STRANGE TALES 133
cover by Jack Kirby & Mike Esposito
Hey, wasn't this an episode of "VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA" ?? More "fun" (if you wanna call it that) with THE HUMAN TORCH & THE EVER-LOVIN' THING.
From the GCD: "Synopsis: Deciding to switch his M.O., The Puppet Master builds robotic "statues" he can control, and undergoes plastic surgery so no one will recognize him. The masquerade is short-lived, as he lures Johnny & Ben into a trap in a department store."
BOB POWELL supplies story & art; ye "editor" supplies dialogue; and Mike Esposito continues under an assumed name.
I suddenly find myself wondering-- and I'm SURE someone else suggested this before I did-- if the VILLAIN in this book was supposed to be SOMEONE ELSE, and the "editor" got it wrong in the dialogue stage? I mean think about this-- WHY would "Howdy Doody" change both his face AND his M.O. at the same time? It doesn't make any sense! Years later, in one of those interminable Mad Thinker-Pupper Master team-ups, the SAME guy mixed up the 2 baddies and mistook one for the other. It takes a certain special kind of incompetence to do that and then have the nerve to keep calling youself both a writer and editor.
(2-24-2014)
"THE TERRIBLE TOYS!"
Synopsis:
Deciding to switch his M.O., The Puppet Master builds robotic "statues" he can control, and undergoes plastic surgery so no one will recognize him. The masquerade is short-lived, as he lures Johnny & Ben into a trap in a department store.
Indexer notes:
Puppet Master’s previous appearance in FANTASTIC FOUR #28 (July 1964); next app. in FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #3 (November 1965), with his original face incorrectly shown intact. Puppet Master's appearance would remain altered for several years, before he eventually restored his original face.
(2007)
"A NAMELESS LAND, A TIMELESS TIME!"
Synopsis:
While Mordo gloats at his apparent triumph, Dormammu tells him that Strange still lives-- and has really escaped! Clea wishes she could warn Strange about Dormamu. Strange plummets thru dimension after dimension, finally coming to a stop in a world ruled by Shazana, a female tyrant who once conned a wizard into giving her some of his powers, which she repaid by destroying him. Believing her sister has recruited Strange to overthrow her, she battles Strange into submission. Allowing himself to be imprisoned so he can recover from his earlier battle with Mordo, Strange gets the lay of the land, then helps Shazana's sister overcome the evil ruler, destroying the source of her power even as he uses it to begin his journey back home.
Indexer notes:
Part 4 of 17. The sisters in this story apparently served as the inspiration for Craig Russell's later Strange epic, a virtual remake of this story, which he did twice-- in DR. STRANGE ANNUAL #1 (December 1976), and DR. STRANGE: WHAT IS IT THAT DISTURBS YOU, STEVEN? (October 1997).
(2007)
FANTASTIC FOUR 39
cover by Jack Kirby & Chic Stone (w/ Wally Wood)
In a surprising move, rather than deal with last issue's baddies who got away scot free, this issue finds our heroes WITHOUT their powers-- and desperate to hide the fact from the army of enemies they've collected in the last few years. Sure enough, DR. DOOM snaps out of the trance Reed put him in in ANNUAL #2, and is hot for revenge. And meanwhile, DAREDEVIL turns up, because his book needs promoting.
JACK KIRBY supplies story & art; ye "editor" does dialogue; Frank Giacoia steps into the breach doing inks; and WALLY WOOD inks all the DAREDEVIL figures (correcting the costume change in the process), just to be totally nuts.
(2-24-2014)
TALES TO ASTONISH 68
cover by Jack Kirby, Bob Powell & Vince Colletta
"PERIL FROM THE LONG-DEAD PAST!"GIANT-MAN has problems with his size-changing, and that unmittigated A**H*** The Human Top returns again. Some guys are just TOO damn stupid to let go. Behind a sub-par split cover by Bob Powell, Jack Kirby & Vince Coletta, JACK KIRBY (apparently) does story & layouts, BOB POWELL does pencils, ye "editor" does dialogue, and Vince Colletta puts the kibosh on the whole mess.
"BACK FROM THE DEAD!"
Isn't that weird? Both stories this issue have similar titles, and sound like parts of the same story. THE HULK return to America, only to have Bruce Banner jailed as being a traitor to his country. Gee, these days, when you commit HIGH TREASON, they elect you to another term of office. JACK KIRBY returns to the character he created, supplying story & art, ye "editor" does dialogue, and Mike Esposito settles in for his first of many atrocities as inker / finisher / whatever on this series.
(2-24-2014)
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 25
cover by STEVE DITKO
TALES OF SUSPENSE 66
cover by Jack Kirby & Frank Giacoia
IRON MAN tackles ATTUMA. Hey, didn't that guy just take on GIANT-MAN 4 months back? Behind a stupendous Jack Kirby cover, DON HECK supplies story & art, ye "editor" does dialogue & Mike Esposito (still hiding out from the editors at DC under an assumed name) does the inks.
But the BIG news is in the back... "THE FANTASTIC ORIGIN OF THE RED SKULL!" This is, in my opinion, the GREATEST of the 3 "classic" super-villain origin stories of the mid-1960's. JACK KIRBY supplies story & art, ye "editor" does dialogue, and the fantastic CHIC STONE does some of the best inks of his entire career. WOW!!!!!
