Featuring: Giant-Man and Wasp
Release: August 4, 1964
Cover: November 1964
12 cents
Written by: Stan Lee (He’s getting to be a habit)
And then the credits get complicated.
14 pages
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|---|---|---|
| Amazing Spider-Man #19 | Reading order | Tales to Astonish #61, Story B |
| Tales to Astonish #60, Story B | Tales to Astonish | Tales to Astonish #61, Story B |
We get a new logo for the shared title. Giant-Man never got a logo before. Tales to Astonish had remained the logo despite his starring role. The new logo somewhat cramped to fit all the names. “Giant-Man” is spread across two lines and has to share its text box with “and the Incredible”. No mention of Wasp in the logo. The cover real estate is split about equally between the two stories, with Hulk’s story up top. The cover box is similar to last issue, just rearranged a bit to put Hulk on top.
Somebody’s muscling in on your territory, Giant-Man.
The first page has Stan Lee’s credit, then some typed text pasted over the rest of the credit box. It explains that Ayers is on vacation, they had hired a new artist to fill in, but circumstances altered the plan, and Ditko and Roussos stepped in last minute to draw the issue.
As with most things Stan Lee says, that text box contains partial truths and partial falsehoods. Last issue, they had announced the artist would be Dick Rockwell. Rockwell had been working in comics since 1949. He did a little work for Marvel at the time.
(Images from Man Comics #7 and Western Outlaws and Sheriffs #69, both 1951)
He then started assisting artist Milt Caniff on the comic strip Steve Canyon, which he worked on for 35 years. Rockwell was a “ghost” for Caniff. That is, Caniff took credit for every strip and Rockwell’s involvement was never mentioned in the strip itself. Caniff may have drawn all of a strip or parts of it or none of it, but his name was in the credits no matter what. Commonly, Caniff would draw Steve Canyon and other main characters, and let Rockwell fill in the extras and the backgrounds. In the final years of the strip especially, the art was more and more Rockwell’s.
Rockwell’s uncle Norman was apparently also an artist of some sort, but he didn’t draw comics.
For whatever reason, Rockwell ended up unable to draw this comic and never started working with Marvel. He would eventually draw a single Marvel story 25 years later, an Aunt May story.
Lee’s narration suggests the assignment was then given to Steve Ditko. This is where Stan Lee forgets truth a bit. And probably why that text box is covering up the credits. It’s likely not Dick Rockwell’s name they originally put in that box… but Joe Orlando’s. Joe Orlando we’ve already discussed, as he took over Daredevil with the second issue. He drew this story and got into disagreements with Stan Lee which compounded issues he and Lee were already having with Daredevil. Ditko was brought in at the last minute not to draw the story, but to make significant changes to Orlando’s art to match the story Lee wanted. Orlando will not be drawing the next issue of Daredevil. Nor does he ever work for Marvel again. He becomes one of the defining voices at DC Comics for many years.
The story above comes from Mark Evanier and Fred Hembeck. Here’s a detailed account of the story from Tom Brevoort.
That’s a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff. What do we have to say about the actual issue? Egghead returns. He has inventions that make a wax figure grow and move and respond to his mental commands. He uses it to try to kill Giant-Man.
How to lure Giant-Man and the Wasp to his android? An invitation to a fake TV studio, of course. That always works.
Hank even tries to point out just how dodgy the studio looks when they arrive. Ackbar wept.
Giant-Man has a new converti-car for getting around. No character has had stranger methods of transportation. Remember Ant-Man’s catapult? Or Giant-Man’s ring contraption? The flying ants were the least strange.
Wasp refers to Hank as “High-Pockets”. This is a pretty common nickname for Giant-Man, but I can’t recall that we’ve heard it before.
Besides the new nickname, the most interesting thing is that the series finally has a letters page: “Mails to Astonish”. Stan has decided all the series need one.
Rating: ★½, 29/100
Significance: ★★☆☆☆
I read this story in Marvel Masterworks: Ant-Man/Giant-Man vol. 2. You can find the story in Ant-Man/Giant-Man Epic Collection vol. 1: The Man in the Ant Hill. Or on Kindle.
Characters:
- Wasp/Jan Van Dyne
- Giant-Man/Henry Pym
- Egghead
Story notes:
- Reference to mistreating Fan Club last issue.
- Giant-Man and Wasp entertain children in a hospital and their Fan Club.
- Chemically-powered converti-car custom built at Tony Stark’s factory.
- Egghead’s goal: revenge.
- Egghead’s living cell beam makes a lifeless doll able to move under his mental commands. Egghead takes a wax figure dummy, adds a special compound, bathes it with an ultra-beta beam to make it grow.
- Giant-Man self-describes as a bio-chemist, adventurer, and Avenger.
- Wasp refers to Hank as “High Pockets”.
- Android can change weight (and thus density?); can float if light enough.
| Previous | #265 | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Amazing Spider-Man #19 | Reading order | Tales to Astonish #61, Story B |
| Tales to Astonish #60, Story B | Tales to Astonish | Tales to Astonish #61, Story B |
