Featuring: Watcher
Release: January 10, 1964
Cover: April 1964
12 cents
Story plot: Stan Lee
Script + art: L.D. Lieber
Inking: P. Reinman
Lettering: S. Rosen
5 pages
With this story, we finally finish all the January comics, after some jumping around in time. We’d already ready some February books, but now we have officially reached February in our reading.
The Watcher has another tale for us, concerning the one man on Earth who was seen as a failure because he refused to pursue success in business. He and his lady end up rulers of a galactic empire. The Watcher asks: “Can any of us ever really know who is a failure and who is not?”
There’s also a message about the importance of studying the arts. And some anti-capitalist propaganda, which is a welcome change from the anti-communist propaganda that fills so many of these stories.
Rating: ★★★☆☆, 52/100
Significance: ★★☆☆☆
The scans are taken from a reprint in Marvel Collectors’ Item Classics #13 (1968).
You can find the story on Kindle.
Characters:
- The Watcher
- Kenn Bentley
- Valeria Reynolds
Story notes:
- Set 300 years in future: war, hunger, poverty, violence all abolished.
- Man buys magneto-pool.
- Almost everyone majors in business; only one person chose to study art.
- Aliens come for Kenn; Valeria insists on going with him.
- Kenn and Valeria named rulers of large galactic empire.
#175 story in reading order
Next: Journey Into Mystery #103
Previous: Tales of Suspense #52
