Number 1463: Ditko does his Thing

Halloween is tomorrow, so it looks like I’d better get a couple of bags of cheap candy for the neighborhood monsters. But...wait. I think I have a few of those miniature candy bars left over from a couple of years ago. Heh-heh. I try to discourage the kiddies from coming back to Casa Pappy, but as I’ve found out over the 38 years I’ve lived here, the neighborhood kids aren’t discouraged by mold on stale Snickers bars.

So...where was I? For Halloween I’m presenting four Steve Ditko stories from the infamous Charlton horror comic, The Thing. The stories, scanned from black line reprints published in a 1972-73 Australian comic, Doomsday, were uploaded by scanner Bladeshade9. Thank you Bladeshade9. I appreciate your efforts, and if you come on over to my house I’ll give you some Halloween candy. I’ll even scrape off the mold.

Unlike Pappy’s candy, these Ditko stories may be old, but never moldy or stale: “The Worm Turns” and “Day of Reckoning” were originally published in The Thing #15 (1954). “Rumpelstiltskin” and “The Evil Eye” are from #14.

More about →

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.

More about →

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!

More about →

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:

More about →