Fantastic Four Fridays: Return of Subby

In the Golden Age of Comics, Marvel (or Timely as it was known back then) had three major heroes: The Human Torch, The Sub-Mariner, and Captain America. Having brought back the first as a significantly different character (a teenager, not an adult, and a human, not an android), Stan and Jack decided to resuscitate the Sub-Mariner pretty much as he had been back in the 1940s: an anti-hero who, despite positive qualities always had an ambivalent relationship with the land people.

As the story begins, the remaining members of the Fantastic Four are searching for the Human Torch. This results in some comical moments as Sue drinks a soda while invisible, spooking the customer on the next stool. And Mr Fantastic, spotting some motorcyclists, decides to ask one if he's seen Johnny in his own way:

But Ben comes up with the correct idea of checking one of Johnny's usual hangouts; a garage where he likes to work on hot rods. Only his idea of how to handle the situation when he finds the Torch there isn't quite as brilliant:

But in the middle of the fight, Thing is startled to note that he's changing back into Ben Grimm, and Johnny flies off while he's distracted. But the reversion to a normal human only lasts briefly.
The Torch heads for the Bowery and spends the night at a flophouse. While there, he notices an old comic mag:

Noticing Johnny reading the old comic, one of the bums mentions that there's another guy in the flophouse who's as strong as the Sub-Mariner used to be. After a brief skirmish, the strong man laments that he can't remember who he used to be, so Johnny plays a little flame-barber:

Johnny flies the Sub-Mariner to the ocean and drops him in the salt-water. Sure enough, that restores his memory. But when he returns to fair Atlantis:

He visits Johnny just long enough to let him know that he's declaring war on the humans. Faced with this threat, the Torch has no alternative to summon his former teammates and alert them.

Using an ancient horn, Namor summons a creature from the depths that looks something like a whale with giant arms and legs. It attacks New York City, but the Thing manages to destroy it by strapping a nuclear bomb to his back and doing a Jonah imitation. Meanwhile, Sue tries to steal the horn, and Namor catches her:

Namor seems genuinely surprised she doesn't eagerly accept his offer; but if he really felt his love was so desirable, why would he attempt blackmail right off the bat? But Johnny, using his flame power summons up a whirlwind that deposits the Sub-Mariner back in the water, while the horn that gave him such power is lost forever in the deeps. But Namor vows to return.

Comments: This is the issue where it becomes obvious that something special is going on with the Marvel line. Namor is the first of the villains with some admirable qualities, although by no means the last (as we shall see in the next issue).

As a reminder, Silver Age Gold is doing a similar series on the Thor stories in Journey into Mystery. And here's another blogger doing the same thing with the Doctor Strange stories.

Fantastic Four Fridays: Mr Miracle

One of the biggest strengths of the Marvel Silver Age was the willingness of Stan and his artists to adapt and change their characters. However, almost every strength comes with a weakness, and in Marvel's case, it was that their series almost all seemed to tread water for a few issues before finding their footing, to mix a few metaphors.

So it is with this issue. Obviously, Stan had gotten enough feedback to know that he had to give his characters more recognizable uniforms, and so:

And yet, the story itself is just okay. To begin with, the villain is introduced by a very cliched method; he's performing an act in front of an entranced crowd at a packed nightclub, which includes Reed, Sue, Ben and Johnny. Granted, Stan and Jack pull it off with some panache:

But I could point you to a half dozen or more stories that include the same wheeze. Given that the Miracle Man (as he bills himself) is a wild success, we get into almost the same situation as I talked about earlier this week: Couldn't he make more money performing his act than being a crook? But no:

We get the first cutaway of the FF headquarters:

My blog-buddy Mark Engblom used to refer to these diagrams as "random coolness" and I cannot agree more. Almost all the teams had something like this; the first ones I can remember are the Batcave schematics in the 1940s.
We learn why the Miracle Man was not willing to settle for just being a well-paid entertainer:

It's the difference between having your "crib" featured on MTV and being the ruler of all you survey.
Reed almost stops the villain, but he gets beaned by a brick hurled by the Miracle Man, who's not above stooping to such cheap methods. Reed comes off as a Batman clone here:

Although why Mr Fantastic is interacting with a police commissioner about a guy who's threatening to take over the whole blamed planet is not explained.

