Let’s begin by noting this is not the most amazing story of all time. This is an awful series and nobody should read it. Least of all me.
This story drags on for 45 bloody pages. At least it’s not as bad as the last one we read. And it’s actually a much faster and smoother read than the first issue. Perhaps that’s Stan Lee’s scripting at work.
We noted last time how awful all the characters are, so we’ll just try to skip to the Red Skull stuff this time.
I’m including this story only because the continuity remains pretty tight, and I do want us to be able to untangle Red Skull’s contradictory appearances intelligently.
The Coming of Agent Zero/The Red Skull and the Graveyeard of Doom!/Voyage to No-Man’s Land/Trapped in Nazi-Land!/Outwitting the Bloodthirsty Tyrants!/Captain America and the Human Torch to the Rescue!!
Featuring: Young Allies Release: July 23, 1941 Cover: Summer 1941 10 cents 57 pages
The table of contents lists Joe Simon as “Art editor” and Jack Kirby as “Art director”, while recognizing Carl Burgos as the creator of Toro. No hints as to who actually wrote or drew the comic are given. The GCD credits Otto Binder, Charles Nicholas, and Syd Shores, noting Jack Kirby supplied art for some of the chapter-opening splash pages. The cover is by Jack Kirby and Syd Shores.
We also take the on-sale date from the GCD, which disagrees with the July 10 date given in Mike’s Amazing World, but also offers an explanation for the discrepancy.
An ad shows an earlier version of the cover (and gives the July 10 release date). Notice in the original cover, Stalin is one of the villains (along with Hitler, Tōjō, and Mussolini). This comic was released in July 1941. Between its original advertisement and publication, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, so Stalin was now a good guy, and couldn’t be depicted as evil in the comic. The USSR was now part of the Allied forces.
America remained neutral in the war, but you couldn’t tell by the comic books.
We read the introduction of the Young Allies, a painfully long 57-page adventure. Our motivation is that this is the third appearance of the Red Skull, who was presumed dead in an explosion in Captain America Comics #3.
This comic is pretty rough reading. The most infamous part of it is the character of Whitewash Jones, a painful stereotype of an African American child, whose portrayal somehow keeps getting worse as the issue progresses. Even leaving aside that racial sentiment has evolved in 80 years, the other kids are also pretty awful characters. Tubby, the obese child, is portrayed no better. Nor is Knuckles, the street-tough kid. Jefferson, the nerd, probably comes off the best.
The history of cartooning is built on caricature and exaggeration, but these four kids just push it into the absurd and unreadable.
Featuring: Marvels Release: November 9, 1993 Cover: January 1994 $5.95 Writer: Kurt Busiek Artist: Alex Ross Letters: Starkings w\ John Gauhsell Editor: Marcus McLaurin Assistant editor: Spencer Lamm Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco Cover design & logo: Joe Kaufman Interior Design: Comicraft 45 pages
When this is over, I’d said. When would that be? It would blow over. The world wouldn’t stay like this. It couldn’t. Could it?
The 4 (or so) issues comprising this series are pretty close to being the best comics I have ever read. They inspire the journey we are taking here, where we read through the entire Marvel Universe starting in 1961, and I want them to frame the journey we are taking.
Through a man named Phil Sheldon, an “ordinary” photojournalist, we see a holistic view of all these many interconnected stories of Marvels, cohesing into a single narrative, leading us to understand that this world is not our own, and helping us imagine what it might be like to live in that world.
The tagline reads: “Experience the Marvel Universe from a whole new perspective– yours.”
We read Marvels #0 pretty early in the project, right after meeting the original Human Torch, who we introduced after meeting the new Human Torch.
Marvels #1 deals with Marvel’s Golden Age, stories from the 1930s and 1940s. We are reading it now in our reading order because we have met enough Golden Age heroes to justify it. Really, it comes down to the big three: Human Torch, Sub-Mariner, and Captain America. But our reading about characters like Angel, Electro and Black Widow will also help us appreciate the details.
And if there’s one word that can describe this comic, it’s “detailed”. Sitting in a hotel room in Dresden with the intent of doing a deep dive into this issue, I have the original comic in my hand, but also the recent annotated edition which can serve as a guide. Plus some Golden Age and other reference material.
With all that in front of me, I would like to look very closely at this comic; consider those details, and try to do so without losing sight of the powerful emotional journey in front of us, one that will seem very familiar in the year 2020.
I think I’ve already gushed at sufficient length over the creators Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross in our recent Astro City discussion, so we’ll jump right into the story.
A Time of Marvels
The bystanders had seen the stories in the paper– seen them, chuckled and dismissed them. But it’s one thing to read about the impossible– and another to look it in the face.
The story opens in 1939 with reporters talking about the tensions in Europe. Phil Sheldon is an ambitious photojournalist looking for an assignment overseas. His fellow reporter–resembling a young J. Jonah Jameson down to a well-placed shadow beneath the nose where Jameson’s mustache will eventually be–muses that one day he will be the one running the Bugle. Phil is off to cover a press conference with a scientist who he expects to be a crackpot, one Phineas T. Horton.
The Human Torch Battles the Sub-Mariner as the World Faces Destruction!
Featuring: Human Torch Release: October 8, 1941 Cover: Fall 1941 10 cents 60 pages (!)
The comic gives no credits. I’ll point you to the GCD, which notes work from Carl Burgos, Bill Everett, Jack D’Arcy, Hank Chapman, Mike Roy, Harry Sahle and George Kapitan. That’s… a lot of names. I will make no attempt to untangle who did what.
Counting to 5
Let’s get the confusing part out of the way. We are looking at Human Torch #5, with a cover date of Fall 1941.
The previous issue of Human Torch was… Human Torch #5, with a cover date of Summer 1941. Why? I have no idea. I think somebody counted wrong.
