Update

I'm in the process of moving this blog over to my own domain at Mighty Marvel Reader. So it might be a little wonky for a few days. The traffic to this blog has been increasing rapidly over the last couple of months and I decided it was time to move to my own domain. So be patient, there might be some back and forth as I get it working properly.

Marvel Tales #1

Cover Date: January 1964

My Take: I promised Spider-Man this time but I decided to go with the first issue of the second volume of Marvel Tales that came out in the same month. This is a series that ran reprints on an annual and eventually became a monthly title that reprinted Amazing Spider-Man comics. It actually ran for a really long time as it came to a close when I was collecting.

I had a fondness for this series as it was reprinting issues of Spider-Man from the 80s when it was at an all time high. This was one of my favorite books and I was sad when it was cancelled around issue 300.

This book was a brilliant idea on Marvel parts as it reprints the original stories of Spider-Man, Hulk, Thor, Sgt. Fury and it throws in the second appearance of Ant-Man. It also features Iron Man building his current armor. I imagine that the books were starting to get more popular at the time and this was a good way to show newer readers the origins of the various characters.

I'm not going to rate this issue as it's just reprints of material I've covered previously. But here's the links to the issues reprinted:

Amazing Fantasy #15
Incredible Hulk #1
Tales to Astonish #35
Tales to Astonish #49
Tales of Suspense #39
Tales of Suspense #48
Journey Into Mystery #83

Tales of Suspense #49

Cover Date: January 1964

Plot Overview: Angel is flying back to Xavier's school when he comes across Iron Man. Iron Man tries to warn him about an upcoming nuclear blast but doesn't make it in time. The blast catches Angel and turns him evil. Iron Man tries to catch up to the Angel as he flies off but his thrusters run out of power. Iron Man saves himself from the brunt of the fall with his repeller but suffers some damage. He sets about repairing the damage to his armor.

The Angel returns to the school and quits the X-Men. He says he'll be joining the evil Mutants and then escapes when the other X-Men try to restrain him. Professor X returns and mentally tries to talk sense into the departed Angel. After failing to reach Angel, X begins to doubt his mission.

The X-Men decide to call for the Avengers and Iron Man is the only one to answer. He heads out to find the Angel. Meanwhile, the Angel steals some TNT and sets it off above town to try and draw attention to himself. The police are aiming to shoot him down but Iron Man convinces him to wait. Iron Man chases the Angel through one of his hangers and tries to trap him in there. The Angel outsmarts him and tries to lock him in. Iron Man easily escapes and decides he has one chance to try and turn the Angel good again.

Iron Man grabs Angel and flies really high into the air until his thrusters give out. He begins to fall to the earth and the Angel snaps out of it and saves him at the last minute. Iron Man and the Angel return to the Xavier School and they thank Iron Man for helping the Angel. As Iron Man leaves, Professor X mentally tells him that he'll repay this act one day.

The Watcher appears in a backup and tells a tale of an alien race that follows the progress of mankind. They begin to worry that humans may one day rival them. But the humans discover nuclear power and the Cold War begins. The aliens relax and figure the humans will destroy themselves. The tale ends with the Watcher warning humanity to not let this alien race take over the galaxy.

My Take: This issue was a rough one to get through. For starters the dialogue was really bad. I mean, brutally bad. I know they had to show Angel was evil but he probably said "evil mutants" 20 times in an 18 page story. Having him say Magneto instead would have been a lot better and not so fake sounding. Also, when the nuclear blast he had an awful inner monologue that I'm adding a picture of here.

On top of the poor dialogue, Iron Man's plan to make Angel a good guy again was asinine on multiple levels. For starters, what if the Angel wasn't strong enough to stop his fall. Iron Man is a guy in a suit of armor and Angel is a mutant with wings that can fly. There's no indication that he had the strength to pull that off. And what if it hadn't snapped Angel out of it. Iron Man didn't have a plan B to save himself. It just wasn't a well conceived idea.

On top of those problems. There was a typo as they refer to Tony Stark as Anthony Blake early in the issue. There might have been another one but I don't recall it now. Not a huge deal, just thought I would point it out.

The art was good though. The Iron Man armor looked better than in the last issue. It seemed more refined and just overall better designed. As I said last issue, this newer armor will prevent some of the wonky contortions that some artists had him doing in the old tank armor. I think that will be a giant plus in the long run.

