Page 3: 06/1963 - 10/1963
The third page brings a lot of changes! We get two new books, and introduce two new heroes into existing books! This is my favorite batch yet, through it certainly has its flaws. This page has 8 books.
You may have noticied that I'm not reviewing the books in the same order from page to page. I'm reviewing them in the order that each book first appears on the page, which is more useful for me to remember them but I guess I could rearrange them if that's confusing.
Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #3-#5: Spider-Man is the best book here. Issue #3 is my favorite issue that I've read, period. Spider-Man fights the best villains, has the most personality, and is part of the best plots of this era. His stories are less bombastic than the Fantastic Four, but they make up for it by being so much more personal. For the era, this is as good as it gets. Top notch, A+.
Strange Tales (1951) #109-#113, Annual #2: Strange Tales introduces Doctor Strange into some of the side stories. Since the stories are separate from the Human Torch stories, I'll grade them separately. The Human Torch stories are as bad as they ever are -- stupid villains, stupid plots, stupid powers. Even when Spider-Man had a cross-over appearance in the Annual story, his powers were stupid and cartoonish. There weren't any notable fun issues the way there was last page with his fight vs. Namor, so the grade comes back down a bit. C-.
Doctor Strange, on the other hand... is fine? He only has two stories, and they're quite short. They both heavily focus on Strange's relationship to "the Master" and on astral projection as a power, but they're at least cool. There's not enough meat on the stories to have an excellent grade, but they're interesting enough and I hope to see more. B-.
Tales to Astonish (1958) #44-#47: Tales to Astonish #44 introduces the Wasp, and I was really worried that she'd be as poorly treated as Sue, but I was pleasantly surprised. Sure, she's lovestruck pretty much immediately, but she kicks plenty of butt and even tells Hank to stop yapping so she can go save some people! Just having her in the stories makes Hank more interesting, too. Adding Janet was the best thing for this book, and I'm hopeful that it keeps up. B+.
Tales of Suspense (1959) #42-#45: Iron Man stories continue to be terrible. One of the comments on the order website described one issue as "super-powered Calvinball" and I don't think there's a better description for how stupid and contrived all of Iron Man's fights are. His suit still looks dumb, and his villains are still boring. Issue #45 was the best by a bit, though, since it spent a lot more time with Tony outside of the suit, and it introduced Happy Hogan who is actually a pretty fun character for who he is. Since the last issue is a lot better than the rest, I'm going to be optimistic and give a higher grade that I would otherwise: C.
Journey Into Mystery (1952) #94-96: Thor definitely gets the worst of having a secret identity. Peter Parker gets into trouble, but he faces the consequences for it as Spider-Man just as often as he does as Peter. Thor never has problems from being Donald Blake, but Donald Blake sure has problems because he's also Thor, and the problems are always "Jane thinks I'm a coward!" Between that and having an entire issue where Thor wasn't even a hero (Loki's evil plan was inflicting Very Specific Brain Damage to turn Thor evil for the issue), this book is more frustrating than fun. C+.
Fantastic Four (1961) #15-#18, Annual #1: Last time, I docked an entire grade due to sexism and Sue not being allowed to do anything. How do the next few issues fare? Pretty good, actually! The Invisible Girl steals Doctor Doom's ray gun and shoots at him with it, she punches Doom in the face after giving him the ol' "I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me" line, and her powers are the critial part of the plan to defeat the Super Skrull! All three of these in a row! Now, I was ready to call that even, but then her only role in the Annual was getting kidnapped by Namor and then almost drowning. It's the longest story we've had yet, and every other member of the Fantastic Four gets to be cool and fight Namor and his army, but Sue is the only one who does nothing but be a damsel in distress. We're not completely out of the hole yet.
But how is the book beyond that? Well, I've already said it's bombastic. The plots are big and the villains are bigger. There's plenty of fun action with dramatic twists and turns, and we have some of the most honest-to-goodness supervillains coming out of these stories, which are a precious sight in this era. I can't give the book any less than an A-.
X-Men (1963) #1: Only one issue of X-Men here, so this is all first impressions. It's fun to have a team of really different powers, and they definitely seem to be working together more than just taking turns with the action. I think Professor X is kinda weird: he's really brutal with what he expects the team to do, and he really doesn't feel like a friend. Most of the boys in the team are kinda samey in personality. Cyclops is the stuck-up leader, Beast is a horny teen, and Iceman is the young one who wants to prove himself, but Angel doesn't do anything to stand out. Jean isn't awful: most of her characterization so far is in moments of her not putting up with the pestering from the boys. It's too early to have a really solid feel for the book but it's promising so far. B+.
The Avengers (1963) #1: Another new book, but no new characters. This is another one-issue first impression. This is the first time we've seen the Hulk since his book got cancelled, and I'm glad for it. He's way too interesting a character, even without him being Bruce Banner. Thor and Iron Man both benefit a lot from sharing the spotlight, but in different ways: Thor doesn't spend quite so much time getting foiled, and Iron Man doesn't spend quite so much time having the solution to all of his problems just built into his suit. The ending of the issue was kinda contrived: Nobody but Thor knew Loki was the villain. Nobody but Loki knew he was going to go radioactive. Nobody at all knew that Hulk and Iron Man were going to end their fight where they did, which was where Thor brought Loki back from Asgard to. So how in the world did Ant-Man and the Wasp know to set up a lead-lined vault under a trapdoor, exactly where Loki was going to be standing? Like yeah, there's some dialogue about it but it all ended so suddenly. It didn't ruin the book by any means but the ending felt kinda hollow. B.
Written 04/27/2025