interlude – Coke & Comics

INTERLUDE: Captain Atom #78

The Gremlins from Planet Blue

Featuring: Captain Atom
Release: October 1, 1965
Cover: December 1965
12 cents
Steve Ditko, Joe Gill, Rocke Mastroserio, and Joe D’Agostino
19 pages

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Space Adventures #33, Story B	PRELUDE
Amazing Spider-Man #33	Reading order	Tales of Suspense #72, Story B

But he was not as before when he emerged from the atomic fireball! No… he was charged with unlimited nuclear power… and this power enabled him to hurtle through space at fantastic speeds! Almost indestructible, with superior vision, hearing, and strength, he became the champion of good men… and the enemy of evil everywhere!

With his time at Marvel coming to an end, Steve Ditko started putting out work for other publishers, beginning with a return to the superhero he created for Charlton Comics, Captain Atom. His very first superhero creation.

This was published concurrently with Amazing Spider-Man #32 and Strange Tales #140, the month before climactic stories in each series, and 6 months before his final issue of each series.

Captain Atom had been on hiatus since Ditko’s departure in 1961, though Charlton had recently been reprinting the old Captain Atom stories.

His return sees him facing off against aliens sabotaging our space program. These aliens seem powerful enough to attack en masse and defeat Earth pretty easily, but subterfuge is their method.

One scientist, Professor Jupe, notices the disasters are too frequent to be random. This scientist has a lovely daughter Leah who will catch our hero’s eye. Both will find themselves captives of the aliens.

We get a recap of Captain Atom’s origin and some details of his powers. Captain Atom is charged with unlimited nuclear power, can hurtle through space at fantastic speeds, and is almost indestructible, with superior vision, hearing, and strength.

INTERLUDE: Modeling with Millie #44

Whom Can I Turn To?/Millie Accused!/A Time for Crying!

Featuring: Millie the Model
Release: October 5, 1965
Cover: December 1965
12 cents
18 pages

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Sgt. Fury #24	Reading order	Avengers #23

Someday I’m gonna marry this adorable gal… but I’ve got to wait until she gets this career idea out of her system!

No credits are given. This was a production error as the title usually includes credits. Pencils are by Stan Goldberg with inks by Frank Giacoia and Joe Giella. The script is by a young man named Roy Thomas.

It seems like Millie’s dreams have come true when she, Tony, and Chili are sent to Paris by Mr. Hanover to model for Jacques D’eau, the most famous fashion designer in the world.

INTERLUDE: THUNDER Agents #1

The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves

Featuring: THUNDER Agents
Release: September 1965
Cover: November 1965
25 cents

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Daredevil #11	Reading order	Amazing Spider-Man #30

We must find and train at least three special agents… the best!

We’re breaking my normal format for posts beyond the fact that this is plainly not a Marvel comic.

Normally, we read one story at a time, but I want to read the entire issue in one go. It consists of several shorter stories by different creative teams that add up to one larger story, all overseen by Wally Wood.

The issue has no credits, though sometimes artist signatures are visible. I have this in a collection, which credits the writers and artists involved when known. One or two names may be lost to history.

One of the disagreements between Wood and Lee was Lee taking the writer’s credit when Wood felt he was doing most of the writing. But this comic doesn’t credit anybody. In fact, most comics of the era don’t credit their creative teams. Lee was ahead of his time in trying to credit everybody. He just claimed a lot of credit for himself as well. Perhaps to Wood it was more about credit in the form of compensation than his name appearing in a box.

A couple notable differences from what we’ve been reading. First, the publisher is Tower Comics, a brand new publisher. Second, the price is 25 cents rather than 12 cents. Marvel prices its Annual comics at 25 cents, but its normal comics at 12 cents.

For 12 cents, Marvel comics give you 20-22 pages of content. The Annuals tend to be 70-72 pages for 25 cents, but with a lot of that dedicated to reprint material. This give you 60 pages of story for 25 cents.

Across the decades, comic prices had not changed much. Marvel Comics were 10 cents in 1939 and 10 cents in 1961 and 12 cents in 1965. They were very averse to raising the price, and had instead steadily decreased the page count over the years.

Thus, the page count of this comic is more reminiscent of 1940s comics than of its contemporary competitors. The idea that the individual stories all tie loosely together isn’t novel either, as 1940s Justice Society stories from DC had a similar structure, one Marvel imitated in the later 1940s with its All-Winners Squad.

