jack abel – Coke & Comics

Tales of Suspense #78

Crescendo!

Featuring: Iron Man
Release: March 10, 1966
Cover: June 1966
12 cents
Spectacular story by Stan Lee
Pace-setting pencilling by Gene Colan
Indescribable inking by Gary Michaels
Lonesome lettering by Artie Simek
12 pages

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Tales of Suspense #77, Story B	Reading order	Tales of Suspense #78, Story B
Tales of Suspense #77, Story B	Tales of Suspense	Tales of Suspense #78, Story B

Ultimo, who never really lived– is now truly dead!

Stark factories are closed because Senator Byrd has cancelled the Defense contracts. Tony Stark is missing because Iron Man is in Asia battling Ultimo, the android creation of the Mandarin.

We get a cool time lapse splash page. Ditko often did these time lapse panels in his Spider-Man stories.

Of course, the flip side of all these splash pages and large panels is we get fewer panels to tell the story.

Tales of Suspense #77

Ultimo Lives!

Featuring: Iron Man
Release: February 10, 1966
Cover: May 1966
12 cents
Homerically written by: Stan Lee
Heroically pencilled by: Adam Austin
Historically inked by: Gary Michaels
Hysterically lettered by: Sam Rosen
12 pages

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Strange Tales #145, Story B	Reading order	Tales of Suspense #77, Story B
Tales of Suspense #76, Story B	Tales of Suspense	Tales of Suspense #77, Story B

This is a grave moment in hour nation’s history! A time for patriotism… for dedication to the cause of freedom! There must be no special privileges for self-seeking opportunists like Stark, who flout their country’s laws!

Adam Austin has long since been unmasked as Gene Colan, but he is going back and forth between the two aliases. It’s worth noting that his art seems to improve each month.

Gary Michaels is a pseudonym for Jack Abel. He’s been working with Colan on this series off and on for a few issues now.

When we left off, Tony Stark was a prisoner of the Mandarin and Ultimo is rising. Confusingly, we’ve also seen Tony Stark filling in as the head of SHIELD since then. It’s hard to balance all the things one might want to in a reading order, and sometimes the chronology has to give. Stark’s appearances with SHIELD must take place either before or after this adventure. It’s hard because Tony’s just been pretty busy, and I like to keep the reading order relatively close to publication date.

Mandarin had thrown Stark’s attache case out the window, not realizing it contained the Iron Man armor. What can Stark do without his armor?

Mandarin kidnapped Stark from America to Asia via teleportation. Stark at the time had been in Senator Byrd’s car on the way to Congress to testify about the identity of Iron Man.

Tales of Suspense #76

Here Lies Hidden… The Unspeakable Ultimo!

Featuring: Iron Man
Release: January 1, 1966
Cover: April 1966
12 cents
Tenderly written by: Stan Lee
Lovingly pencilled by: Adam Austin
Gently delineated by: Gary Michaels
Finally lettered by: Sam Rosen
12 pages

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Tales of Suspense #75	Reading order	Sgt. Fury #26
Tales of Suspense #75, Story B	Tales of Suspense	Tales of Suspense #76, Story B

Look at you! Bedraggled and red-eyed! Too much celebrating last night, eh? I always said you were nothing but a playboy!

Marvel has given up on the idea of clean story breaks, which makes reading tricky when I’d like to put the stories together. This is part 3 of the Happy-as-The-Freak arc, but also part 1 of the Ultimo arc. Essentially they seem to want to end every issue on a cliffhanger, so they begin the next story now. I can’t just keep reading Iron Man. We already are getting ahead of the Captain America stories he shares the title with, because I need to align those with the SHIELD arc. And there’s a whole Marvel Universe to check in with. Which means I need to either break last issue with the Freak saga unresolved, or break after this issue with the Ultimo saga unresolved. The Freak saga resolves in about 2 pages, but the Ultimo saga really only takes up the last 2 pages. The ongoing Senator Byrd subplot dominates the middle bit. I don’t know. We’re reading this now, then we’ll take a break. And see what happens with Ultimo at a later date.

