Featuring: Human Torch Release: May 9, 1963 Cover: August 1963 12 cents Plot: Stan Lee Story: H. Huntley Art: Dick Ayers 13 pages
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: The Human Torch vol. 1.
We again see the cover blurb “Marvel Comics Group ushers in the Marvel Age of Comics!” showing up on a few covers and house ads around this time. As with last issue, the cover includes no mention of the Dr. Strange story within.
The credits are mildly different than usual (besides that Ernie Hart, aka H.E. Huntley, left off his middle initial). Stan Lee usually credits the secondary writer with the “script” and himself with the plot or story. Here, he gives Hart story credit. I have no idea what he thinks the difference between “story” and “plot” is.
I keep accidentally typing “Karloff” instead of Kasloff.
I think the Asbestos Man is the best villain we’ve met in the pages of these Human Torch stories (<– the faintest of praise). I like Professor Kasloff, how arrogant he seems, but also how refined. Arrogance is perhaps the defining trait of a supervillain.
Featuring: Human Torch Release: March 12, 1963 Cover: June 1963 12 cents Plot: Stan Lee Script: R. Berns Art: Jack Kirby Inks: Dick Ayers 13 pages
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: The Human Torch vol. 1.
The Sorceror is a hermit who is mean to kids who trespass on his property. In return, Johnny is extremely mean to him. I thought Johnny was being quite the bully to a harmless hermit who just wants to be left alone.
Now who’s abusing his power?
Torch tells him: “You can’t have it both ways. If you want freedom of movement, others must have it as well!” But that hardly makes sense. In context, Torch is saying: “If you want to leave your own property, you have to let others onto it.”
Anyways, the Sorceror is not harmless. He’s actually a sorceror and has found Pandora’s Box. Which contains a bunch of evils, also called imps. We meet some of them: Flood, Hatred, Forgetfulness, Sleepiness, Paralysis, Cold, Disease, Foolishness, Laziness, Fire, Fear. They range from human traits to natural disasters.
We learn a bit of Greek myth, how Pandora released the evils but Circe put them back. Not clear what connection Circe will have to the Eternal named Sersi we will eventually meet.
Always a woman. Eating that apple. Opening that box.
In the last post, we spoke about characters getting ruined by having lame ambitions. The Sorceror has access to all the evils of the world. And what does he want to do with it? Rob a bank. Boring.
Have better ambition!
Has it been 2 years already?
The most interesting thing in this story to me is that Johnny notes it’s 1963. He had noted in an issue of Fantastic Four that it was 1962, suggesting at least a year has passed. I am fascinated by trying to track how much time has passed and am looking for clues. But I must be careful reading too much into a single line of dialogue stating the year. As writers will almost always claim their story is happening in the current year, whether or not that makes sense.. But Reed is already in his ’40s by 1961 when we meet him. So he only has so many decades of superheroing left in him.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆, 39/100
Characters:
Johnny Storm/Human Torch
The Sorcerer
Flood
Ben Grimm/Thing
Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic
Sue Storm/Invisible Girl
Pandora
Circe
Hatred
Forgetfullness
Sleepiness
Paralysis
Cold
Disease
Foolishness
Laziness
Fire
Fear
Story Notes:
Johnny notes it’s now 1963
The box contains hundreds of imps
In end, Sorcerer frozen with fear from Imp of Fear
Featuring: Fantastic Four Release: March 12, 1963 Cover: June 1963 12 cents Script: Stan Lee Art: Jack Kirby Inking: Dick Ayers 20 pages
I read this story in Fantastic Four Omnibus vol. 1
In general, the desire to be king of the city’s gangs is an uninteresting motivation. The FF villains are better when they think bigger than the Thinker seems to be thinking here. The lack of a good supervillain plot cheapens the new villain out of the box. Nonetheless, the Thinker (sometimes called the Mad Thinker) will become a major FF adversary.
Featuring: Fantastic Four Release: February 12, 1963 Cover: May 1963 12 cents Script: Stan Lee Art: Jack Kirby Inking: Dick Ayers 22 pages
I read this story in Fantastic Four Omnibus vol. 1.
