Page 7: 07/1964 - 10/1964
The eagle-eyed reader may notice the gap in the creation dates between the last page and this one. I took a break for a while, and some of my thoughts for the first couple of books might not be as sharp. I've definitely forgotten some of the most, well, forgettable stories. Worse still, I have forgotten a lot about the previous pages, so I might not compare very accurately. Nonetheless, I'll give it a shot!
The big thing I really remember about this page was that it was a lot of fun! I love 60's comics, even when I complain about some of them. This page has a lot of good in it, and I'd genuinely recommend people read a lot of this stuff.
Journey into Mystery (1952) #106-#109: I think Thor is on the uptick.
As I mentioned before, #105 was the first half of a two-parter, and therefore #106 concluded the storyline. It has a pretty fun bit at the end where Thor drops his hammer, and he decides to leave it dropped to challenge himself to finish of Mr. Hyde barehanded in one minute. Of course, he's Thor, so he succeeds, but it was still pretty fun watching the fight play out with him counting the time down.
#107 introduced the Gray Gargoyle as the villain, and I actually really liked him (his powers anyway. I honestly don't remember much about his personality). Kind of a fun Midas-y kinda guy, complete with his own powers causing his defeat. Kind of a silly conclusion though. For as much as "Thor Fights The Bad Guy And Wins Because He's Just So Cool" is annoying, it's also what Thor is all about, so him winning a fight as Don Blake on a motorcycle with a projector made by Iron Man's best friend Tony Stark was kinda dumb. Not my favorite.
#108 is a crossover with Doctor Strange, with some more direct opposition from Loki. One of my earliest thoughts on Journey Into Mystery was that the Loki stories were better than all of the other ones. That's tempered a bit, but he's still a better villain than most. Odin continues to be a pain, getting mad at Thor for the most pedestrian reasons. Honestly my favorite part of the story here was Doctor Strange helping out because Don Blake saved him in surgery. A good use of a crossover, I think.
Finally we have #109 with Thor vs. Magneto (the rest of the Brotherhood are away for most of the issue). It's a pretty obvious pairing: Thor is probably the hero who is the second most dependant on metal (second only to Iron Man) so we get an extended sequence of Don Blake unable to be Thor. The X-Men kinda show up at the very end, but all just barely off panel for some reason. I don't really think they were necessary.
Better than some, especially the action. It's been like 26 issues of just Journey Into Mystery with Thor, and I do think they're starting to get a feel for how to make his heroics seem fun instead of just cheesy. B.
Oh gosh there are Tales From Asgard in this book too. Uh, I guess Balder was in a couple of them? They're all pretty similar: set up a situation, have it take a turn for the worse, but oops nevermind that was actually clever misdirection, it was a turn for the better the whole time! Like for example, #109 has Thor get exiled by Odin for... some stupid petty reason that isn't really important, and then some guy is like "oh dip, Thor's gonna walk through this mountain pass so the giants can go beat him up, that'll get me an in with the queen if I tip her off" and so Thor gets ambushed in the mountain. But wait, as he runs away from his attackers, it's actually him leading them into a trap, because Odin and Thor planned the whole thing from the beginning! Quelle suprise!
Not to be unfair: they're fine. Short and repetitive, but fine. I do like them better than they used to be: these are definitely little stories more than just capital-L Lore. B-.
Tales to Astonish (1958) #58-#59: Gosh dang it Hank, why did you go through the effort of designing a brain powered size-control helmet but you only put the controls in your own helment and you have to control the Wasp's size yourself? That's so stupid. The Wasp is well and truly Giant-Man's sidekick instead of a proper hero in her own right, and it's such a shame.
That's really all I remember from #58. #59 was more interesting: I sure do hate the Human Top, but he wasn't nearly as important as the real star of the issue: the Hulk! Hulk finally gets anger-based transformation, and he gets just a taste of some good anti-heroism that I think makes him compelling. And starting in #60, we'll get some Hulk in Astonish as the B-story! I'm definitely looking forward to that.
Giant-Man still sucks and may always suck, but the Hulk is strong enough to lift this grade up from last page. C+.
Tales of Suspense (1958) #56-#58: This batch brings us the first appearance of Hawkeye, a clearly signposted "doesn't actually want to be a villain" type character in the same vein as Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. He's fun, and I especially like the cover ("We think Hawkeye is so great we drew him four times!").
