0049: All Together Now

NOTE: As promised in the previous post (ADMIN03), this post will be a condensation of the posts 0035-0039, offering information about Silver Age Marvel reprints but without the context of the impact Beatlemania had on pop culture. It will also skip the scans and details of the four Lancer mass market paperbacks. That information is still available in those posts; to find the full versions, click on the label "Beatles" in the list on the right.

First, the notes from #0035, accompanying scans of the cover and inside front cover of MARVEL COLLECTORS' ITEM CLASSICS #2 (04/66):
As with the first issue, the IFC has production credits and a sort-of table of contents. The publisher is once again listed as "Animated Timely Features" (and will be until 1968). It still features reprints of Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and Ant-Man stories. In fact, these are the stories immediately following the ones reprinted in issue #1. And it's also still 64 pages for 25¢. What's different is that where the first issue filled the page count with a "Tales Of Asgard" reprint and an in-house ad, the second issue replaces those with paid ads. It also changes the publishing frequency from 'quarterly' to 'bi-monthly'. in the two months following this issue, MCIC will join MARVEL TALES and FANTASY MASTERPIECES as Marvel's only new titles between DAREDEVIL in 1964 and GHOST RIDER (the western) in 1967. And they were all reprints.

The contents of this issue are:

• Reprint FANTASTIC FOUR #3 (03/62) "The Menace Of The Miracle Man", 23pp
• Reprint TALES TO ASTONISH #37 (11/62) [Ant-Man] "Trapped By The Protector!", 13pp
• Reprint AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #4 (09/63) "Nothing Can Stop...The Sandman!", 21pp
• (seven pages of paid ads)

Any reader who didn't see the scans from MCIC #2 can find them in the previous post. And since  I went on a bit about parallels between the Avengers greeting reporters at the dock in AVENGERS #4 and the Beatles landing at Idlewild, maybe I should share this with you. It comes from STRANGE TALES #119 (04/64) a few months after the Human Torch fought an imposter Captain America in #114. It's an ad for AVENGERS #4 (03/64) with the first Silver Age appearance of Cap, which despite the different cover dates would have shipped the week before ST #119. Because of the Human Torch story, the original version of the cover (this one) had the words "The Real..." over Captain America's name. The first AVENGERS OMNIBUS has this cover in B&W, but I thought you might like to see it as readers at the time would have.

The highlights from post #0036 -0039 are:

Jan. 3rd, 1964-- Captain America returns in AVENGERS #4 (03/64) and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (including Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver) debut in X-MEN #4 (03/64). Later that month, DC's Doom Patrol would introduce the Brotherhood of Evil in #86 (03/63) of their own comic. TALES TO ASTONISH #54 (04/64) runs its last suspense back-up story. It will run Giant-Man lead stories and Wasp back-up stories that will each vary in length.

The following week The Black Widow made her first appearance in TALES OF SUSPENSE #52 (04/64). Two part stories begin in both AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #11(04/64) and FANTASTIC FOUR #25 (04/64) and both advertised the upcoming DAREDEVIL title. The FF story involves the Avengers, now with Cap, searching for the Hulk.

Jan. 23rd-- DC releases SGT. ROCK'S PRIZE BATTLE TALES (Win/64) under the banner "Giant 80 Page War Annual", which serves as an annual for all DC's war comics despite Sgt. Rock's name and picture on the cover. That makes it the only anthology annual besides SECRET ORIGINS in 1961.

[In the first week of February] the Enchantress and Executioner [made] their first appearance in JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #103 (04/64). Also out that week was DAREDEVIL #1(04/64). It would be the last time in a long, long while that Marvel debuted a character in their own title. Since the restructuring in 1957 this had only happened 7 times: Kathy, Linda Carter, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Sgt. Fury, X-Men and Daredevil. All but Kathy were within a three year period. The next three new titles would be the reprint titles I've been posting about. The western Ghost Rider (1967) was transparently a character done for Magazine Enterprises (since defunct) in the 1950's by the same artist but given a different secret identity for legal reasons. Peter the Pest stories were actually recycled Melvin the Monster stories. The Li'l Kids comics reprinted Li'l Willie, Awful Oscar, etc. from the 1950's. Conan wasn't an original Marvel character. As far as I can tell, the winner is... Archie knock-off HARVEY #1(10/70)? Looks like it. And the next candidate is Luke Cage in HERO FOR HIRE #1 (06//72), a full eight years after Daredevil.