Where were we. The experimental treatment on Happy turned him into a Freak. Iron Man had a thing that might save Happy, at risk to himself.

Well, it worked.

This was all a fallout from the Titanium Man battle. That’s when Happy was injured saving Iron Man, and revealed he knew (or suspected) Tony’s secret. This is their first chance to talk since then.

Tales of Suspense #75

The Fury of… The Freak!

Featuring: Iron Man
Release: December 9, 1965
Cover: March 1966
12 cents
Titanically written by: Stan Lee
Tremendously drawn by: Adam Austin
Tumultuously inked by: Gary Michaels
Timorously lettered by: Sam Rosen
12 pages

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Tales of Suspense #74, Story B	Reading order	Tales of Suspense #76
Tales of Suspense #74, Story B	Tales of Suspense	Tales of Suspense #75, Story B

He’s got to learn that Iron Man cannot work only for him, when the entire nation might benefit by his powers!

Happy Hogan has been turned into a Freak. A depowered Iron Man is in pursuit.

The Freak takes an interest in Pepper.

Senator Byrd has been a thorn in Iron Man’s side. Not a villain, but a nuisance. Does he have a point though? Should the powers of Iron Man benefit the entire nation, and not be controlled by a single corporation?

Tales of Suspense #74

If This Guilt Be Mine–!

Featuring: Iron Man
Release: November 11, 1965
Cover: February 1966
12 cents
Story: As only the fabulous Stan Lee can tell it!
Art: As only the fantastic Adam Austin can draw it!
Inking: As only the flamboyant Gary Michaels can delineate it!
Lettering: As only the frantic Artie Simek can scribble it!
12 pages

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Tales of Suspense #73, Story B	Reading order	Tales of Suspense #74, Story B
Tales of Suspense #73, Story B	Tales of Suspense	Tales of Suspense #74, Story B

Somehow– I feel as though my whole world is crashing down around me–!

Jack Abel returns under the Gary Michaels pseudonym. He’ll be the regular inker for a period of time.

Recall Happy had been badly injured during the battle with Titanium Man in issue 71, and last issue he was kidnapped from his hospital by the Black Knight. Iron Man rescued Happy and the Black Knight fell to his death, but now Iron Man is out of power.

To add a bizarre but strangely common wrinkle to the relationships, Pepper now decides she loves Iron Man and hates Tony. It used to be the other way around. Tony loves Pepper but can’t be with her because he has a bad heart, so he’s been intentionally cruel. Happy loves Pepper, but Pepper couldn’t love him back because of Tony, but now she’s over Tony and in love with Iron Man.

Tales of Suspense #73

My Life for Yours!

Featuring: Iron Man
Release: October 12, 1965
Cover: January 1966
12 cents
Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Adam Austin, Gary Michaels, Sol Brodsky, Flo Steinberg, and Merrie Ol’ Marie Severin!
12 pages

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Tales of Suspense #72, Story B	Reading order	Tales of Suspense #73, Story B
Tales of Suspense #72, Story B	Tales of Suspense	Tales of Suspense #73, Story B

Now look, Avenger– No one takes the law into his own hands– not even you!

Stan seems to be crediting an unusual amount of people, but it’s really people who are always involved. Lee always credits himself, this time presumably in an editing role. Roy Thomas is the scripter, Adam Austin (aka Gene Colan) the penciller, Gary Michaels (aka Jack Abel) the inker. The other names show up less commonly in credits. Sol Brodsky is the production manager, and usually is, though uncredited. Marie Severin is the colorist, and frequently is, though uncredited. (Unfortunately we won’t see any of Severin’s coloring in my images, as I’ve only found the digital version online, which is entirely recolored, and that’s likely Stan Goldberg coloring the cover above.) What’s interesting here is Flo Steinberg, who’s been behind the scenes since the beginning, handling the office work for Marvel. She gets her name here apparently because she assisted Roy with the plot.

