final issue – Coke & Comics

Journey Into Mystery #125

When Meet the Immortals!

Featuring: Thor
Release: December 2, 1965
Cover: February 1966
12 cents
Bombastically written by: Stan Lee
Brilliantly drawn by: Jack Kirby
Beautifully inked by: Vince Colletta
Bashfully lettered by: Artie Simek
16 pages

Previous	#463	Next
Journey Into Mystery #124, Story B	Reading order	Journey Into Mystery #125, Story B
Journey Into Mystery #124, Story B	Journey Into Mystery	Journey Into Mystery #125, Story B

But even a Thunder God has the right to love!

We come to Thor’s final adventure in Journey Into Mystery, the series concluding after 125 issues. We’ll see next month what they have instead. Such a finale would be a good time for an overview of the series as a whole, but I gave a summary to celebrate the 100th issue, so I’ll just point to that. It may even spoil what’s coming next month.

“By the bristling beard of Odin,” Thor exclaims. We’ll start hearing that oath a lot. Have we heard it before? I failed to note it if we did.

Thor’s battle with the Demon concludes pretty readily and Thor takes the final Norn Stone to return to Odin.

Tales to Astonish #69

Oh, Wasp, Where is Thy Sting?

Featuring: Giant-Man and Wasp
Release: April 1, 1965
Cover: July 1965
12 cents
Edited with perfect control by: Stan Lee
Written with all bases covered by: Al Hartley
Drawn with the impact of a line drive by: Bob Powell
Inked with the beauty of a three-bagger by: John Giunta
Lettered with only a few errors by: S. Rosen
12 pages

Previous	#356	Next
Tales to Astonish #68, Story B	Reading order	Tales to Astonish #69, Story B
Tales to Astonish #68, Story B	Tales to Astonish	Tales to Astonish #69, Story B

All good things must come to an end, and so must this series.

Giant-Man is reduced to a small corner of the cover, with Hulk hogging the space. No mention that this is the epic finale to the adventures of Giant-Man and the Wasp.

Hulk’s solo series ended after only 6 issues, but then he returned as the backup feature in this title and has been a monthly fixture for going on 60 years. He returned by ending the Wasp’s solo series. Captain America’s return to a solo series caused the Watcher to lose his.

Marvel has had distribution problems for as long as we’ve been reading them, keeping a tight limit on the number of titles they can publish. So for every new title, something has to go. They’ve been trimming the western and humor lines, but ultimately it’s time to let go of some superhero titles.

We read the final Human Torch story a while back, but it was actually released just a week after this. Both Human Torch and Giant-Man lose their series at the same time. Both to make way for better things.

They found the weakest two series in terms of story to ax, and presumably the sales reflected that. Thor stories are good now, so it’s good they’ll stick around. Iron Man stories aren’t any good yet, but maybe they will be one day. Either way, he gets to stick around, now with the dubious honor of being Marvel’s worst remaining title.

We’ll have to wait until next month to see who these cancelled titles are making room for. Neither character will be new to us. One just hasn’t had a title for a while, and the other will get a second title with a very different focus.

Before we get to the final issue of their series, I think it’s worth pausing to reflect on the entire 36 issue run of Henry Pym/Ant-Man/Giant-Man/Wasp stories.

Strange Tales #134

The Challenge of… The Watcher!

Featuring: Human Torch and Thing
Release: April 8, 1965
Cover: July 1965
12 cents
Soul-stirring script by: Stan Lee
Breath-taking art by: Bob Powell
Eye-popping inking by: Wallace Wood
Heart-rending lettering by: Artie Simek
12 pages

Previous	#328	Next
Strange Tales #133	Reading order	X-Men #11
Strange Tales #133, Story B	Strange Tales	Strange Tales #134, Story B

All good things must come to an end. And so must this.

Hulk’s series only lasted 6 issues. But then he started showing up all over the place. Avengers, Fantastic Four, Amazing Spider-Man, and finally he got his own series back, this time to last for over 50 years and counting.

The Wasp had a back-up feature in Tales to Astonish behind the main feature she shared with Giant-Man. It started with her narrating science fiction tales, but then she started going on her own adventures. They were short-lived; she was the second character to lose a series.

The Watcher had a back-up feature behind the Iron Man stories in Tales of Suspense. It started with him narrating science fiction tales, but then he started going on his own adventures. They were short-lived; he was the third character to lose a series.

This month, two long-running features get cancelled. We’ll talk about the other in due course. (We’re reading this one a little early to get the Fantastic Four chronology in line.)

For the moment, let’s reflect on the history of Strange Tales…

Tales of Suspense #58, Story B

The Watcher Must Die!

