Strange Tales #136

Find Fury or Die!

Featuring: Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD
Release: June 8, 1965
Cover: September 1965
12 cents
Script by the unpredictable Stan Lee
Layouts by the unmatchable Jack Kirby
Art by the unbeatable Johnny Severin
Lettering by the unsinkable Art Simek
12 pages

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Strange Tales #135, Story BStrange TalesStrange Tales #136, Story B

Hail Hydra! Immortal Hydra! We shall never be destroyed! Cut off a limb and two more shall take its place! We serve none but the Master– as the world shall soon serve us! Hail Hydra!

We get a new artist, described as another returnee from the Golden Age. John (Johnny) Severin. I’m a big fan and excited he’s joining us.

Kirby is on the layouts, but John will provide most of the details. This of course means Kirby is responsible for the storytelling.

He’s been with the industry almost 20 years by this point, working off and on for Marvel, but doing his most famous work for EC. Here’s a sampling.

  • Prize Comics Western #72 (Prize, 1948)
  • Actual Romances #1 (Marvel, 1949)
  • Two-Fisted Tales #19 (EC, 1951)
  • Frontline Combat #1 (EC, 1951)
  • Mad #1 (EC, 1952)
  • Sergeant Barney Barker #1 (Marvel, 1956)

Notice that the colorist for the EC books, including Mad, was John’s sister Marie Severin. We’ll be hearing more from her soon.

Of those titles, Mad is the most famous, and would endure in some form for 65 years until finally shutting down in 2018. Perhaps the world had grown too farcical by then to satire.

What, me worry?

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