Featuring: Avengers Release: April 12, 1966 Cover: June 1966 12 cents Savage script by: Stan Lee! Powerful pencilling by: Don Heck! Explosive embellishment by: Frank Giacoia! Lethargic lettering by: Sam Rosen! 20 pages
No matter what else… he’ll always be an Avenger! Just as he’ll always be… the man I love!
Frank Giacoia going by his real name for perhaps the first time. He’s usually been under the pen name Frankie Ray or similar.
Dr. Henry Pym. Ant-Man. Giant-Man. Goliath. He who can’t choose a name.
Or a status quo. His latest shtick is that he can only turn exactly 25 feet tall and only for a period of exactly 15 minutes. What happens if he exceeds 15 minutes? We’re about to find out. He did so last issue, then collapsed while shrinking, having gotten down to about 10 feet.
I think it’s cute how quickly all the Avengers have taken to calling him Goliath. There’s probably a lesson for people today to take from this.
Goliath! I like the sound of that! That’s what I’ll call myself from now on– Goliath!!
Today… Hank Pym will be infamous for having taken on too many superhero identities… but this isn’t new. This was a pretty early feature of the character. In under 5 years, he’s on 3, and sort of 4, identities.
When we met him, he wasn’t a superhero at all, just a scientist named Dr. Henry Pym. A year or so later he jumped on the superhero bandwagon as Ant-Man. Another year down and Lee decided the public wanted more powerful superheroes, so Ant-Man became Giant-Man. Those changes all somewhat made sense. But now… he’s no longer Giant-Man… he’s Goliath. That change seems gratutitous.
With the new name comes a new status quo. But he’s had a lot of status quos already. We attempted to recount in the final issue of his ongoing series, Tales to Astonish #69. The rules just keep changing. He drinks a liquid or takes a pill or uses his mind. And he can only chage size every so often or hold the new size for so often or…
Anyways, now he can grow to 25 feet and only 25 feet and remain that way for exactly 15 minutes, no more, no less.
We’ve met one other Goliath, the biblical one, in Avengers #10.
How does he get the new name anyway? It’s a bit weird. We basically learn it’s happening from the cover and title.
We are getting ahead of ourselves. The story begins with Hank Pym contacting the Avengers to help him find the Wasp. We’d last seen her attempting to escape from Attuma. Of course, they don’t know who Dr. Pym is. Because of secret identites.
Now, as secret identities go… Wasp’s costume often didn’t cover her face… she often called Giant-Man Henry or Hank in the presence of others… Giant-Man’s lab was a well known location where his fan club hung out… the kids Jan read sci/stories to knew she was the Wasp… Hank sometimes did experiments in his own house and one day he accidentally turned giant and came bursting out of his house…
Featuring: Avengers Release: February 10, 1966 Cover: April 1966 12 cents Mad, mixed-up story by Stan Lee Ickie, insane illustrations by Don Heck Daffy, dizzy delineation by Frankie Ray Loony, lampoony lettering by Artie Simek 20 pages
Only a fool– or a liar– says he’s never afraid, Wanda!
A lot of plot threads to pick up on from last issue. Namor headed to New York (though we’ve already seen how that plays out in the pages of Tales to Astonish). Dr. Pym busy with research on ship. Other Avengers captured in attempt to rescue Wasp. Attuma engaging them in trial combat to impress men, as the sea poured in. Hawkeye in a coma attempting to remember his password. A mysterious figure in the shadows. Wasp has escaped Atttuma but her fate is unknown.
The password thing is quite funny. People forget their passwords at work and need to call IT support to get it reset. No such backup here. Hawkeye must hook himself up to a fancy memory-jogging machine.
But the number he couldn’t remember was 1313. How hard is that? It’s not like the password was something actually secure like _b9<Jgu_X^TZDS.
Featuring: Avengers Release: January 11, 1966 Cover: March 1966 12 cents Incredible script by: Stan Lee Inconceivable art by: Don Heck Indescribable inking by: Frank Ray Indelible lettering by: Artie Simek 20 pages
He endures so much– to hold the Avengers together! And yet– none can help him! He walks– alone!