(2-24-2014)
JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY 117
cover by Jack Kirby & Vince Colletta
No GCD sypnopsis again. Suffice to say, THOR winds up in Southeast Asia.
JACK KIRBY supplies story & art; ye "editor" does dialogue; and Vince Colletta does it to the inking.
Part 4 of 11.
"THE SWORD IN THE SCABBARD!"
from the GCD: "Indexer Notes: Odinsword Quest Prologue, first appearance of the Odinsword (aka the Oversword)."
JACK KIRBY supplies story & art; ye "editor" does dialogue; and Vince Colletta does his usual thing.
"Tales Of Asgard" continues.
This is the 2nd issue in a row where the same 3 guys do both stories, in a LONG, unbroken run of these SAME 3 GUYS doing both stories.
(2-24-2014)
THE AVENGERS 17
cover by Jack Kirby & Frank Giacoia
Taking advice from the departed IRON MAN, Cap's team tries to locate THE HULK, who it turns out is busy tackling The Leader this month over in ASTONISH. They never do find him, but instead, they wind up in a rematch with The Mole Man (who they fought only 5 months earlier). Remember when certain villains were associated ONLY with certain books? Oh well.
This marks the beginning of a LONG run with DON HECK supplying story & art (from Jack Kirby story ideas), while ye "editor" does dialogue. Once again, Dick Ayers does inks, which are okay, but frankly, Heck needs someone sharper on this series.
(2-24-2014)
SGT. FURY & HIS HOWLING AVENGERS 19
cover by Jack Kirby & Carl Hubbell
"AN EYE FOR AN EYE!"
Giving Fury a furlough doesn't stop him from tackling the Nazi who killed his girlfriend. DICK AYERS does story & art, ye "editor" does dialogue, and Frank Giacoia does inks.
(2-24-2014)
DAREDEVIL 8
cover by WALLY WOOD
The jury is out on who actually came up with a villain as NUTS as The Stilt-Man-- Jack Kirby or Wally Wood. Could be a bit of both, the same way IRON MAN was designed by Kirby and modified by Heck, then redesigned by Ditko & modified again by Heck. Suffice to say, WALLY WOOD does his 4th & final issue supplying story & full art, while ye "editor" does dialogue. Apparently, it was around this time Steve Ditko demanded credit & pay for WRITING (gasp!!!) and when Wood tried to follow suit, their "editor" balked.
(2-24-2014)
CREEPY 3
Cover by FRANK FRAZETTA (Warren / [June] 1965)
On-sale Date / 04-01-1965
Now, I don't actually have this one... but, I do have 4 of the stories it contains... from 4 DIFFERENT sources!!! Crazy but true. So updating my indexes (including reprint info) really comes in handy in a case like this.
"SWAMPED" --Archie Goodwin & ANGELO TORRES tell a story about an escaped con being tracked thru a swamp, and running across an old mansion inhabited by vampires. He makes a deal to lead the posse to them, but is double-crossed. He manages to destroy the supernatural fiends... but then finds out something he didn't know about vampires' victims... As usual, absolutely stunning art. One almost wishes Torres had stuck with horror instead of "MAD" tv parodies. I have this in CREEPY #48 (1972), the very 1st issue of the magazine I bought when it came out!
"TELL-TALE HEART!" -- Goodwin & REED CRANDALL do the 2nd-ever "Classic" adaptation for Warren, and the 1st of what would prove to be 26 different Edgar Allan Poe adaptations between 1965-1982. This one's been reprinted at least 13 times, but I got it it off a pair of online blogs: "The Golden Age" (the original B&W version) and "Diversions of The Groovy Kind" (the color reprint). The former was apparently taken down a couple years ago, so it's good that i grabbed the scans when I could! Goodwin changed the ending of the story by adding an epilogue, possibly to make it more "EC"-ish in nature. Imagine, thinking that digging up a dismembered corpse under the floorboards WASN'T horrific enough!
"HOWLING SUCCESS" -- Goodwin & TORRES again (twice in one issue). This story about a werewolf features a very-unhappily married couple that reminds me of the one in Johnny Craig's "The Wall" (the very 1st EC Poe-based story). The husband deliberately sets a trap for his horrible shrew of a wife, leading to a twist ending that, somehow, I DIDN'T see coming! I had this in CREEPY #142 (1982), one of their growing number of reprint issues at the time, this one with ALL Torres stories (but, absurdly, a cover by someone else, which did not appear to be related to ANY of the stories being reprinted).
"INCIDENT IN THE BEYOND" by Goodwin & GRAY MORROW. Absolutely STUNNING art in this science-fiction story about an attempt to jump thru hyper-space to bypass the speed of light limitation. Definitely an anti-war story as the problem (and subsequent twist ending) is all caused by the hawkish paranoia of the ship's captain, who imagines that every alien spaceship must be a threat to Earth, without ever comminicating with them by radio. I have this one in FUTURE WORLD COMIX (1978), one of a series of sci-fi-themed reprints.
FRANK FRAZETTA's stunning cover, ironically, ilustrates a scene from Poe's "The Fall Of The House Of Usher", which would not be adapted by Warren until 1969.
(4-3-2021)
(Continued in July 1965)
All Text (C) Henry R. Kujawa
Artwork (C) Marvel Comics
Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa
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