Kirby got a fill-in for almost every book he draws in the last couple months… except for this one. This is clearly his baby in a way the others are not. That is also evident in the fact that Lee does all the scripts. That the Human Torch, Thor, Ant-Man, and Iron Man stories have rotating scripters and fill-in artists tells you where they fall on the totem pole compared to Fantastic Four.
I’ve struggled some (actually, for years going on decades) with the question of what order to read these stories in. I’m not alone. Marvel has published indices dedicated to chronology. The Marvel Chronology Project has painstakingly ordered the events of each characters’ lives to make sense. The Complete Marvel Reading Order is focused on what makes the “best” read, which includes keeping stories together.
So far, I’ve mostly focused on release date, catalogued in Mike’s Amazing World. Going in order by date has yielded several insights. I can see when Kirby suddenly had lots of fill-in artists take over. I can see cool facts, like that Thor, Ant-Man, and Spider-Man were all introduced the same day. It’s added a lot to my understanding of the context of these stories to go in time order.
Since most issues have been self-contained and there’s been minimal crossover, there’s been no reason to go in anything but date order. But the stories will become increasingly complex. And it might be nice to read single story-arcs together to appreciate them best.
I did some light fudging last time. Fantastic Four #13 was released January 3, yet I chose to read it after two comics released January 10. Similarly, this comic was released on February 12, but I am reading it before two comics released on February 5. That is because issue 14 picks up right where #13 ended, with the FF still not back from the moon. This will become more common, that the ending of one story will lead into the beginning of the next, and I won’t always be able to place such stories together. But this was easy enough to do.
It says “Part 1”, but there seem to be no other parts. Part 1 of 1?
As an example of something lost in the shuffle if I don’t go in strictly chronological order… this is the first issue we see something pretty cool. There’s a new logo added to the cover, with the word “Marvel” appearing for the first time. I’ve been calling this the “Marvel Age”, and now we see why. This line of titles is officially taking the name “Marvel”! But it didn’t actually begin here. It began last week with Strange Tales and Journey Into Mystery. We’ll read those next.
The Fantastic Four Versus the Red Ghost and His Indescribable Super-Apes!/Menace on the Moon!/The Watcher Appears/Duel in the Dead City! Featuring: Fantastic Four Release: January 3, 1963 Cover: April 1963 12 cents Story: Stan Lee Art: Jack Kirby Inking: S. Ditko 22 pages
I read this story in Fantastic Four Omnibus vol. 1.
The great Steve Ditko provides inks for Kirby’s pencils. We last saw this legendary combination in Incredible Hulk #2.
This issue is the first to get to the heart of what I think the Fantastic Four should be about: exploration of the wondrous; an adventure into the imagination. Kirby is famed for his creativity, but this is the first issue where he’s really letting it flex. This issue is bursting with ideas, many tangential to the main story. The FF head to the moon, learn the blue area has a breathable atmosphere, find the ruins of an ancient civilization, battle a super-villain and his super-apes, and meet the enigmatic Watcher. Plus glimpses of the past and future, and of the destruction of a world. That’s a comic bursting with ideas.
Human Torch battles Sub-Mariner for no particular reason!
Face-to-Face with Prince Namor, the Mighty Sub-Mariner Featuring: Human Torch Release: January 10, 1963 Cover: April 1963 12 cents Plot: Stan Lee Script: Larry Lieber Art: Dick Ayers 13 pages
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: The Human Torch vol. 1.
Dick Ayers is again the main artist. Kirby will be back next issue, but they will trade art duties for the remainder of the series. This is the pattern we have been seeing. Kirby is still around and will sometimes provide the art for the series he pioneered, but will be rotating with other artists. Heck has Ant-Man and Ayers has Human Torch.
This fairly useless series continues. The Fantastic Four series hasn’t once yet acknowledged anything about this series’ existence, including Sue and Johnny’s home in Glenville. In contrast, this series references lots of things about the Fantastic Four. The whole team has a cameo in this issue and there are references to the FF battles against Namor. You can tell which series is the ugly stepchild.