We learn from the cover that THUNDER is an acronym. (Note for this blog, we’re not often including the “.”s in acronynms. I’m just too lazy to repeatedly type out S.H.I.E.L.D., finding it easier to type SHIELD.)

THUNDER: The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves.

I can’t believe the “T” stands for “The”.

This title is a mix of superhero and spy adventure, with the acronym name likely inspired by “The Man from UNCLE”, and of course, the aforementioned SHIELD.

The concept was created by Len Brown and Wally Wood, who had previously co-created the science fiction trading card series, Mars Attacks.

Why are we reading this anyway? Because I wanted to see what Wally Wood got up to when he left Marvel. I think it will illuminate some discussions.

We’ll read through each story at a time, noting the title, creative team, and page count as we go. So don’t just stop when you get to the character lists. More stories to come below.

INTERLUDE: Two-Gun Kid #77

The Panther Will Get You If You Don’t Watch Out!

Featuring: Two-Gun Kid
Release: June 1, 1965
Cover: September 1965
12 cents
Edited by: Stan Lee
Written by: Al Hartley
Pencilling by: Dick Ayers
Inking by: Carl Hubbell
Lettering by: Artie Simek
17 pages

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	PRELUDE	Mystic Comics #3, Story B
Daredevil #9	Reading order	Journey Into Mystery Annual 1

He wore two guns and a mask?

We are reading Marvel’s superhero line, which they started back up in 1961. We’ve occasionally read stories older than 1961 that seem vaguely relevant, and refer to those as PRELUDE posts. We occasionally read stories long after 1961 and call those POSTLUDE posts. We will also be doing INTERLUDE posts, which we will read at the time they came out, but are disconnected from the normal superhero universe.

If you’ve been following along, this will be the first INTERLUDE post you’ve come across. But I’ve retroactively made a few other posts be INTERLUDE posts. Those stories featuring Medusa, Merlin, Odin, or Zeus that weren’t really properly connected to the superhero reading.

Superheroes are on the rise and starting to crowd out other genres, but Marvel is still publishing its romance and western comics. Marvel had a single western hero, the Masked Raider, way back in the beginning in Marvel Comics #1. But they’ve been regularly publishing westerns since 1948, starting with Annie Oakley and the Two-Gun Kid.

That’s the original Two-Gun Kid, mind you. Not to be confused with the character we are about to read about. The original Two-Gun Kid was Clay Harder.

In 1962, Lee and Kirby introduced a new hero with the same name, lawyer Matt Hawk.

Marvel’s other continuing western titles are Rawhide Kid, and Kid Colt: Outlaw.

Former western heroes include Wyatt Earp, Apache Kid, Outlaw Kid, Blaze Carson, Tex Morgan, and Tex Taylor.

One of Two-Gun Kid’s steadfast allies is Boom-Boom Brown, a former boxer turned blacksmith.

His most trusted ally of course is his horse Thunder.

INTERLUDE: Strange Tales #108, Story C

The Iron Warrior

Featuring: Merlin
Release: February 12, 1963
Cover: May 1963
12 cents
Script: Stan Lee
Art: Steve Ditko
5 pages

I found this story on this blog.

In an earlier story in this same issue, we saw Human Torch battle the Painter.

We read one earlier Merlin story in the pages of Tales of Suspense, also by Lee and Ditko. That was a modern tale, whereas this one takes us back to Arthurian days.

This era of these “weird tales” is soon coming to an end, as their pages will be given over entirely to these upstart superhero comics soon. We’ve read the occasional one, usually featuring legendary figures who will also appear in our superhero stories.

Merlin is actually quite the important character to our Marvel tales, featuring prominently in Black Knight and Captain Britain tales, though it’s not clear this issue is meant to have any connection. There was a short-lived 50s series called Black Knight in which Merlin was a major character, which will be quite important to our tale. We’ll read a couple of those stories as Prelude issues when they start to impact the stories we are reading here. They were also set in King Arthur’s court.

This is the tale of the jealous Sir Mogard, who challenges Merlin to a duel. Just as we saw in the last Merlin tale, the villain gets what’s coming to him.

Don’t hear the word “bandy” often; last time I heard it was from Gandalf.

This tale also involves a Black Knight, who in the classic series served Merlin against Modred. The original Black Knight was Sir Percy in disguise. This one turns out to be an empty suit of armor brought to life by Merlin. There will be other Black Knights to come.