I give this *1/2 out of *****.

Notes: There was nothing of note in this issue.

Next Issue: Amazing Spider-Man #8

Avengers #3

Cover Date: January 1964

Plot Overview: The Avengers decide that the Hulk can't be left to roam freely. Iron Man unveils one of Tony Stark's inventions, an image projector. He uses the image projector to visit the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and the X-Men. The FF and X-Men are too busy with their own affairs and Spider-Man was just Spider-Man about it. The Avengers remember Rick Jones and decide to contact him.  Jones sets out and finds the Hulk in New Mexico. He contacts the Avengers and they all head to New Mexico in their unique ways.

Iron Man is the first there and gets ambushed by the Hulk. The Hulk uses the needles of a cactus as deadly projectiles. Iron Man blocks the attack but the needles cause some problems for Giant-Man, ant sized at the moment, and the Wasp. They head to a nearby ant hill and use the ants to cause the ground to collapse to try and catch the Hulk. The Hulk avoids the trap and takes to the air as he continues to battle Iron Man. Iron Man uses his magnetic repulsers to spin the Hulk until Thor arrives.  The Hulk tries to flee and hitches a ride on a nearby train. He fends off the Avengers before using flour in the smoke stack of the train. He uses the resulting confusion to escape from the Avengers.

The Hulk hides in a truck load of gravel and then takes to the ocean after it gets dumped. He gets picked up by a ship and is pretty worn out. Meanwhile, Namor has been watching the Hulk the entire time. When the Hulk decides to leave the boat and head to a secluded island he is greeted by Namor. They have a short battle where Namor gets the upper hand in the water. Afterwards, they decide to team up to get their revenge upon humanity. They head off to begin their conquest while planning to destroy each other afterwards.

The Avengers are challenged to battle them at Gibralter. They arrive on the scene and Namor fires an old WWII cannon at them. Iron Man repels the shell and Namor uses a pellet with emery dust to disable Iron Man. Giant-Man and the Wasp find oxygen equipment and set about cleaning Iron Man up while Thor keeps Namor and the Hulk busy with his Hammer. Namor and the Hulk make a temporary retreat.

The battle continues on and just as things are starting to look good for Namor and the Hulk, the Hulk reverts back to Bruce Banner. Banner flees from the scene of the battle. The Avengers easily capture the abandoned Namor as he grows weaker without water. Namor manages to crack a wall and the water revives him. He makes his escape and  Thor says that he's earned his escape today. The issue ends promising us some big surprises for the next issue.

My Take: I wanted to start this issue off by saying the Avengers really came off like jerks in the first part of the story They were essentially telling the Hulk he was a menace to society that shouldn't be allowed to roam free and then getting mad that he didn't want to reason things out with them. Yes, because antagonizing someone is a great way to get them to see your point of view!

Iron Man also makes a mental note that no one knows that he's really Tony Stark about 3 times in this issue. It was overkill and I think I literally rolled my eyes the last time it randomly was mentioned in this issue. We get it, you're Tony Stark and no one knows! With all of that hand wringing on his part, he makes a slip of the tongue early on in the issue. He goes on at length about Tony Stark's image projector and then after using it he calls it HIS image projector. No one really reacted so I think that was more of a writing error than anything else.

These first 10 issues of Avengers are burned into my brain from being a teenager. I was lucky enough to get about 4 of the Marvel Masterworks when I was a teenager and this was one of them. I remember not liking this issue much from those days. As an adult, it wasn't so bad. There were a lot of interesting aspects to this issue. For starters, everyone in the Marvel Universe showed up in this issue. The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and X-Men all made appearances here. They all blew Iron Man off, Reed picked an experiment over fighting the Hulk, and that was really interesting. You would expect for all the heroes to jump at the chance to fight a bad guy. But they all kind of shrugged it off as an Avengers issue and weren't terribly interested. It humanizes the Marvel characters in a very negative way. All of the characters have depth and it really shows that the Marvel heroes don't march to the same drum.

It's also really interesting to see how this book slides into continuity. I think a book like the Justice League of America ran away from trying to fit in with the heroes solo books but Stan Lee seems to really embrace it. The heroes costume changes appear in the Avengers even the same month that it happens. It mentions the upcoming Iron Man issue from the same month. And Stan Lee makes a point of reminding you when you last saw a character. The universe is really small right now but it's incredible to see the care that Stan is taking to fit it all together.