A recap. Giant-Man and the Wasp left the Avengers in Avengers #16. Then in Tales to Astonish #69, they agreed it was time to retire from superheroing and work on their relationship. And presumably on Pym’s scientific interests as well. Flash forward to Tales to Astonish #77 and Hank’s experiments involve drilling into the ocean to learn the secrets of life. These experiments are wreaking havoc on Namor’s domain. This leads to conflict. Namor breaks their equipment and then decides to head to New York. In a nonsensical plot decision, Jan decides to become the Wasp once more to race Namor across the ocean to New York. But she’s the size of a wasp, and can presumably fly at about the speed of a wasp. She obviously can’t cross an ocean. But she tries anyway.
Unsurprisingly, we haven’t heard from her since. Surprisingly, we will hear from her again.
I’d like to start thinking about something as we read the next several Avengers comics. At some point very soon, the Fantastic Four are going to fight a massive global threat, one the Avengers probably should have helped them with. The Avengers do not show up to help, which implies the Avengers are busy. So let’s be on the lookout for where the Avengers might be at the time that they don’t notice a very noticeable world-ending threat.
Featuring: Captain America Release: September 9, 1965 Cover: December 1966 12 cents Stan Lee, sultan of script! Jack Kirby, lord of layout! George Tuska, archduke of art! Sam Rosen, tired of lettering! 10 pages
You’re too late! You can’t… threaten me… now! There are three sleepers… and… when they awake… the Third Reich will rise again!
The story’s title is, “The Sleeper Shall Awake!”
Coincidentally the exact thing my cat says to me every morning when she wants breakfast.
While I would prefer to read whole comics at once, we read the first half of the issue a little bit earlier, because the Captain America and Iron Man stories of this issue align differently with the Avengers series.
This marks a turning point in Captain America’s adventures, as we’d spent the last several issues focused on Captain America’s adventures in World War II, which don’t create any editorial headaches regarding continuity with Cap’s appearances in Avengers. But now Stan claims readers have demanded modern Cap stories.
So we jump back to the present and see Cap relating the Greymoor Castle saga of last issue to the Avengers. They even answer some plot questions about the story.
Bewilderingly, Hawkeye did not know Bucky was dead.
And then is quite insensitive about it. “It happened more than 20 years ago!” Two notes. It was less than 20 years. Captain America slept for most of those.
Featuring: Avengers Release: December 9, 1965 Cover: February 1966 12 cents Writer: Stan Lee Penciller: Don Heck Inker: Dick Ayers Letterer: Sam Rosen 20 pages
The blind fools! They do not realize that Doom cares nothing for them! He merely plays a role for purposes of his own! Truly, he is evil incarnate! If only the simple peasants could see it!
The Avengers fight Dr. Doom!
For maybe the first time, unless you count Avengers #1½–published in 1999 but set before Avengers #2–as canon: the untold first meeting of the Avengers and Dr. Doom.
Either way, it’s the first time any of these Avengers have met Dr. Doom.
Dr. Doom decides to trap the Avengers. Basically just because. His motivation shifts slightly over the course of the issue. At first, it’s because humiliating the Avengers will inspire fear in the Fantastic Four. Then it’s to take them prisoner and use them as bait for the Fantastic Four.
Featuring: Avengers Release: November 11, 1965 Cover: January 1966 12 cents Writer: Stan Lee Penciller: Don Heck Inker: Dick Ayers Letterer: Artie Simek 20 pages
Let us each meet our fate with valor– and heaven bless you all!
When we left off, Ravonna had rejected Kang’s offer of marriage, so he’s now sending his armies to invade her kingdom.
This treatment of Kang makes more sense to me than his previous appearances, and it better conveys his title of “…the Conqueror”. That he commands a legion of troops ready to invade kingdoms. His last attempt to conquer the 20th century involved sending a robot Spider-Man against the Avengers. Invading with an army just makes more sense to me.
The crown is still yours by my leave only! ‘Tis Kang who is the power here! Though countless worlds have fallen before my banner, yours have I spared… but only because of love for you!
Serendipitous timing. We get to see a major battle between Kang and the Avengers just in time for Kang to make his big screen debut in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania this Friday, portrayed by Jonathan Majors. We had met Jonathan Majors as Kang before in the Loki series.
This story is particularly notable for introducing Kang’s great love, the Princess Ravonna. She was portrayed by Gugu Mbatha-Raw in the Loki series.
John Romita is a new name in the modern Marvel reading, but we’d seen him before in our looks back, as he was the Captain America artist in the 1950s. We’ll be seeing more of him, and have more to say soon.