Featuring: The Watcher
Release: July 9, 1964
Cover: October 1964
12 cents
A tale of most compelling merit by: Stan Lee
Illustrations of singular excellence by: George Tuska
Lettering of breath-taking adequacy by: Art Simek
5 pages

If you caught an early draft of my write-up for the previous issue, you saw me accidentally claim that was the final Watcher story. Either way, it ends with so little fanfare, that it’s hard to tell.

It’s hard to make a story about a character who never does anything. You’re tempted to have him do something in every issue, which is exactly what they did for this series.

The editor enthusiastically welcomes returning artist George Tuska. Tuska’s been working in comics since 1939, and worked for Marvel in the 1950s. Let’s see a sampling of his work.

The samples of Tuska’s work are from (in order, left to right, top to bottom):

Mystery Men Comics #1 (1939)
64 Pages of New Captain Marvel Adventures #2 (1941)
Crime Does Not Pay #22 (1942)
Casey – Crime Photographer #1 (1949)
Strange Tales #1 (1951)
Adventures Into Terror #7 (1951)

If Lee was that excited to have Tuska back, you’d think he could have found a more interesting assignment than filling in on the final Watcher story.

Tuska will continue to do occasional fill-in work for Marvel over the next few years, before eventually settling into a longterm stint on Iron Man.

The rest of the series had been drawn by Stan’s brother, Larry Lieber. Sad he’s not the one to bring it to a close. He’s already started what will be a very long run on Rawhide Kid. We’re not generally reading the western titles, so this is the last we’ll see of Larry for a while. He will pop up again here and there for the occasional fill-in issue or special, so this isn’t good-bye forever.

Tales to Astonish #58, Story B

The Magician and the Maiden!

Featuring: Wasp
Release: May 5, 1964
Cover: August 1964
12 cents
Story plot: Stan Lee
Script and art: Larry Lieber
Lettering: S. Rosen
7 pages

The Magician escaped prison, so Wasp has to take his picture off her weird trophy wall of super-villains she has defeated. Considering the rate at which these villains seem to get out of prison, she must have to update that wall a lot.

Do we recognize all the villains on the wall? I see: Egghead, Black Knight, Magician, Human Top, the Creature from Kosmos, Porcupine. There are two pictures we can’t see. The wall is missing Cyclops, Trago, Living Eraser, El Toro, and Colossus. It’s possible we just can’t see the entire wall and those photos are off to the side. It’s also possible she was unable to get a picture of some of them. The Living Eraser lives in another dimension, so getting a photo may be hard.

Concerned for her safety, Hank phones Wasp to suggest she go to the lab. The lab is publicly known to be the headquarters of Giant-Man. I would argue that is the least safe place. What about his house in New Jersey? He apparently somehow has a secret identity.

Wasp refuses, as there is a new line of Wasp-themed fashion debuting at Benson’s department store.

PRELUDE: Captain America #78, Story D

The Hour of Doom

Featuring: Captain America
Release: May 19, 1954
Cover: September 1954
10 cents
By: John Romita
6 pages

We bring Captain America’s very short 1950s revival to a close with the final story of the final issue. We read the first story of this issue, where Captain America fought Electro. We skipped the terrible racist second story and we skipped a Human Torch story and a prose story.

This might be the best Captain America story of the era, but it’s a low bar to clear.

The story concerns Chuck Blayne, a television pundit who has become very influential amongst children. Captain America does not like what he has to say, even comparing his words to Hitler’s.

Blayne’s plans seems subtle and insidious, to influence the hearts and minds of America’s youth. Then he goes and plants a bomb at the UN. So much for subtlety.

Incredible Hulk #6

Steve Ditko fills in for Hulk’s final issue.

The Incredible Hulk vs The Metal Master
Featuring: Hulk
Release: January 3, 1963
Cover: March 1963
12 cents
Story: Stan Lee
Art: Steve Ditko
24 pages

I read this story in Incredible Hulk Omnibus vol. 1.

All good things must come to an end. Turns out things like this series also come to an end.

The great Steve Ditko takes over for Jack Kirby for the first full-length Hulk story since the second issue, and what is also the final issue of Incredible Hulk. Though no hint of that ending can be found in the cover or the letters pages. There simply isn’t an issue 7.

This Ditko guy draws a pretty good Hulk.

Perhaps it’s for the best. The first issue was one of the best comics we’ve read and showed so much potential. A dark psychological sci-fi drama, with elements of Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. That potential was squandered on constant tweaks to the character, a series that had the feeling of throwing things at the wall until something stuck, then giving up when nothing stuck. It will take Steve Ditko to reshape the character into a more enduring form, but he won’t get a chance to do that now, as the series is being cancelled.