As the story–such as it is–begins, we find the three adult FF members had a meeting while Johnny was in school. They were taking notes on next month’s adventure, while Sue typed them up. It’s a bit odd, as most FF adventures are their responses to crises. It’s not clear what they’d be planning a month in advance.
Nice to see that even Sue had a role in the meeting…
The current issue of Fantastic Four came out a week earlier. We haven’t read it yet, because issue 14 picks up where it leaves off, so I’m reading it last this month. That adventure is a trip to the moon. Which does take some planning; however, in the issue itself, the trip is a surprise to the rest of the team. Only Reed had been planning it and had been planning not to take the others. So they must be referring to something else.
The Threat of the Torrid Twosome Featuring: Human Torch Release: December 10, 1962 Cover: March 1963 12 cents Plot: Stan Lee Script: Larry Lieber Art: Dick Ayers 13 pages
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: The Human Torch vol. 1
This blog took a short hiatus while I traveled a bit. I did bring my Human Torch book along with me with the idea of getting this written while abroad, but I didn’t get it done. It doesn’t help that we’ve now read Amazing Spider-Man, so know how good a superhero comic can be. That doesn’t make it easy to return to these Human Torch comics.
This is the first Human Torch story not drawn by Kirby. Regular inker Dick Ayers is stepping up as the main artist. That’s a common theme for the month. After 18 months of Kirby drawing all the titles we’ve been reading, he’s dialing it back. We just saw Don Heck on Ant-Man and Iron Man.
This story finally addresses–albeit clumsily–the nagging flaw at the heart of this series: the secret identity of the Human Torch. We learn that he does not in fact have a secret identity, and that all his friends were pretending to not know his identity to be nice. That doesn’t explain a lot of things, like why the Torch so frequently risked lives to protect his identity, why he was so open and cavalier about his identity in theFantastic Four comics, or why the Wizard’s plan depended so heavily on the Human Torch guarding his identity.
How much does the job pay? I figure I’m worth your top salary!
We come now to the fourth and final Marvel superhero milestone of December 10, 1962
Milestone #1 of December 10, 1962: Fantastic Four meet the Hulk!
Milestone #2: Iron Man
Miletone #3: Amazing Spider-Man #1
Milestone #4: Fantastic Four meet Spider-Man!
A pretty exciting day in the history of Marvel superheroes indeed.
While the first story of Amazing Spider-Man #1 was largely a character-focused tale, this one gets more into the superhero action.
There are two main thrusts. The first is the meeting between Spider-Man and the FF! And of course, when they meet, they fight. The FF were understandably unhappy about Spider-Man breaking into their headquarters, and Spider-Man saw taking them on as a way of proving his worth to them.
In fairness, the FF get into fights with everybody, including each other.
He thought joining the Fantastic Four would be the secret to solving his money woes, but he learned they are a non-profit organization that pays no salary.
The Incredible Hulk/Mission: Stop the Hulk!/Who is the Wrecker?/The Hulk at Last! Featuring: Fantastic Four Release: December 10, 1962 Cover: March 1963 12 cents Script: Stan Lee Art: Jack Kirby Inking: Dick Ayers 23 pages
I read this comic in Fantastic Four Omnibus vol. 1.
Let’s review the key dates so far.
August 8, 1961 — The Fantastic Four debut March 1, 1962 — The Incredible Hulk June 5, 1962 — The most important day in Marvel’s history thus far: introducing Spider-Man, Thor, and Ant-Man!
It’s now December 10, 1962.
Another hugely important date in Marvel’s history. Four milestones, which we’ll be covering over the next few posts: we’ll see the debut of another iconic superhero; a superhero we haven’t seen in 6 months makes his return in the debut of his solo title; and, most excitingly, the Marvel comics start to coalesce into a universe. On this day, we get not only our first crossover of the Marvel Age, but our first two crossovers! The Fantastic Four will encounter two iconic Marvel characters on this very date.
