Featuring: Human Torch Release: August 8, 1963 Cover: November 1963 12 cents Written by: Stan Lee Drawn by: Jack Kirby Inked by: Dick Ayers 18 pages
Why did we choose now to review the origin of Captain America? Because Captain America is returning. “From out of the Golden Age of Comics”, the cover says. Not sure if we’ve yet seen that term in our reading. The era we are reading has been dubbed the Marvel Age.
Weird that he’d choose the Antique Auto Show of Glenville, Long Island to make his return after a decade-long absence.
Captain America and Human Torch get into a fight. Superheroes often do that when they meet.
Featuring: Fantastic Four Release: August 8, 1963 Cover: November 1963 12 cents Written by: Stan Lee Drawn by: Jack Kirby Inked by: Dick Ayers 22 pages
“This proves that some form of life must exist in outer space!”
Reed.
You’ve fought the Skrulls twice. You’ve traveled to Planet X, and transported its population to another planet. You’ve met the Impossible Man and the Watcher. You’re about to meet the Watcher again this issue. You’ve seen the ruins of a lost civilization on the moon.
Plus, if you’ve been paying attention, you would have noted earth has been recently invaded by several other alien races, from the Toad Men to the Stone Men from Saturn.
Of course there’s some form of life in outer space!
Maybe I’m misinterpreting. Perhaps he’s not speaking of other worlds or moons or even spaceships, but within space itself.
Featuring: Ant-Man and the Wasp Release: August 1, 1963 Cover: November 1963 12 cents Written by: Stan Lee Drawn by: Jack Kirby Inking: Don Heck 18 pages
Ant-Man gets a new identity, and there’s a new little corner box to go with it.
The story is this. Ant-Man and Wasp joined a superhero team. Their teammates are Hulk, Iron Man, and Thor. All extremely powerful. Ant-Man is very small and controls ants. Perhaps this situation would have been tenable if Wasp didn’t keep commenting on how handsome Thor was. But she did. And Dr. Pym’s ego could not take this feeling of inferiority anymore. He needed to measure up.
So he thought and thought. He had a gas which shrunk him to ant-size. And a gas which allowed him to grow back to normal size. He had a routine. Reduce to ant-size. Grow to normal size. Now remember, he’s a genius. And it finally occurred to him: what if he skips a step in that cycle? What if he takes the growing gas when already normal-sized?
It worked! If he simply doesn’t take the reducing gas, he is no longer Ant-Man: he is now Giant-Man. And has strength that is at least closer to par with his Avengers teammates.
I have a science question about that, though. When he shrinks to ant-size, he retains human strength. They are very clear on that point. So he is the size of an ant but can punch as hard as an ordinary human. So why does his strength increase when he grows if it doesn’t decrease when it shrinks? Ah, never mind. I’m sure it would make sense if I knew science better.
Featuring: Tales of Asgard Release: August 1, 1963 Cover: October 1963 12 cents Written by: Stan Lee Drawn by: Jack Kirby Inked by: G. Bell 5 pages
The inks are by George Roussos, who often used the pseudonym George Bell. This is the first work of his we’ve seen.
The Thor series has not been very good. But I know there are good Thor comics. I even know there are good Thor comics made by Lee and Kirby. We just haven’t seen them yet. There’s been no real consistent artistic voice on the series, with a variety of artists and scripters taking a hand.
Thor is at his best when the stories explore the mythological. He’s generally better in Asgard than on Earth. Indeed, the best Thor story so far introduced Loki, and told the story of how he freed himself from the tree where Odin had imprisoned him. That was the only glimmer of greatness we’ve yet seen.
Here is the next glimmer. After the main tale and a Larry Lieber-helmed sci/fi tale, we get the first installment of a new series: Tales of Asgard. These stories will give Kirby a chance to flex his mythological cred.
Featuring: Thor Release: August 1, 1963 Cover: October 1963 12 cents Written by: Stan Lee Drawn by: Jack Kirby Inked by: Don Heck 13 pages
Kirby gets main drawing credit, but the faces (excepting the Lava Man) look more like Heck’s work to my eye. The action is very Kirby though.
Beneath the surface of the Earth, Mole Man rules an army of monsters. The immortal Tyrannus rules a kingdom of underworld natives. The kingdom of Atlantis had once sunk beneath the sea, and continued sinking beneath the world; when Iron Man visited, Kala was the ruler of Atlantis. We’re about to meet our fourth kingdom beneath the surface. Fortunately, the world is big enough for all of them.
Featuring: Fantastic Four Release: July 9, 1963 Cover: October 1963 12 cents Written by: Stan Lee Drawn by: Jack Kirby Inking: Dick Ayers 22 pages
This bears some resemblance to the Iron Man story where he traveled to Ancient Egypt to battle a time-traveling Pharaoh (Pharoah?). Of course, this is much better.