They have another battle with the Miracle Man, who manages to get away, but is being shadowed by the Invisible Girl. Inevitably, the FF have another one of their regular internal squabbles:

Everybody had the hots for Sue Storm in the 1960s; there's even a Spiderman story with that as a subplot. The Miracle Man discovers she's with him and forces her to summon the rest of the FF. Interestingly, despite the constant bickering between Reed and Ben, note this scene:

Very positive characterization for the Thing. Thumbs way up on that; extra good characterization is rare enough in the Silver Age that it deserves mention. Johnny blinds the Miracle Man temporarily, and his powers are abated. Reed explains:

But Ben is furious that Johnny gets the credit for eliminating the menace of the Miracle Man, and in the ensuing brouhaha, Johnny quits the FF:

What can we do if he decides to turn against us? My first suggestion would be to have a firehose and a pail of sand ready, since that's what most crooks do when faced with the Human Torch.
Comments: Good story, mediocre villain. But the FF was about to really hit its stride in the next few issues. Be here next Friday for the incredible return of the Sub-Mariner!

Incidentally, I should mention that Aaron over at Silver Age Gold is doing a similar series to this, going through the entire SA Thor series. Worth the read!

If you'd like to read these stories, I recommend:


Incidentally, thanks very much to whoever made the first purchases from my Amazon store; it was quite a thrill!

Fantastic Four Fridays: Skrull the Cowqueror

Our story begins with the Thing swimming menacingly towards an offshore oil rig. Say what? The Thing looks like he weights about 600 pounds and I'm going to guess that he wouldn't be able to keep his head above water. This might be very mysterious, except that we've already seen from the cover that aliens from outer space are probably behind it. In short order, we observe as Sue Storm steals a $10 million gem, the Torch ruins a fabulous statue, and Reed:

Why is the FF doing these terrible things? Oh, that's right:

The real FF is hiding out at a lodge in the woods. But the Army arrests them:

I'm guessing that Stan and Jack never heard of the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of the military for internal police work. They imprison the FF in specially designed cells, but none of them are held captive for long. And they come up with a brilliant idea. If Johnny, as the Human Torch, destroys a rocket, the fake FF will assume he's one of them. And although it seems like a fairly ridiculous idea, it works:

Apparently the fake FF had some way they were going to destroy the missile with just the phony Reed and Sue, and it never occurred to them to wonder why the Torch showed up. So they take him back to their HQ, where the phony Torch is waiting. Fortunately Johnny has time to send out a signal flare, and the real FF has no trouble wiping out their fake counterparts. But there's still an invasion fleet of Skrulls just waiting for the defeat of the FF to conquer Earth. So the real FF pose as the Skrulls and head up to the mother ship, where they attempt to convince the commander that death and destruction await them:

Heheh, now that is pretty cool, a little plug for Marvel's monster mags of the time. They succeed in scaring away the invasion fleet, while insisting they must return to Earth to erase all evidence of their presence. But when they get back:

Well, at least this time it's the cops. They manage to convince the police to take them back to Reed's apartment, where the Skrulls are waiting:

Well, it might have been spawned on Earth back in the Hyborean Age. The FF round up those Skrulls again. They repent their ways and Reed decides to have them make one final change to their appearance, after which he hypnotizes them into forgetting their past:

One thing doesn't make sense here--well, okay, more than one thing--what happened to the fourth Skrull? I looked in the letters columns of the next few issues and didn't see any other mention of it. At one point in the story, Reed says that the fourth Skrull was on the mother ship, but that doesn't compute either, as on page 17 we hear that the FF defeated four Skrulls at Reed's apartment, and the entire FF goes up to the ship; wouldn't the commander notice that's five beings returning when only four went down?

Another note: In a subplot, the FF goes through the cosmic rays again on the return to Earth, and it results in the Thing reverting briefly into Ben Grimm again.

If you'd like to buy, there are several options:

Fantastic Four Fridays

Having worked my way through the 1960s Iron Man, I will now turn my attention to the Fantastic Four issues. Back when I was collecting comics in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I had a friend who was big on the Marvel books, while I collected DC, so whenever we'd discover a cache of the other guy's faves we'd trade. As a result, my collection of Marvels other than Spiderman (the one Marvel series I insisted on keeping) is pretty poor. However, he did let me borrow his FF issues, so I managed to keep reasonably up to date.

