Page 6: 04/1964-07/1964
So many crossover issues! Even outside of the Avengers, most of the issues from this page had some sort of crossover, and some were certainly better than others. I do like the interconnectivity, but I think a lot of the crossovers didn't really have much of a point besides "hey people like Spider-Man, maybe we can put him on the cover and people will read our terrible Giant-Man stories too." Spoilers for some of my opinions, I guess.
Fantastic Four (1961) #25-#28: Fantastic Four #25 is one of my new favorite comics. The basic idea is that the Hulk, after getting mad at the Avengers for replacing him with Captain America, goes on a rampage to find them and smush them, so he goes to New York. Reed is infected with something, and Johnny and Sue go down fast, so it's up to the Thing to hold off the Hulk all by his lovable lonesome until the cavalry arrives. And oh boy, does he! The slugfest between these two was really well done. The Thing is no slouch, but the story was pretty consistent at framing the Hulk as a class above, which made the Thing into a wonderful underdog to root for. Very little time was spent on setting up the fight, and since it was a two-parter, it didn't have to devote any time at all to wrapping the story up, so it was tons of pages of pure fight scene.
#26 didn't quite live up to the payoff that #25 set up, but it was still fine. A massive crossover between the Fantastic Four and the Avengers all vs the Hulk was an alright time, with what I'm pretty sure is a new record for superheroes in one issue.
The next couple of issues were more crossovers and returning villains, with some Doctor Strange and some X-Men. It's kind of interesting having so much crossover happening, because it's almost like getting extra issues of some of the less-frequently published and only-gets-half-a-book...-ly published to get some more screen time to develop them.
The Fantastic Four are consistently solid. The Thing is quickly becoming one of my favorite heroes, and the unfolding drama between Reed and Sue is just a tad more interesting (read: less groan worthy) than some of the other book's excuses for romance subplots. A.
Journey into Mystery (1952) #104-#105: There's not much to say about Thor. #105 is the first half of a two-parter so I haven't even read the rest of it yet. The Jane Foster subplot continues to go nowhere, but at least he has some supervillains to go up against. The book is being carried a bit by the novelty of how mystical Asgard is, but otherwise it's all generally unremarkable.
Thor doesn't get any exciting fight scenes. He's usually not in danger himself, and when he is, he's so totally outclassed that the story has to find some other way to get him out of it. That's not even including times where he's stuck as Dr. Blake and needs to find some way to become Thor without anybody noticing, in increasingly dumb ways. I wish they'd go the Strange Tales route and just let him drop the secret identity because it takes up so much story space.
Meh. C.
Tales from Asgard isn't doing much better, and in fact I think it's taking from the main story too much. We've left Thor and gone onto focusing on Heimdall, but that hasn't been as bad as I feared. Odin's early history myths were a snoozefest, but Heimdall is a little more interesting. Still not great. Another C.
Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #12-#14: Issue 12 is a real highlight: it's a Doc Ock story so of course I'm going to love it, and the cover promises Peter getting unmasked in front of Doc Ock, J. Jonah Jameson, Betty Brant, and a crowd of police. Does that actually happen? Yes! Peter is sick and not fighting up to par, and Doctor Octopus is not a villain you can fight at anything less than full strength. So when the suspiciously weak Spider-Man gets shown to be Peter Parker, everyone just assumes that Peter is just impersonating ol' Spidey to try to save the day himself. It's one of the more clever plot twists that we've had.
We also get two new villains, both of whom are some of the most iconic faces in any rogue's gallery: Mysterio and the Green Goblin. The Goblin's first plan is a really silly one, and he doesn't really get to stand out much on his own, but it's a fun enough story. Neither of these issues get that really good tension and sense of danger that I've come to expect from this book, which is disappointing.
Spider-Man does get one crossover with the Hulk, but does he really count as a crossover at this point? He doesn't have his own book. I think he probably does, but he's been used as a villain so much lately so it's hard to tell.
As always, Spider-Man is fun and interesting, but most of these issues are a little less exciting than some of his earlier adventures. A-.
X-Men (1963) #5-#6: I like the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. They're a bunch of a losers. They're starting to get a little repetitive, since they're really the only villains that the X-Men seem to fight, but I am interesting to see how the Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch plot plays out.
I really wish we got some more character time with the team members. Beast and Professor X are the only ones with anything resembling actual characterization, being "uses big words" and "is kind of a jerk that thinks he's better than everybody around him" respectively. The rest are... there? If Iceman has a character, it's complaining about not being noticed or respected.
Our government mandated crossover is with Namor, who's fine? It's a little silly that he fell for the Scarlet Witch so quickly, when I'd argue that his most prominent character trait, excepting perhaps his pride, is "has a crush on the Invisible Girl." He's pathetic but it has room to be fun.
It's alright. Fine action, plenty of characters so none of them overstay their welcome (even if I'd prefer to spend just a tad more time with a couple of them). B.
