Featuring: Watcher
Release: May 12, 1964
Cover: August 1964
12 cents
Story plot: Stan Lee
Script + art: Larry Lieber
Inking: Geo. Bell
Lettering: Art Simek
5 pages
This story makes me cringe a bit.
There have always been off-color jokes made about the character of the Watcher, suggesting a certain voyeurism to his character. After all, he watches. There seem to be no limits to what we can or will watch. Personal privacy is not a particular concern of his.
I have always taken such comments as jest and not a serious critique of the character of the Watcher, who, after all, is an impossibly advanced cosmic being, indistinguishable to us from a god.
But then we come to this story. Where he falls in love with a woman he is watching.
The story begins pretty well. Some weird anti-matter fission stuff causes a planet to form an identical copy of itself. Perhaps suggesting the Axiom of Choice does hold in the Marvel Universe.
But then he beholds the Queen and falls in love with her, and so he has to save her life without “acting” by his narrow definition of the word. Where appearing in front of her attackers to frighten them away does not count as interfering.
She falls in love with him and offers to make him her king. They could rule the world together. He spurns her. Rather harshly. Characters in these stories often think the noblest way to reject someone’s advances is to be as mean as possible.
A Watcher who often falls in love with the people he is secretly watching is pretty sketchy. I don’t like it.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆, 30/100
Significance: ★☆☆☆☆
My significance rating is an indicator of how important this story is to understanding a read-through of the Marvel Universe. A rating of 2 stars indicates you can skip the comic without missing anything. A rating of 1 star indicates your experience will be improved by skipping the comic.
I think it’s best to pretend this story just never happened, but if it is part of the Marvel canon, then can we at least interpret it as a tale of the Watcher’s youth, as I think it’s best to interpret most of these Watcher stories.
No, we cannot. Because Human Torch and Thing show up, so this must be near the present. Also, we see Watcher on Earth’s moon, which he abandoned after his first meeting with the Fantastic Four. Arrgh.
The scans are taken from a reprint in Marvel Collectors’ Item Classics #21, 1969.
Characters:
- Watcher
- Queen Kalthea
- Human Torch
- Thing
Story notes:
- A wave of anti-matter envelops an uninhabited world, creating an identical copy of the world.
- “Micro-brain waves are vibrating…” Watcher senses danger throughout the universe.
- Watcher transforms into living energy to travel through space.
- Watcher stands atop metallic asteroid and sends invisible electro-image to observe battle.
- Barbaric invaders attack a peaceful civilization; they release space beasts to attack the homes and families.
- Watcher falls in love with Queen Kalthea; she reciprocates and offers to make him her king.
#220 story in reading order
Next: Journey Into Mystery #107
Previous: Tales of Suspense #56