Special attention to #58: the second time already where a hero fights somebody impersonating Captain America as a way to advertise him being put into a new book. This time it was Chameleon, somebody with pre-established disguise powers, and also Iron Man and the real Captain America fought each other for a bit out of the confusion, so I think it worked better (though it didn't have Cap getting caught on "Showing Today: The Deserted Windmill" like Strange Tales #114 did: obvious points off).
I have similar feelings about Iron Man as I do Thor: they're been writing him long enough to get him with some good action, but I just don't think he's as fun. B-.
Avengers (1963) #7-#8: Avengers stories seem troubled. There's so many characters in them, and they all seem to want to have different plots so the stories get really rushed to fit it all in the book. #7 starts with Iron Man getting suspended from the team because he got depressed in a prior Tales of Suspense book and refused to help them when they called him (a commenter on the Order website pointed out that the punishment for not helping was no longer being allowed to help). So, of course, the basics of the plot was that stuff got bad enough that they needed his help and he decided to help them. Meanwhile, Cap is off somewhere else fighting some racist caricatures that are working for Zemo, and Thor gets hypnotized into fighting Giant-Man and the Wasp. The whole story ended kind of abruptly, which wouldn't have needed to happen if the action all happened in the same place.
Then #8 has the "first introduction" of Kang the Conquerer. In scare quotes because he's... Rama-Tut? Apparently? Which... ugh. I'll get more into this with the Fantastic Four annual later, but I'm super confused with what they're doing with Rama-Tut. Anyway.
This issue goes back and forth a bunch of times between "wow look at how strong Kang is, he's totally beating the Avengers no problem" and "wow look at how strong the Avengers are, they're beating Kang no problem." It only occasionally feels like a two-way struggle. The worst bit though is the Teen Brigade. I don't hate the concept, but they really don't need to be in the Avengers book. Rick Jones was better as the Hulk's supporting cast, Steve is a bad influence on him, I swear.
Altogether a B.
Strange Tales (1951) #123-#124: The good news: Strange Tales A-stories are no longer Human Torch solo adventures. They are now Human Torch + The Thing duo adventures. The bad news: this is somehow maybe worse? The Thing is my favorite member of the Fantastic Four, but he's at his worst when he's constantly bickering with Johnny. We get a couple of dumb villains in dumb costumes (Paste Pot Pete is dumb in an affectionate way, though I don't like his new design) with forgettable stories. Not as groan-worthy as previous pages, though. C-.
Doctor Strange is still cool, and he's getting up to some more varied adventures. He duels Loki for a bit, and he uses more spells than just "I pointed my amulet at the bad guy and it all works out" which was kinda fun. He also has this bit where he time travels, but it goes wrong and he almost gets lost in time but then he points his amulet at the bad guy (the darkness) and it all works out. He's definitely the best part of this book and likely will continue to be so for the forseeable future. Still, I can't really justify giving him higher than a B-.
Fantastic Four (1961) #29-#30, Annual #2: #29 starts on Yancy street, and I'm still not tired of Ben blaming every misfortune on the Yancy Street Gang. Unfortunately, the bulk of the issue is fighting the Red Ghost and his super apes again—them not being super fun villains in the first place—in the Watcher's hideout on the moon, where they fought them the last time. It's like, why reintroduce a villain if you were going to do the same thing with them? And why reintroduce a fantastical environment if you were going to feature the exact same villain? It's a waste is what it is.
#30 is a little silly, with the team stumbling upon an ancient villain in a castle while camping in Transylvania. Villain pops out and takes over the Thing for a while, and the climax is lots of Ben showing off how strong he is once the leash is off. It's silly but an alright time.
These aren't the Fantastic Four at their best, but even then they're better than some other books. The action is corny but earnest, which is just the way that I like it. Just a couple of villain-of-the-week stories, nothing extravagant.
...So of course, there's also Annual #2 to talk about. This is the big Doctor Doom focused book, who we haven't seen since he got thrown into space back in... FF #23? It's not all that long in the scheme of things, but it feels like a while. The A-story is all Doom's backstory (I liked it enough, nothing to say beyond just giving a plot synopsis though so I'll skip it), and the B-story is him vs. the Fan Four. He's poisoned their drinks with some kinda perception altering drug to make them infight, and then he falls for Reed using the same trick on him. It's weird, and probably was just an excuse to draw a page of Reed getting disintegrated to hopefully scare some readers before they kept reading.