Mr. Fantastic deduces from some museum hieroglyphs that blindness had once been cured in Ancient Egypt. So the Fantastic Four return to the castle where they first met Dr. Doom, where we find his time machine has just been sitting there this whole time. They use the machine to travel to a time when Egypt was ruled by Rama-Tut, who came from the future. Similar to Zarrko, Rama-Tut has been bored with the peace of his time and craved adventure.
I feel like you should have gone back for this equipment before now…
Attempting to reflect on what future comics will do with this story hurts my brain. There will be contradictions and explanations. Rama-Tut will be connected to several other time-traveling characters. And they’ll further explore this moment in history to learn Apocalypse, Dr. Strange, and the Avengers are lurking around behind the scenes. We’ll spend no more time on such reflections until we need to.
Featuring: Human Torch Release: July 9, 1963 Cover: October 1963 12 cents Story plot: Stan Lee Script: Joe Carter Art: Dick Ayers 13 pages
Once again, Superman creator Jerry Siegel takes on a Human Torch script under the pen name Joe Carter. His scripts seem a cut above what we are used to from Human Torch stories, but it’s a pretty low bar.
Get it… “flame”.
We have seen Johnny on many dates both in this title and the pages of Fantastic Four. It’s been a different girl each time. But this issue seems different. He has a date with Doris Evans, and he describes himself as her “flame”. Puns aside, this suggests something more serious than his usual dalliances. Perhaps it is because Dorrie plays a little hard to get. She is willing to go out with Johnny, but seems to dislike his Human Torch persona. She’s clearly dating him despite his celebrity. The fact that she is given a full name is another hint this one is special.
Featuring: Iron Man Release: July 9, 1963 Cover: October 1963 12 cents Story plot: Stan Lee Script: R. Berns Art: Don Heck 13 pages
The cover bears a resemblance to the Ant-Man cover we just examined. The hero and villain are not actually in the same picture, with one confined to a separate panel.
Get it? “Shocked”.
Professor Vanko is Russia’s top scientist. He has built a suit that makes him master of electricity, the Crimson Dynamo. By the end, Tony Stark tricks him into defecting to the West.
Featuring: Ant-Man and the Wasp Release: July 2, 1963 Cover: October 1963 12 cents Story plot: Stan Lee Script: H.E. Huntley Art: Don Heck 13 pages
Something of an odd cover. It makes no attempt to showcase the Porcupine’s powers. Instead, it just has Porcupine standing in his own panel while the main cover focuses on Ant-Man drowning in a bath tub. Drowning in a bathtub is indeed a scene from this issue. Were it not, I would wonder if they just took any old Ant-Man cover they had and inserted that image of the Porcupine. Either way, spectacularly unimpressive work by Jack Kirby.
This issue has two “weird tale” backups. Grayson’s Gorilla by Stan Lee and Larry Lieber. And “The Little Green Man” by Lee and Ditko. The era of these little sci/fi shorts is fast coming to an end.
In her very first issue, they tried to motivate Wasp’s character around her father’s death and a passion for justice. We’ve seen no real hints of that since. Her character has since been dominated entirely by swooning over random men, when not trying to convince Hank Pym to settle down with her.
I think she’s just trying to make him jealous. It doesn’t appear to be working.
As a side note, she does call Ant-Man “Hank” in both this issue and the last one. I think she’s the only one to call him that. He’d always been “Henry” before.
We reach the 100th story in our Marvel reading. Quite the milestone. And what a story it is. Coincidentally, the 100th Marvel Universe story, by my count, is Avengers #1. Did I plan it that way? No. Well, at least not exactly. Six different comics came out this very same day, and it was mostly up to me what order to read them in. The 100th story could just as easily have been X-Men #1 if I’d wanted. But I made that #99. Because.
[Big asterisk on the last paragraph. I have since edited my own reading order to make this story an unexciting story #94. But it was #100 when I first posted it. Now that honor goes to Journey Into Mystery #97]
And what a day for comics. The first Fantastic Four annual had Namor find his people and declare war on the surface world. That’s cool. Sgt. Fury met Reed Richards for the first time. That’s cool. The X-Men were introduced! We read the worst story yet as Thor battled Merlin. That’s… less cool. But overall an exciting day.
Including this. Really, what it’s all been building up to. Why I’ve been intermixing Thor and Iron Man stories, acting like they’re somehow connected even though they clearly haven’t been. This is the heart of it all. Five heroes we’ve been reading about team up. Also, the Fantastic Four show up for good measure.
And, as we’ve discussed, my first comic ever was an Avengers comic. So I’m excited to have reached this milestone.
