Featuring: Captain America
Release: August 11, 1964
Cover: November 1964
12 cents
Author: Stan Lee
Illustrator: Jack Kirby
Inked by: Chic Stone
Lettered by: S. Rosen
10 pages
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| Tales of Suspense #59 | Reading order | Avengers #9 |
| Tales of Suspense #59 | Tales of Suspense | Tales of Suspense #60 |
Captain America is back with his own series, more or less. He doesn’t get the title of the magazine, but he gets a regular feature. He and Iron Man will be sharing Tales of Suspense. Very few characters get the title of the magazine. Daredevil and Spider-Man are special like that.
Captain America of course debuted in his own self-titled mag, Captain America Comics, way back in 1941. He was one of Marvel’s most popular superheroes for the entire decade. His comic was then retitled into Captain America’s Weird Tales for its final two issues to focus on the burgeoning horror genre. The final issue in 1950 didn’t even feature Captain America.
They tried a revival of the Captain America series in 1954, but it only lasted three issues. Fans were not as interested in seeing Cap smash Commies as they had been seeing him battle the Nazis a decade earlier.
Ten years later, they’re ready to try again. This time, the character will endure. Within 4 years, they’ll change the title of this comic to Captain America and that series will basically continue (with the occasional renumbering) to the present, over 55 years later.
All that said, this series doesn’t quite begin with a bang.
It’s a pretty slight story. Generic bad guys attack the mansion and Cap stops them. Kirby’s depictions of Captain America’s athletic prowess are the high point. It also serves to make its point that Captain America should not be underestimated. He has no obvious powers, but 12 goons are no match for him.
Kirby has created so many fascinating and colorful heroes and villains. It’s a little sad the best he has for us now is a generic-looking villain with an even more generic name: Bull.
In addition to being the start of Captain America’s long-running series, this comic is notable for introducing the character of Jarvis. At first, it seemed as though the Avengers were borrowing Stark’s residence for their regular meetings, but now it seems pretty clear that the mansion is a full time base of operations, with at least one Avenger always present on watch. Stark presumably owns other mansions he can stay in. Along with the mansion, Stark has lent his butler to the Avengers. The butler is named Jarvis.
Jarvis learns it won’t be easy to be butler to the Avengers when the hoods capture him to extract information about the mansion.
In the Iron Man film, Jarvis was Stark’s AI assistant, voiced by Paul Bettany. We learned in the Agent Carter series that the computer program was named for a Jarvis who had worked for Tony’s father, played by James D’Arcy.
The letters page (“Mails of Suspense”) gives hints about something called M.M.M.S.; they neglect to spell out the acronym.
Rating: ★★★☆☆, 50/100
Significance: ★★★★☆
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: Captain America Vol. 1.
You can also find it in Captain America Epic Collection vol. 1: Captain America Lives Again.
Or on Kindle.
Characters:
- Jarvis
- Captain America
- Bull
Story notes:
- East-side mansion had been Stark’s mansion; he donated it to the Avengers as a public service; his butler Jarvis is also on loan.
- One Avenger always at mansion on watch duty whenever possible.
- Captain America has old scrapbook: pictures of himself in army garb and as Captain America; picture of Bucky.
- Bull’s gang attacks the mansion with Cap on duty, hoping to steal secrets they can sell. The capture Jarvis to learn who is on duty. They think Cap is the weakest link.
| Previous | #255 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Tales of Suspense #59 | Reading order | Avengers #9 |
| Tales of Suspense #59 | Tales of Suspense | Tales of Suspense #60 |