Tales to Astonish (1959) #55-#57: Giant-Man still sucks and the Wasp is still a misogynistic sterotype. Hank is planning on proposing to Jan now, which...? I guess? We have seen them on a couple of dates but they have such terrible chemistry. Neither really respects the other very much. The Wasp especially has gone from partner to sidekick for sure. At least she has her little sting blaster now, so hopefully she'll get a little bit more action.
Real crummy villains this time around. I hate the Human Top. He's very effective at exploiting Giant-Man's biggest weakness: being a big clumsy oaf that's rad to root for. This book has had plenty of alright villains, so this batch has been disappointing.
One of the B-stories was actually a little adventure for the Wasp, but it mostly served to humiliate her and make her seem ineffective without Hank. Terrible. C-.
Strange Tales (1951) #120-#122: This book still doesn't need to exist. We get our obligatory crossover with Iceman which was alright, but the other two stories were filled with the most repetitive and stupid tricks to counter Johnny's powers that we've already seen plenty of times before. One issue he's locked in an asbestos room. And in another, the Plantman? He throws dew covered seeds and that's enough moisture to put out the Torch's flames. Remember back in #107 where he burns so hot that he can fight Namor under the ocean? Me neither.
The sooner this book gets a change, the better. D+.
Doctor Strange is mostly the same. His stories have a pretty good blend of "Doctor Strange is mysterious and mighty, and he comes in to deal with the mystery of the week easily" and "Doctor Strange is frequently dealing with forces that frankly should not be tampered with, and manages to survive by the skin of his teeth" so there's some nice variety there. I think my favorite of the latter is one story where he goes to sleep without remembering to charm himself against Nightmare, who throws him into a, well, nightmare that he can only escape through what amounts to lucid dreaming.
It's heartening to see Doctor Strange taking up more and more of the cover real estate. These stories aren't all great but they're more interesting that the Human Torch. B-.
Tales of Suspense (1958) #53-#55: Tales of Suspense #54, now featuring Iron Man's new, less cool looking face mask!
The Mandarin is a lot less of a cariacature as I expected. Not, like, not a cariacature, but less than he could be. Is that a win? Maybe for a 60's? He sure doesn't use his power rings very much. After his appearance last time, I expected them to really explore all ten rings and figure out what they all do. Instead, he's the "I have a liar filled with traps!" villain, which isn't the worst gimmick for a villain to have.
There's not a lot to say about Iron Man. I know it was the 60's and therefore in the middle of cold war zeitgeist, but I don't really care to root for "Military Industrial Complex Man" half as much as they seem to want me to. The secret identity is pretty old too, though at least we got one interesting twist out of it ("oh, sure, you have me trapped, but Tony Stark is still running free! Better go catch him before he breaks something!").
He's still just... really bland. B-.
There was also a B-story about the Watcher's origin. It sure existed. I'm not gonna grade it but I just wanted to mention that it was there but it was kinda hard to find.
Avengers (1963) #5-#6: Avengers is starting to get into the swing of things. #6 brings back one villain per book all on a team, and it's fun! It's fun because they're all dumb villains, but it's still fun! The Melter and the Radioactive Man are the most dumb by far, but honorable mention going to Zemo and his special ability to... accidentally glue a mask to his face, spending decades grieving over it, unable to to create a solvent, only for Paste-Pot Pete to just happen to have tons of the stuff in a warehouse.
Rick Jones does not need to be here. He's a supporting cast member for the Hulk. His whole thing is to be the humanizing element to ground our not-so-jolly green giant. What does he do now? He calls on the Teen Brigade and is Cap's sidekick that doesn't do anything.
Both of these issues bring back an old one-off Thor villain, but neither seems to have read the story they came from? The lava man who attacked Thor in Journey into Mystery is suddenly very adamant that the surface dwellers not be attacked, but he didn't exactly become friends with Thor by the end of that issue. And the last time we saw the Radioactive Man, he was a mushroom cloud. How is he still alive? Why was it not brought up at all? Like, I'm not against the idea of character development or retcons, but this book is plenty verbose, there could have been some mention somewhere about it.
Almost all of the heroes in this book are more fun here than they are in their own books, but I can't help but feel like the team is missing something. I see their lineup panels and it just seems imbalanced. It's probably just Giant-Man being an eyesore.
Gonna give it an A-.
Daredevil (1964) #2: They changed the artist. Bill Everett had the most moody, atmospheric art that I've read out of all of the books so far, and they replaced him with Joe Orlando. I think Orlando's art is good, probably better than average, but Everett's art made Daredevil #1 for me. I'll try not to let it effect the grade too much but it's certainly going to effect it some.
Daredevil #2 is a pale imitation of #1. We get a crossover already, with the majority of the issue taking place in the Fantastic Four headquarters, against Electro, a Spider-Man villain. Lovely.
And we get it, Daredevil can't see so he has to figure out what's happening using his other senses. He sure loves reminding us every other panel. It's an unfortunate side effect of the verbosity of the era. I think a lot of it is due to how new the character is, and I think it's fine to do sometimes, but it was a little heavy this issue.
It's still kinda cool, I still want to read more of it, but it's such a shame that it's so large a drop in quality from #1. B.
Written 06/23/2025