Of course, plenty of new characters were introduced and new titles launched in that time, just not simultaneously. In fact, of all the characters granted their own features during that time it wasn't until Captain Marvel was introduced in MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #12 (12/67) that a character was even introduced in their own feature. And yet, this was not a creatively or commercially sluggish time for Marvel; they were thriving. By the end of the decade they would be on the verge of overtaking DC in sales. The idea of giving new features and new titles to characters who were introduced in existing features starring other characters was just contributing to their strengthening sense of continuity. This was being done at a time when there were no trade paperbacks in the sense we know them today. If you wanted to know where the character you've just started reading came from, you'd have to keep an eye on the reprint titles until they got around to reprinting it.

During [mid February] Marvel released the conclusions of two-parters in FANTASTIC FOUR #26 (05/64) and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #12 (05/64) (which ran a fan letter from Dave Cockrum). More notably, in TALES OF SUSPENSE #53 (05/64) the Watcher was given an origin and, on the cover, Iron Man's name was printed larger than the actual name of the comic. This was a trend that was going to be repeated.

Initially, of the super-hero titles only FANTASTIC FOUR ran a letters' page, even stating explicitly in an early issue that FF outsold all their other titles by such a margin that they assumed that anyone buying any of their super-hero comics must have bought FF first anyway. (From #9: "...you [fans] seem to feel that the FF mag is sort of the headquarters, or clearing house for the others.") In 1963, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN got a letter's page and in the first week of March, AVENGERS #5(05/64) and X-MEN #5(05/64) got their first letters' pages. They'd be followed by SGT. FURY in May. That same week that AVENGERS and X-MEN got letters' pages, Thor's name became larger on the cover of JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #104(05/64) than the series' title.

In the second week of March, TALES OF SUSPENSE #54 (06/64) ran its last suspense story, "Skrang Strikes Tonight!", which makes it the last such generic anthology story Marvel produces until they bring back the format with TOWER OF SHADOWS and CHAMBER OF DARKNESS in 1969, since JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY ran its last one the week before. The Wasp and Watcher back-up features had not been terribly different up to that point. In fact, at first they had been made by having each character narrate an old suspense story script, but TALES TO ASTONISH #56 (06/64) in the first week of March was the last time that method was used for the Wasp; she would star in short stories in the next three issues in stead of narrating them. The Watcher had already made the same change in TS#53. Newly drawn versions of the narration style would be used for the Watcher back-ups in SILVER SURFER beginning in 1968.

This meant that all the comics that still had science fiction/fantasy titles were now super-hero series with a lead of 13-18 pages and a back-up of 5-9 pages. Thus, STRANGE TALES #121 (06/64) began the perhaps overdue practice of giving Dr. Strange a portion of the cover. He had only been mentioned in blurbs since #117 and only ever appeared before on #118. It was just in time for him to guest star in FF#27 that week.

The only titles left that hadn't been renovated (aside from trade dress matters) were the 'teen humor' comics. Beginning in the first week of April, that changed as well. PATSY WALKER #115 (06/64) and MODELING WITH MILLIE #31 (06/64) converted from multiple short stories and pin-ups to 18 page lead stories with five single-page features in each issue. The next week MILLIE THE MODEL #121 (07/64) would do the same and in mid-May PATSY AND HEDY #95 (08/64) would become the last Marvel title to abandon the multi-story anthology format. The switch took half the time the westerns took. Once genuinely humor comics, these titles had been drifting more towards more of a soap opera feel for a while. With the cancellation of KATHY (to make way for DAREDEVIL in February), there really weren't any actual humor comics left at Marvel.

In the second week [of April], the Green Goblin makes his first appearance in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #14 (07/64) where the Hulk guest stars. The X-Men guest star in FANTASTIC FOUR #28 (07/64), where the letters' page mentions plans for a MARVEL ANNUAL that summer. DC comics publishes the 80-page GIANT SUPERBOY ANNUAL #1 (Summer/1964) on Apr. 23rd. In many respects it is much like the 20 DC Annuals which preceded it. However, it is actually the start of a different kind of streak.

Wow, that wasn't nearly as much material as I thought it might be. I only hope that the second half of 1964 can be summarized as neatly, since that's when Marvel's and DC's use of their 'annual' formats change.