The worst part though, was how Doom survives getting launched into space. He gets picked up by a spaceship piloted by Rama-Tut. Rama-Tut had been established as one of Doom's decendants from the distant future, but that wasn't interesting enough for ol' Stan Lee so Doctor Doom decides that they must be each other from different times. No good logic for it either, Doom just declares it to be fact. Rama-Tut is explaining his backstory like "oh yeah I stole a time machine from my ancestor, Doctor Doom (a name I mention like it was the first time it was ever said, but you did just introduce yourself to me)" and Doom is like "wait, I built that time machine! So you must be me!" as though that didn't contradict all of the information that had just been established. They then get all existential about it, wondering which one travelled through time to become the other one, despite neither of them having memories of ever being the other at any point. It's after this that Avengers #8 establishes that Kang the Conquerer is actually Rama-Tut. Stan must have really wanted Rama-Tut to be more important than he was, but none of these ideas work.
Honestly, I hate that bit so much that I'll dock points from the final grade, B+.
Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #15-#16, Annual #1: Spider-Man good. The two main issues are alright, introducing Kraven the Hunter and then having a crossover with Daredevil (some of Daredevil's best work, honestly, he really gets to flex some of the unique advantages of being blind). Standard villain of the week stuff, with just a dash of Betty Brant drama stemming from a lack of communication. Mary Jane Watson has been name dropped too, but she hasn't made an appearance yet.
But the annual? This is some good 60's comics right here. Seriously, read this one. It has it all: Peter angsting about letting Uncle Ben die? Check. Great fights against a ton of all-star villains? Check! J. Jonah Jameson yelling at a normal spider? Checkeroony! We even have a running gag of a kidnapped Aunt May thinking that she's being treated to a nice visit at Doc Ock's place, wishing that that toublemaker Spider-Man would learn a few lessons in manners from the nice doctor. One of my favorite bits is the full-page panel against each of the Sinister Six as Spider-Man fights them, and they're all really fun. It's a little cheesy but it's a great time. A+.
Daredevil (1964) #3-#4: Daredevil continues to be fun, and I'm calmed down from the dissapointment that was issue #2. We get a couple of fun villains in the Owl and the Purple Man, both of whom have Matt Murdock signed up to be their attorney before the action breaks out.
I definitely feel like Daredevil benefits from being a bi-monthly book. It feels... not premium, exactly, but more deliberate and carefully paced. The dialogue is still kinda verbose and repetitive, but not any more than the other books. I'm honestly enjoying how much effort Daredevil goes through to hide the fact that he's blind. Matt hiding how much he can actually "see" makes sense, but keeping a weakness hidden is interesting. Subtext implies that he's doing it not to protect a disadvantage, but just to hide his identity. He's had the most close scares to people discovering his identity than anyone else that I can think of.
It's a good book and I think it's getting better. A-.
X-Men (1963) #7: The X-Men book has decided to ditch Professor X (for now at least) and make Cyclops the team leader. I suppose he never really did take the role of leader before, though he was the obvious choice even this early into his history. This gives Scott some good characterization as self-sacrificing, something much more interesting from a team perspective than his contemporaries.
This was yet another Brotherhood of Evil Mutants story, which is starting to get old. This is four issues in a row (of a bi-monthly book!) featuring the Brotherhood. Only two issues out of seven did not feature Magneto as the primary villain. Like sure, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch have obvious plot developments waiting to happen, but Toad is a real nothing of a characer so far, and Mastermind is just the worst. His two character traits are "annoys Toad" and "harrasses Wanda before getting attacked by Pietro".
The X-Men are kind of interesting to examine as a team, compared to the Avengers and the Fantastic Four of the era. Most heroes have lots of tricks: Iron Man can fly, shoot lasers, and pull all sorts of gagets out when appropriate. The Invisible Girl can turn herself or others invisible, and make force fields in a variety of shapes. Even the Wasp can shrink, fly, talk to insects, and shoot things with her little wrist blasters. Most of the X-Men, though, have just the one thing they can do. Cyclops can shoot optic blasts. Angel flies. Beast is acrobatic. Iceman is pretty flexible, borrowing lots of tricks from the Johnny Storm School of Doing Bullcrap With Your Powers (but they make a lot more sense when made of ice vs. made of fire, Johnny), but in general the team is more one-note. It's fine, there's lots of team vs. team fights going on, so simpler powersets kinda make sense.
I'm gonna up the grade a little. B+.
Whew, I gotta start writing these as I read! This one was a doozy! Thanks for reading!
Written 10/03/2025