origin – Coke & Comics

Tales of Suspense #62

The Origin of the Mandarin!

Featuring: Iron Man
Release: November 10, 1964
Cover: February 1965
12 cents
Brashly written by: Stan Lee
Boldly drawn by: Don Heck
Brazenly inked by: Dick Ayers
Bashfully lettered by: S. Rosen
12 pages

Previous	#289	Next
Tales of Suspense #61, Story B	Reading order	Tales of Suspense #62, Story B
Tales of Suspense #61, Story B	Tales of Suspense	Tales of Suspense #62, Story B

Now that the issue is dual-featured, with each feature of similar importance, they need to think of different ways to highlight two pictures on the cover. We’ve seen the Iron Man picture embedded in the Captain America picture, while consuming a large chunk of the real estate, forming the main art of the Cap picture into an ‘L’. We’ve seen 2 separate pictures placed onto the mat at odd angles like postcards dropped on a canvas. The most conventional format will be a split-screen, either horizontal or vertical. This one is basically a horizontal split, but with a slanted line. It feels like the Iron Man portion wastes the portion of the image where it has the space. The Cap portion has extra space on the left and puts Cap himself there. Iron Man is squeezed into the small space on the left, and the extra space on the right is devoted to landscape.

Apparently Marvel had received more than 500 requests for the origin of the Mandarin.

If you look to the Best we’ve read page, it will become obvious the origin stories tend to be my favorite comics. At present, I see a full quarter of the list are origin stories, including the top 3 entries. Conversely, almost every major origin we’ve read is represented. (Sorry to Ant-Man, Thor, and Watcher.) Therefore I’m excited whenever we get a new origin story… unless it’s Mandarin’s story.

Daredevil #1

The Origin of Daredevil

Featuring: Daredevil
Release: February 4, 1964
Cover: April 1964
12 cents
Written by: Stan Lee
Illustrated by: Bill Everett
Lettered by: Sam Rosen
23 pages

Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four do not actually appear in this issue. They mention Spider-Man on the cover and the first page in an attempt to market Daredevil as their next Spider-Man.

Daredevil has a pretty distinctive logo, an expanding font with a swoosh running through it. Preceded by a “Here comes…”. And then the tagline which will endure to this day: “The Man Without Fear”.

Bill Everett is a name we should be plenty familiar with by now even though this is his first time showing up in the Marvel Age. We know him from our “Prelude” reading as the creator of Namor the Sub-Mariner 25 years earlier. Reportedly, he was very slow working on this issue of Daredevil, leading to this issue being released a full 7 months after it was originally scheduled. So he won’t be invited back to illustrate more Daredevil stories. He’ll be put on covers and finishes, jobs where he’s less likely to blow deadlines. A shame, because he does great work here.

Strange Tales #115, Story B

The origin of Dr. Strange

Featuring: Dr. Strange
Release: September 10, 1963
Cover: December 1963
12 cents
Written by: Stan Lee
Drawn by: Steve Ditko
8 pages

We learn the origin of Dr. Strange, one of the greatest superhero origins ever. Probably the second-greatest. It will thus be only the second Marvel Age story I give the (presumably) coveted 5-star rating.

A brilliant surgeon cared only for wealth and fame. When an accident damaged his hands, his desperate quest to be able to operate again led him to seek out a mystic healer. There he learned of the nature of black magic and the threat to the world posed by Mordo. He spent years studying under the Ancient One to become a master of black magic.

PRELUDE: Sub-Mariner Comics #32

The Birth of the Sub-Mariner

Featuring: Sub-Mariner
Release: March 20, 1949
Cover: June 1949
10 cents
By: Bill Everett
12 pages

I can’t find any credits in the comic, but it seems to pretty clearly be by Bill Everett, and the internet seems to agree.

This is the end of the Sub-Mariner’s story. After a decade, he’s getting cancelled along with all the other superheroes. Romance, humor, crime, western, horror… that’s all the company that will become Marvel is publishing come April 1949.

For his final issue, they look backward. This story tells of the origin of Namor. The next story in the issue covers the same events as Namor’s first story in Marvel Comics #1.

The story begins with a ship which has lost its Captain. Commander Leonard McKenzie is injured and lost. His ship has to abandon him. He is saved by his new wife, a woman they rescued who turns out to be more than she appears. She is Fen, Princess of the Sub-Mariners.

The Sub-Mariners wish him put to death for the crimes of humanity, but she is in charge in the absence of the Emperor and insists he live.

Tales to Astonish #35

The Return of the Ant-Man

The Return of the Ant-Man/An Army of Ants!/The Ant-Man’s Revenge!
Featuring: Ant-Man
Release: June 5, 1962
Cover: September 1962
12 cents
Writers: Stan Lee and Larry Lieber
Penciler: Jack Kirby
Inker: Dick Ayers
13 pages

Previous	#14	Next
Venus #1	PRELUDE
Journey Into Mystery #83	Reading order	Fantastic Four #6
	Tales to Astonish	Tales to Astonish #36

So great a discovery must not melt into nothingness! I must concoct the serums again!

The credits are taken from the table of contents for Marvel Masterworks Ant-Man/Giant-Man vol. 1. The book’s table of contents gives the credits I put above. I don’t see any credits in the actual issue.