Fortunately, Marvel recently came out with the complete set of FF issues (plus Silver Surfer) on DVD. These are absolutely gorgeous color scans of the original issues, not black and white like the Essentials series, and not slathered on color like the Masterworks. You can almost smell the musty paper as you read these. Highly recommended as the cheapest way to complete your collection!

FF #1 debuted with a cover date of November 1961. Note that the characters had not quite been finalized:



Reed, in particular, would undergo quite a change facially, with a much younger appearance before long. And Ben's alter-ego would also evolve quite a bit:



This, to me, is one of the keys to Marvel's extraordinary success in the 1960s. DC's Silver Age characters arrived fully conceived, and seldom changed, while Stan and Jack and the rest of the bullpen were never afraid to tinker with the characters, especially based on feedback from the readers. A full listing of all the changes Marvel made during this era would be extremely long, but aside from the above, they added uniforms to the FF, did away with Peter Parker's glasses, changed Iron Man's color from grey to gold to red and gold, changed Ant-Man to Giant Man, changed the look of the Iceman, etc.

We learn that the FF originated as a group effort to reach outer space before the communists:



And for perhaps the only time in the Silver Age, Ben was right and Reed was wrong on a scientific matter. As they rocket through the cosmic rays, they are changed dramatically. Sue is able to turn invisible, while Reed stretches crazily and Ben turns into the thing. And Johnny:



Of course, this is a swipe from the original Timely superhero the Human Torch, right down to the name, which Johnny adopts. They resolve to use their powers to benefit mankind. Their first assignment is to investigate the mysterious disappearance of atomic power plants all over the globe:



Reed discovers that there's an island exactly in the middle of all the disappearances, known as Monster Isle. Sure enough, it turns out that the island is aptly named:



Suddenly the ground collapses underneath Reed and Johnny, who fall into a deep cavern. Their eyes are blinded by a dazzling light:



I've always loved that panel introducing Moley; his appearance is bizarre and it contrasts with the rather bland, "And as for me, I am the Moleman!" He explains his origin:



This is pretty good stuff; the Moleman's given a strong motivation for what he does. He managed to control the creatures below the Earth, and now he's planning an invasion of the surface. But the FF make their way to the surface, and Johnny seals the exit, leaving the Moleman below.

Comments: A solid introduction to the series. One oddity is that the story is broken up into several chapters; with a splash page at the beginning of each which is a strong indication that Kirby was doing much of the work putting the story together. DC often used these chapters in their stories, and Kirby had put them into Challengers of the Unknown, the series he designed for DC in the late 1950s.

Single Issue Review: Strange Tales #120

Strange Tales was another one of Marvel's anthology magazines. It had originally been a horror comic, but after the debut of the Fantastic Four, the cover slot and main feature had been turned over to the Human Torch effective with Strange Tales #101.

Crossovers were frequent in the Marvel Silver Age, and the Human Torch's feature was no exception. It was perhaps inevitable that the Torch and the Iceman, both teens and representing the opposite ends of the temperature spectrum, would end up meeting. As it happens, Johnny Storm is on a date with his gal Doris on a pleasure boat around Manhattan, while Bobby takes the same ride solo. He tries to pick up Doris, but she's not interested:



As it turns out, and as shown on the cover, the ship is attacked by Captain Barracuda, and the Iceman and the Torch go into action:



Comments: An amusing little story with solid sequential art by Kirby, although I confess that Dick Ayers' inks leave me cold.

The backup feature is Dr. Strange, who had debuted only ten issues earlier in this magazine. This series had still not hit its stride and this story is a silly little adventure about a haunted house that a reporter has agreed to stay inside overnight. Predictably, he emerges much the worse for his experience:



Comments: As indicated, this is a pedestrian tale, lent some luster by Steve Ditko's dark, brooding artwork:



This series was about to lift off into the stratosphere, but there is little sign of it here.

If Ever If Ever a Wiz There Was....

