merlin – Coke & Comics

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

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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…

Avengers #10

The Avengers Break Up!

Featuring: Avengers
Release: September 8, 1964
Cover: November 1964
12 cents
Story superbly written by: Stan Lee
Art adorably drawn by: Don Heck
Inked by darlin’ Dick Ayers
Lettered by stalwart Sam Rosen
20 pages

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Tales of Suspense #60, Story B	Reading order	Journey Into Mystery #110
Avengers #9	Avengers	Avengers #11

The issue’s title is “The Avengers Break Up”. Yet, at no point in the issue do the Avengers appear to break up. Instead, characters go to great lengths repeatedly to explain the title via the dialogue. “Now that Thor’s over there and Iron Man’s across the room, it’s basically like they’ve broken up.”

The Heck/Ayers art looks much as it did last issue, which I see as a negative. I’ll give them credit for a couple nice panels. A trippy one of Immortus and an easy-on-the-eyes Enchantress.

We get a weirdly sexist moment in an era filled with weirdly sexist moments. I don’t know if I’m ready to claim it’s the worst, but it’s up there. Iron Man recommends giving Rick Jones a uniform and making him an official Avenger. “…why don’t we make his membership in the Avengers official, as the Wasp’s is…”

PRELUDE: Black Knight #1

The Menace of Modred the Evil!

Featuring: Black Knight
Release: January 14, 1955
Cover: May 1955
10 cents
By: Stan Lee and Joe Maneely
10 pages

In the next post, we’ll be covering the battle of Giant-Man and the Wasp against a new super-villain, the Black Knight. That character will not be Marvel’s first or last Black Knight. The following iteration will be a superhero, and one of my all-time favorites.

We have already seen a version. A Merlin story in one of the fantasy backups, the ones we’ve mostly skipped, introduced a Black Knight that served Merlin, which turned out to be an empty suit of armor animated by magic. Merlin had created that Black Knight to combat the schemes of Sir Mogard.

We meet here Marvel’s original (with a caveat) Black Knight, Sir Percy of Scandia, recruited by Merlin to combat the schemes of Modred.

Journey Into Mystery #96

Defying the Magic of… Merlin the Mad

Featuring: Thor
Release: July 2, 1963
Cover: September 1963
12 cents
Story plot: Stan Lee
Script: R. Berns
Art: Joe Sinnott
13 pages

Merlin, again. Soon, we’ll meet the new Black Knight, and this will lead us to look back on the great Black Knight stories of the 1950s, which prominently feature Merlin. He was a heroic figure in those stories.

Surprised England was so willing to let so important a piece of their history go.

In our Marvel Age reading, we first met Merlin in Tales of Suspense #27, there to give a corrupt magician his just rewards. In Incredible Hulk #5, we learn he had once banished the evil Tyrannus beneath the earth. Then, Strange Tales #108 told a tale of King Arthur’s court, where Merlin clashed with Sir Mogard. It is not clear whether any of these are meant to tie together.

I’ve harped on this a few times now, but a lot of these weaker comics really fail to tie all their threads together, as compared with how Ditko tells the Spider-Man stories, where each story has a singular flow that juggles and intertwines its threads. Here, we get 3 pages of Thor rescuing a bus and it leading to drama with Jane. Then we move on completely to the Merlin story, which has nothing to do with any of that. They only have 13 pages to fill, but still seem to need to pad the story. Thor and Merlin finally meet on page 9.

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.

Tales of Suspense #27, Story D

His name was… Merlin!
Featuring: Merlin
Release: December 12, 1961
Cover: March 1962
12 cents
Credits: Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
5 pages

This is a late entry. But now that Merlin’s been mentioned as the ancient enemy of Tyrannus, I realize he did have a single earlier appearance in the Marvel Age. Again, these famous mythological figures were common fodder for Marvel’s old weird tales. There’s not necessarily a connection between these isolated stories and the characters who appear in the Marvel superhero stories. But it’s not clear there isn’t. And in hindsight, I wish we had covered this way back in the beginning. It came out the same day as Fantastic Four #3.

This was a pretty standard fantasy tale in one of these anthologies. We’ve seen the exact summary before: a dishonorable man gets what’s coming to him through a mystical twist when he picks the wrong victim to mess with. We’ve seen this in an Odin story and a Medusa story.

Yes, I’m sure your name was the problem…

Incredible Hulk #5

Beauty and the Beast!
Featuring: Hulk
Release: November 1, 1962
Cover: January 1963
12 cents
Script: Stan Lee
Art: Jack Kirby
Inking: Dick Ayers
11 pages

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

In a twist from the usual, the titular “Beauty” in this story is likely a man: Tyrannus by name. At least, that’s my interpretation of the title, given how beautiful he is. Though I guess he’s more of the Gaston character in the story. So maybe Betty is the beauty. Hmm… well, let’s read on.

Dr. Banner is the top scientist on Ross’ staff, assigned to help capture the Hulk. Rick Jones is his assistant. But Rick is known to have connections to the Hulk: they have been seen together often; Rick has been seen riding on Hulk’s back; in fact, the military once asked Rick to bring the Hulk to them and he did; then, Rick took over the controls of a military rocket and helped Hulk escape. Ross is well aware of all this. And yet Rick is still part of the government team to help capture Hulk.

Fantastic Four #5

Prisoners of Doctor Doom!/Back to the Past!/On the Trail of Blackbeard/Battle!/The Vengeance of Doctor Doom!
Release: April 10, 1962
Cover: July 1962
12 cents
Credits: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Inker: Joe Sinnot (uncredited)
23 pages

I read this comic in Fantastic Four Omnibus vol. 1. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby signed the issue. The omnibus credits Joe Sinnot as the inker in the table of contents.

I am of two minds about this comic. Let me tell you of both of them.

One the one hand, the premise of the series is that this team gets into fantastic adventures. Travelling back in time to battle pirates qualifies as such an adventure. And as stories about the FF travelling back in time to battle pirates go, this one is pretty solid.

On the other hand, this issue introduces Dr. Doom. Dr. Doom is perhaps my favorite super-villain ever, and this issue just doesn’t quite capture the Dr. Doom that I first met. Whatever I envisioned about the first encounter between our heroes and their arch-nemesis, it wasn’t this.