The art was really good in this issue. The Hulk looked great and there was some really good action going on in this issue. Most of the issue was just an all out brawl with the Avengers vs. the Hulk and the Avengers vs. Namor and the Hulk. Jack Kirby also did a good job of refining the look of the new Iron Man armor in this issue. It looked a little wonky and crappy in Tales of Suspense #48 but it looked better in this issue.

I give this issue *** out of *****.

Notes: This issue features the first meeting of Hulk and Namor. Their relationship will be important in the 70s as they become two of the main members of the non-team the Defenders. Their relationship keeps a very similar dynamic to this issue throughout those issues.

Next Issue: Tales of Suspense #49

Tales to Astonish #51

Cover Date: January 1964

Plot Overview: Giant-Man continues to train at capturing the top. After another failure he admits that he can't catch the Human Top but he can't give up. Meanwhile, the Human Top blows up an abandoned tug boat with the dynamite we saw at the end of Tales to Astonish #50. He plans to use this as a distraction from his real crime.

Giant-Man and Wasp arrive on the scene and they see the Human Top fleeing from his real crime. Giant-Man gives chase and is no closer to catching the Top than before. This time, Giant-Man tries some misdirection and actually catches the Top. The Top spins at almost top speed and manages to get away. The Wasp has the police hit the Top with water from a fire hydrant. This slows him down but he manages to recover before the Wasp can get to him.

Giant-Man says that he's made a mistake in trying to match speed with the Top. He needs to try a different approach. The Top stole defense plans from the Federal Building but they happen to be out of date. The authorities know who he's going to hand the plans over to. Giant-Man captures those people and heads off to meet the Top in disguise.

Giant-Man reveals himself at the exchange and the chase is on again. The Top runs away and learns that the city has been fenced in. Giant-Man waits for the Top to wear out a bit and then pounces on him. Giant-Man finishes him off with a punch. As the Top is being taken away, he reveals to the Wasp that he put glue on his gloves to get a better grip on him.

In a short backup, the Wasp tells a group of disabled veterans a science fiction story. It's a mostly forgettable tale about Rack Morgan. He breaks all the rules and ends up being killed by an alien because he ignored the rules about landing on an alien planet.

My Take: Really fun issue this time out. It was really similar to last issue but I think avoided the pitfalls. Giant-Man didn't seem like as much of a clumsy oaf this time, just overmatched. This also felt like a more straight up superhero story and not a specialized story because he was the size of an ant. They also downplayed the Wasp's attraction to Giant-Man a little. She still made her comments and he was still annoyed but they didn't dominate the story.

Giant-Man and Wasp work better as a combo. With his ability to grow larger, you can get some more standard stories out of it. They don't have to come up with ridiculous things for an ant sized person to do on a monthly basis anymore. The Human Top is silly but he's a better villain than we've seen in the entire run of Tales to Astonish so far. I'm still not eager to read the book when it comes around but I do think it's gotten better.

I can't put my finger on it but this issue just read a little better in general. It didn't feel like we were having Hank and Jan's powers explained to us again. It felt like we picked up right where the last issue left off and went right into the action. Things weren't over explained. It was just about Giant-Man trying to catch the Top. It felt like a nice fast paced story and I was shocked when I got to the last page of the story.

Jack Kirby drew this issue so the art was again top notch. I really like the Giant-Man costume in it's current form. It's just a cool costume with the red and blue. The Human Top was also really well done. He was always spinning in the book but if you really looked at him you could see he was keeping the form of a speed skater. It was a really cool art effect in this book.

I give this *** out of *****.

Notes: Giant-Man is swarmed by his fan club at one point in this issue and one of the fans refers to him as high pockets. The Wasp later adopts that nickname for him.

Next Issue: Avengers #3

Fantastic Four #22

Cover Date: January 1964

Plot Overview: An experiment of Reed's increases Sue's invisibility powers. Now she can create a shield and make other objects invisible. Meanwhile, the FF field numerous complaints from neighbors about the dangers of Reed's experiments. Reed decides that maybe he should experiment in a more secluded area. As luck would have it, there's an ad for an island for sale.