One of the more durable villains in the Marvel Universe was the Wizard. He first appeared in Strange Tales #102, where we learn that he's fabulously wealthy from the inventions he's created, that he's a master chess player, and an accomplished magician. But as with many villains he longs for a challenge:



He creates a situation where only the Torch can rescue him, and in apparent gratitude, invites Johnny to his home. But once there he uses a water cannon to douse the Torch's flame, then imprisons him in an asbestos-lined room. Then he commits a series of crimes while disguised to look like the Torch. Johnny manages to get away, but he is apparently stymied when the Wizard shows him photographs revealing that the Wizard was actually behind the crime wave. But Sue helps out her brother by stealing the photos, thus clearing him.

This is something of an oddball story in that the Wizard is apparently well known by that name (indeed, we do not hear his real name in this story), but nobody supposedly knows the Torch's real identity, which was never hidden in the Fantastic Four series.

The Wizard returns in Strange Tales #105. After breaking free of prison, he resolves:



This is the sort of feedback loop that commonly exists between villains and heroes; hero defeats villain, villain must get revenge. It's extraordinarily common in the Marvel superhero mags of the 1960s and allows the writer to quickly set the stage for the inevitable battle.

The Torch and the Wizard battle it out for a few pages, before Johnny's sister, Sue Storm, arrives. After trapping her, the Wizard forces the Torch to join her, where a peril awaits:



These kinds of deathtraps became something of a cliche in the 1960s, even forming the centerpiece of the Batman TV series. At any rate, Johnny manages to disarm the trap and capture the Wizard.

The Wizard's next appearance is indeed a key story, as he teams up with Paste-Pot Pete, another villain from the Torch's rogues' gallery. This pair (with Pete renamed the Trapster) would later join up with the Sandman and Medusa (of the Inhumans) to become the Frightful Four, whom I discussed previously.

However, as in all such teamups the bickering between the two villains is intense:



The Wizard has a cameo appearance in two panels of Strange Tales #112, then returns for real in ST #118. This time he has invented an antigravity device which allows him to fly:



This invention became a staple of the Wizard's, appearing in many stories and giving rise to his more alliterative nickname, the Wingless Wizard.

After that, the Wizard mostly appeared in Fantastic Four issues, starting with the original Frightful Four appearance in FF #36.

Was the Torch a Flamer?

Did he have a thing for the Thing? Not that there's anything wrong with that.

From Fantastic Four #65, August 1967, comes this amusing scene:



And check out this bit of them disputing who gets to use the bathroom first:



Okay, I'm just having a little fun here. As usual with these sequences, they arise out of a plot need. Stan has to have Johnny and Ben discover that they had the same nightmare, so he had Jack put them in bed together. I assume that the CCA wouldn't have allowed Reed and Sue to be shown that way, even though they were married. As I discussed in an earlier post, it was a similar situation in a Batman story that led to the famed scene of Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson (apparently) in bed together.

It is amusing though, considering the constant bickering between the two; isn't that the way it always is with couples? We all knew Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter books were destined to marry by the way they quarreled, right?

Strange Tales Annual #2

Here's an oddball early teamup of Spidey and the Human Torch. Marvel quite naturally wanted to establish some bond between their two teenage superheroes (at the time, this being before the debut of the X-Men).

The Torch had been a major character in the Golden Age for Marvel (then known as Timely) and he was also 1/4 of the Fantastic Four. Spidey was a new character, whose comic was then less than a year old. Strange Tales was the magazine that featured the Torch in his solo adventures. So one would think that Johnny Storm would at least hold his own in the teamup story. But it did not develop that way.

In typical Marvel fashion the story starts out with a fight between the two heroes because of a misunderstanding. But where DC would have ended it in a draw, Marvel decided to have one character win the fight:



And when they clash again, Spidey is prepared:



Of course, eventually he convinces the Torch that he is not responsible for the theft and they team up to fight the real criminal, the Fox. Although the Torch does save Spiderman in one memorable moment, for the most part it's Spidey following the clues, Spidey asking the questions, and the Torch mostly looking like an ornament. When it comes time to catch the villain, guess who does it?



And Peter handles this with his usual lack of class while in uniform:



The Human Torch co-starred with Spiderman in several adventures including a memorable run in ASM 17-19. But you could see the passing of the baton to the new guy in this story, in what obviously turned out to be a preview of things to come. The Torch ended up not a strong enough character to cover his own mag in the Silver Age, and eventually was squeezed out of Strange Tales in favor of Nick Fury Agent of Shield. And Spidey... well I guess you know that story.