they’ll point to things like Spider-Man being unpopular or the Fantastic Four having money problems. But for 8 issues, the FF seemed pretty wealthy. Here, we learn Reed lost all his money in a stock market crash, and the FF are bankrupt and having to sell everything and disband. They even sell the pogo plane!