June 5, 1962. Marvel introduces Spider-Man. And their take on the mythological Thor. Also: their scientist Henry Pym gets a costume and superhero identity and becomes Ant-Man. A decent chunk of the cast of Avengers: Endgame was introduced on that day. Stan Lee was involved in all three. Jack Kirby designed Thor and Ant-Man and was involved in initial designs for Spider-Man, before Steve Ditko came on board. Larry Lieber was involved in scripting for both the Thor and Ant-Man stories. That’s a lot of simultaneous creativity going on for a small group of people.

To recap, in Tales to Astonish #27, we met Dr. Henry Pym. He was a mad scientist type, in a story that seemed similar to many others of the time, likely intended as a one-off. We get a recap in this issue, which describes it as a “nightmarish story”. I mean, I guess if you hate ants.

But 8 issues later, Henry Pym returns. At the end of the last story, he decided his shrinking serum was too dangerous and destroyed it. Here, we learn he had a change of heart a few weeks later. He decided to concoct a new serum and hide it away until the world was ready. Wait… if he still thinks the world isn’t ready for the serum, why make a new one only to hide it? Why not just wait to make the new batch? Unless you expect an urgent need for it?

Journey Into Mystery #83

The Stone Men from Saturn!

The Stone Men from Saturn!/The Power of Thor!/Thor the Mighty Strikes Back!
Release: June 5, 1962
Cover: August 1962
12 cents
Writing: Stan Lee, Larry Lieber
Pencils: Jack Kirby
Inks: Joe Sinnot
13 pages

Previous	#13	Next
	PRELUDE	Venus #1
Ultimate Spider-Man #5	POSTLUDE
Amazing Fantasy #15	Reading order	Tales to Astonish #35
	Journey Into Mystery	Journey Into Mystery #84

Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor!

The credits are taken from the table of contents for Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor vol. 1. I don’t see any credits in the story itself.

How wild is it that Thor and Spider-Man were introduced on the exact same day? There are a lot of days in the last 80 years, and only so many super heroes as iconic as those two. In the last year, we’ve met the Fantastic Four and the Hulk. The pace is picking up. Within a year, we’ll meet many of our favorite heroes.

The opening splash page depicts Thor, with a distinctive “T” on his elaborate belt. Except for simplifying the belt, Kirby’s rendition of Thor will last for decades with only minor variations. Notice the smile on Thor’s face; we see that later in the issue as well. Kirby depicts Thor as full of mirth. There is generally a dynamic and playful quality to the art.

POSTLUDE: Ultimate Spider-Man #2

Growing Pains
Release: October 4, 2000
Cover: December 2000
$2.50
Story: Brian Michael Bendis and Bill Jemas
Script: Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils: Mark Bagley
Inks: Art Thibert
22 pages

I’m reading Ultimate Spider-Man #1-5, a modern telling of the story of Spider-Man, originally told in Amazing Fantasy #15; a focus is figuring out why the same story takes 12x as many pages to tell. This issue in particular covers the same ground as about 4 panels on page 4 of the original, where Peter Parker starts to understand his powers.

Part of the answer for the page count lies in layout. This issue favors bigger panels, less per page, more varied layouts. The original adheres pretty rigidly to 3 rows of panels per page, with 2-3 panels per row. The only exceptions it make are for the first page splash page, and a larger panel to open chapter 2.

POSTLUDE: Ultimate Spider-Man #1

Powerless
Release: September 6, 2000
Cover: November 2000
$2.99
Story: Bill Jemas and Brian Michael Bendis
Script: Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils: Mark Bagley
Inks: Art Thibert
48 pages

I want to pause our main reading to jump forward into the future again, to the year 2000 and a new modern take on Spider-Man’s origin called Ultimate Spider-Man. This takes an 11 page story and spreads it over 135 pages and 5 issues. I’d like to look at exactly where that factor of 12 in the page count comes from. And also consider what changes the writers felt they need to make and why they made them. I agree the original story skimped on some details, but 124 pages worth of details?!?

This first issue is 48 pages long and covers the ground of about 3 pages of the original Spider-Man story. Why so much longer?

Part of the answer lies in focus. The original story was Peter Parker’s story and his story alone. Any characters we met, we met in relation to Peter. Peter was in every scene and most panels. Peter’s story never paused to make way for another character’s plot.

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.

Incredible Hulk #1

The Coming of the Hulk/The Hulk Strikes!/The Search for the Hulk/Enter… The Gargoyle!/The Hulk Triumphant!

Featuring: Hulk
Release: March 1, 1962
Cover: May 1962
12 cents
Credits: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Inks: Paul Reinman (uncredited)
24 pages

I read this issue in Incredible Hulk Omnibus vol. 1. Stan and Jack signed the issue. The omnibus’ table of contents notes Paul Reinman is the inker.

Now it seems like we’re getting somewhere. I began with a promise of reading this shared Marvel Universe starting with Fantastic Four #1. But it’s been a week and you might be asking, “Where’s the universe?” We’ve read 4 issues of Fantastic Four, a few random sci-fi/horror comics from the period, and you’ve read a handful of comics from BEFORE Fantastic Four #1. All fair points. Where are the other Marvel heroes?

We have covered in the last week about 6 months worth of ground. We started in August of 1961 and have found our way to March of 1962. Finally, we meet our next recognizable hero.