stan lee – Page 46 – Coke & Comics

Journey Into Mystery #97, Story C

Tales of… Asgard! Home of the Mighty Norse Gods

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.

Journey Into Mystery #97

The Lava Man

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.

Fantastic Four #19

Prisoners of the Pharaoh!

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.

Strange Tales #113

The Coming of the Plantman!

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.

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.

Tales of Suspense #46

Iron Man Faces the Crimson Dynamo!

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.

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.

Tales to Astonish #48

Ant-Man and the Wasp Defy the Porcupine!

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.

The Avengers #1

The Coming of the Avengers!

Featuring: Avengers
Release: July 2, 1963
Cover: September 1963
12 cents
Written by: Stan Lee
Drawn by: Jack Kirby
Inking: Dick Ayers
22 pages

Previous	#94	Next
Marvel Boy #1	PRELUDE
X-Men #1	Reading order	Tales to Astonish #48
	Avengers	Avengers #2

I pity the guy who tries to beat us!

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.

I just wish it were a better comic.

The X-Men #1

X-Men

Featuring: X-Men
Release: July 2, 1963
Cover September 1963
12 cents
Written by: Stan Lee
Drawn by: Jack Kirby
Inked by: Paul Reinman
23 pages

Paul Reinman is not a name we’ve seen a lot. The internet tells me we’ve seen him ink Kirby once before in our reading, on Incredible Hulk #1, but he was not credited in that issue. That issue relied heavily on the mood created by night and shadow, so it needed a good inker. This issue requires an entirely different feel, but Reinman again delivers.

So, anyways, hey! It’s the X-Men! That’s a good new addition to our growing cast. They were really big when I started reading comics in the early ’90s. And they’ve had a whole bunch of movies now. So this is pretty exciting. We get to see how it all began.

And did you know the X-Men and the Avengers debuted on the very same day? How wild is that? We’ll cover Avengers #1 shortly.

We learn the X-Men are a team of mutants, really the students at a school for mutants, which also acts as a haven. Professor X is the teacher. He trains his students to use their powers to benefit mankind, and to fight evil mutants, like Magneto.

The word “mutant” is important, but pretty new to us. It’s worth reflecting back on Amazing Adult Fantasy #14, where we first encountered the word in our reading. I’m not sure what Marvel comic was the first to ever use the word, but I know who to ask. In that story, Tad Carter is revealed to be a mutant with telepathic and telekinetic powers, because his father had been exposed to radiation before he was conceived. He receives a telepathic summons and goes to join a secret society of self-described mutants with a variety of powers, who wait in hiding until humanity is ready to accept them, when they can usher in a new golden age.

We heard the word again in two other comics published this very day, July 2, 1963. Namor, the offspring of a human and a Sub-Mariner, with powers beyond either race, self-described as a mutant. And Merlin, wizard of King Arthur’s court, explained his seeming wizardry was actually because he was a mutant with powers of telepathy, teleportation, and levitation.

INTERLUDE: Journey Into Mystery #96, Story B

Call her… Medusa!

Featuring: Medusa
Release: July 2, 1963
Cover: September 1963
12 cents
Story plot: Stan Lee
Script + Art: Larry Lieber
Inking: Paul Reinman
5 pages

Wet met Medusa in Tales to Astonish #32. As with all these mythological characters, it is unclear if all the stories that appear are supposed to connect. The CMRO includes many Medusa appearances in its order, including several appearances that predate where we started our reading. I hope to cover USA Comics #6 eventually in a “prelude” post, but after we first meet Captain America in the present stories.

For example, this comic notes Medusa was slain by Perseus, suggesting she is not the same character we met in the modern day. On the other hand, the Perseus story was related by a teacher, who is perhaps just wrong about Medusa’s fate.

Either way, we learn Medusa is a member of an alien race called the Gorgons, who are now ready to invade earth once again.

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.