Weirdly, for all that crediting, they forgot to mention the letterer. Apparently this time normal letter Artie Simek is joined by Ben Oda.

Speaking of Roy Thomas, that’s the new guy we first met on Modeling with Millie, which was released one week earlier. This is his first superhero work. Wonder if he’ll do any more.

Jack Abel is also new to us in our modern reading, though we read an old Captain America story he’d likely contributed to. He’d worked for Marvel back in the 1950s, often inking Bill Benulis or Bob Forgione, but lately has been focused on DC’s war comics. It’s probably why he uses a pseudonym here, so DC won’t know he’s doing side-work. He’ll eventually move on to DC’s superhero line and become the main inker on Superman stories. Here’s a sampling of his artwork.

Journey Into Mystery #20, Marvel, 1954
Our Fighting Forces #50, DC, 1959
Sea-Devils #14, DC, 1963

And a sampling of his finishing work.

Western Outlaws and Sheriffs #72, Marvel, 1952, pencils by Warren Broderick
Adventures into Terror #11, Marvel, 1952, pencils by Bill Benulis
Combat Casey #11, Marvel, 1953, pencils by Bill Benulis
All-American Men of War #25, DC, 1955, pencils by Bob Forgione
Wyatt Earp #1, Marvel, 1955, pencils by Bob Forgione
Turok, Son of Stone #3, Dell, 1956, pencils by Bob Correa

As a complete aside, the plot of that Adventures into Terror story amused me to no end. Lots of these stories about somebody murdering a partner for ambition. But in this case, they were a two-man horse act, and the guy who played the end of the horse wanted to play the horse’s head. Talk about ambition!

PRELUDE: Captain America #76

The Betrayers

Featuring: Captain America
Release: January 18, 1954
Cover: May 1954
10 cents
6 pages

Credits aren’t evident. My copy of the Marvel Masterworks claims John Romita is the artist, but I don’t think that’s correct. The GCD offers a different interpretation, citing the same Marvel Masterworks volume I am looking at. Perhaps they have a newer edition. I am anyways assured the GCD credits are correct by no less an expert than Michael Vassallo, and that this story is the work of Bill Benulis and Jack Abel, not John Romita. It is possible Romita touched up some of the faces.

It’s 1954. The publisher once known as Timely is now known as Atlas. It will eventually be best known as Marvel.

We last checked in with Captain America in 1948, when an injured Bucky was replaced as Cap’s partner by Betsy Ross, the Golden Girl. Let’s briefly review his publishing history in the interim.

Bucky recovered in issue 71 for a couple more adventures. Captain America Comics continued until issue 73, published in 1949. Golden Girl remained his occasional partner until the end.

With issue 74, the series changed its name to Captain America’s Weird Tales. We saw one final battle between Captain America and Red Skull along with a handful of horror short stories. This was the end of Marvel’s time publishing superhero comics. For the next several years, they would focus on romance, humor, horror, crime, and western tales. The final Sub-Mariner story had been published 4 months earlier, with the final Human Torch and Blonde Phantom stories 3 months before that.

Captain America’s Weird Tales #75 (1949) did not feature Captain America at all. His name adorned the comic’s cover, but he was nowhere to be found amongst the horror stories within. With that, the series ended. A somewhat ignoble end to the comic career of America’s favorite superhero.

Jump forward to August 1953. Young Men #24 gave us the return of Captain America, Human Torch, and Sub-Mariner. We already reviewed that issue’s Sub-Mariner story. In that issue, we learned Steve Rogers had retired from being Captain America, but was still teaching at the Lee School, except it now seems to be a college. Bucky was now a college student, though he didn’t look any older. The Red Skull’s return convinces Captain America and Bucky to come out of retirement.

I plan to do a survey of Red Skull’s history separately, so am purposely not covering that story in any more detail now.

We turn now to Captain America #76. The numbering picks up where Captain America’s Weird Tales left off, but Captain America reclaims the book’s interior.

For 3 issues.