Sherigail we recall is an alias for for Morrie Kuramoto. We haven’t seen him in a while, with Rosen and Simek dividing up most lettering between them. He married Gail Masuoka in 1955, and they had a daughter Sheri– hence the pen name. As a young adult, Morrie had seen his possessions confiscated and his family sent into prison camps by the US government for having Japanese ancestry. He was able to enlist in the military to escape imprisonment. He worked as a letterer after the war, and continued to do irregular lettering work until his death in 1985.
Featuring: Marvels Release: December 14, 1993 Cover: February 1994 $5.95 Writer: Kurt Busiek Artist: Alex Ross Letterers: Starkings w/ John Gaushell Editor: Marcus McLaurin Assitant editor: Spencer Lamm Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco Cover design & logo: Joe Kaufman Interior design: Comicraft 45 pages
The real story was the people who’d been scared too long. Who’d been wound tight by talk of mutant menaces and hidden conspiracies and shadows under the bed.
I’ve mentioned before I want to frame our reading around the Marvels miniseries from the 1990s. That hasn’t really been obvious yet. We read Marvels #0, which retold a few pages from Marvel Comics #1. And we read Marvels #1, which paralleled 1940s Marvel comics. But our reading is concentrated in the 1960s. Finally, we get to Marvels #2, which parallels the 1960s Marvel stories, ranging from Avengers #6 (May 1964), the 191st entry in our reading, through Tales of Suspense #69 (June 1965), the 404th entry in our reading. Quite the range. We are reading it after completing the Iron Man story from Tales of Suspense #72, because we’d first needed to tie up some continuity ends.
We’ve hinted before at the theme of this comic, and I’d like to just discuss it up front. The two centerpiece stories are the wedding of Reed and Sue in Fantastic Four Annual 3, and the attack on the X-Men by the Sentinels in X-Men #14. The writer Kurt Busiek had noted in his own Marvel Universe research what we also found in our reading here, that these events must occur on nearly consecutive days. That’s not obvious from any comic, but does follow from a close reading of the many interconnected comics. And the two stories make for quite the juxtaposition.
The contrast between these two arcs becomes the central tension of this issue. The Fantastic Four wedding is the celebrity event of the century. The press covered it, crowds of fans gathered, famous people like Tony Stark and Millie the Model attended. The Fantastic Four are super-powered heroes and beloved by the public.
The X-Men are also super-powered heroes. But where the Fantastic Four gained their powers from cosmic radiation, the powers of the X-Men are innate, based on an accident of birth, perhaps from radiation their parents had been exposed to. The “Children of the Atom”. And that difference is big enough that the same public who cheered on the wedding of the FF members would listen with interest and nods of approval as Bolivar Trask went on the airwaves to declare mutants a menace and announce he’d created robot-hunting Sentinels to hunt and kill the X-Men.
We read the Heroes & Legends retelling of the wedding, which focused on this very tension in the form of a child, who was a huge fan of the Fantastic Four, but afraid of the X-Men. He learned better by issue’s end.
Here, the arc will play out within Phil Sheldon, the photojournalist who specialises in shots of the people he’s dubbed the Marvels. A person who idolizes heroes like the Fantastic Four and Avengers, but fears mutants like the X-Men.
It’s entirely irrational, just like all forms of bigotry.
That’s enough belaboring of themes. Let’s dive into the story. As we do, we’ll try to draw the parallels between what’s happening on the page and our reading.
I’ll note that the title is called “Monsters”, which brings to my mind Thing and Hulk. The latter doesn’t appear, and the former is a minor player at best.
It’s 20 years after the events of Marvels #1. Phil Sheldon is now an established freelance photojournalist happily married with two kids. We see hm doing freelance work for Barney Bushkin at the Daily Globe. The shadows on the page somewhat obscure Phil’s eyepatch, a lifelong injury sustained last issue by getting too close to a superhero battle.
We remember meeting Barney in Amazing Spider-Man #27. He’s nicer than Jonah, but asked too many questions for Peter’s tastes.
I was chosen to be– keeper of the flame! But now– the torch has– gone out!
Captain America is certain there is somebody behind Power Man. Since he knows nothing about Power Man, I’m not sure where that certainty comes from.
The Avengers have been ordered to disband by the city. That’s enough for most of the team, but not for Captain America. He thinks they stand for something bigger than obeying laws.
This leads the Avengers to fight amongst themselves. They do this a lot. But this time, the fight dissolves the team.