Reed and the FF take off to check out the island in the U-Car. The island is concealed by a barrier reef so the Torch burns a path through for them. The island is quite creepy but Reed thinks it will work for his purposes.

Suddenly, the U-Car begins to sink. The Torch tries to see what's going on but the steam caused from his flames puts him out. Reed makes the save and is critical of how careless Johnny was. They spot a mysterious figure watching them and chase him to a nearby cave. They fall into a trap. They're in a ring surrounded by a radioactive wall.

They come face to face with the Mole Man. The Mole Man reveals that he's planning to pull the cities of New York and Moscow under the ground. The Americans and Russians will blame each other and start a nuclear war. The FF spring into action but the Mole Man captures each of them in specially made prison cells.

They each use their powers to escape their prisons in the nick of time. The battle continues and the Mole Man escapes with the trigger to sink the cities. Reed let's him go and herds the other members of the FF to the found U-Car. The other members doubt his motives but as they escape the whole island sinks. Reed reveals that he rewired the trigger and New York and Moscow are safe.

My Take: I have mixed feelings on this issue. The first half of the book had some good energy with the antics of the various FF members.The art also was really good in this issue. The characters really had a lot of personality. I might have missed it in a previous issue but this felt like a big jump in the quality of the art. It's like Jack Kirby decided to try a more detailed approach in this issue.

The second half of the issue, I didn't like as much. The Mole Man capturing them in various prisons. I've felt like they've used that plot device several times and it feels kind of tired. The second he captured them, it felt like the air just went out of the story. I would rather they just had more straight up battles in this book. The gimmicks are just tiring at times.

Reed was also kind of a jerk in this issue. He was very short with the other members of the team during the mission. That seems different for him but I could be glossing over some instances in previous issues. Reed being a little grumpy is a little more characterization than he's shown in previous issues though. I would prefer they dial it back a little from this issue but I think it makes him a little more interesting.

Overall, I'm just going to say it was an average and forgettable issue. There were some character things I liked and I laughed at a few of the moments earlier. I also like that Sue has a broader range of powers now and she can do more than sneak up on the bad guys. It will be nice to see her be more useful in more situations. Outside of that, I didn't like how the fight with the Mole Man went. I'm just going to cut the difference on this one.

I give this **1/2 out of *****.

Notes: The Thing utters his catchphrase "It's Clobberin' Time" for the very first time in this issue.

Next Issue: Tales to Astonish #51

1963: A Year In Review

1963 was a big year at Marvel comics. You could tell as the year started to progress that the superhero line had been successful and they were here to stay. Coming into the year you had Fantastic Four, Tales to Astonish, Incredible Hulk, Journey Into Mystery and Strange Tales as your Marvel line. At the end of 1963 you have Fantastic Four, Tales to Astonish, Journey Into Mystery, Strange Tales, Amazing Spider-Man, Tales of  Suspense, Avengers and X-Men. As you can see the line exploded quite a bit.

The Incredible Hulk fell victim to cancellation in the early part of the year. It wasn't a surprise in hindsight though. Reading those 6 issues, you could just see that they didn't know what to do with the Hulk early on. It seemed like every issue they were taking a different approach to how the character worked. He returned after about a 6 month absence in Avengers #1. They seemed to have a much better grasp on the character with his return. It's more like the character that everyone knows and loves today.

The shared universe really came into being in 1963. The Hulk arrived to battle the Thing in Fantastic Four #12 and that kicked off a year of the heroes and villains appearing in each other's books. Granted, the majority of the books are Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four crossing over. The shared universe also hit critical mass when the Avengers formed. Iron Man, Hulk, Ant-Man, Wasp and Thor formed the Avengers to defeat Loki when the Fantastic Four were out of town. By the last issue of 1963 you really feel like these characters exist in the same world.

Speaking of Spider-Man, his book hit in 1963 and it seems to have taken the world by storm. It went monthly after just a few months and you can see them really pushing the character. He's easily the second most popular character behind the Fantastic Four at this point in the Marvel history.

To end this article. I thought I would just do a list of some of the big first appearances for the year of 1963:

Iron Man
Wasp
X-Men
Dr. Strange
Magneto
Super Skrull
Mad Thinker and Awesome Android
Vulture
Doctor Octopus
Sandman
Lizard
Watcher