Anything, Everything, or Nothing At All

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

Leopard v Crocodile!

[Luke Blanchard]

A page back I asked if anyone knew what the first sub-atomic world story was. I still don't know the answer for sure, but apparently an early story of the kind was Ray Cummings's "The Girl in the Golden Atom". The author James Reasoner has a blog post on this here. (I haven't been through the rest of his blog.)

[Luke Blanchard]

I’ve been looking at what Marvel was putting out in the early Silver Age recently, using the Time Platform section at DC Indexes (in its Marvel annex). I think its galleries are complete for the period I examined. Marvel’s output can be followed by cover-dates or on-sale month. I chose on-sale month. Here’s what I’ve found.

 

The 1957 reduction in the size of Marvel’s line is apparent from July 1957. As this point the company’s output can be divided into the categories little kids’ comics, westerns, teen/humour books (e.g. Patsy Walker and Millie the Model), romance titles, war comics, and SF/horror titles. In the two months before the cutback Marvel also published a jungle comic (the last issue of Lorna, Jungle Queen) and a crime/police comic (Tales of Justice).

 

The company’s period of mostly publishing an average of eight issues a month began in October, 1957. All its titles appeared mostly bimonthly until 1960. When the period began its output consisted of one kids’ comic (Homer, the Happy Ghost), four westerns (Kid Colt Outlaw, Gunsmoke Western, Two-Gun Kid and Wyatt Earp), four teen/humour titles (three Patsy titles and Mille the Model), two romance titles, three war titles, and two SF/horror titles (Strange Tales and World of Fantasy).

 

Midway through 1958 Homer, the Happy Ghost, Miss America (a Patsy title) and two of the war comics were dropped. The surviving war title was Battle. Journey into Mystery was revived in July. Strange Worlds, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish began in September.

 

Marvel’s output now consisted of four westerns, three teen/humour titles, two romance titles, one war title, and six SF/horror titles. Strange Worlds and World of Fantasy ended midway through 1959. Their replacements were A Date with Millie (late Life with Millie, then Modelling with Milie) and Kathy. In the second half of the year giant monster-with-dramatic-names covers became the norm on the SF/horror titles, particularly from October. (Marvel’s output for that month also broke the eight issues limit in a way I can’t account for from what was happening in the adjacent months.)

 

In January 1960 Battle and Wyatt Earp ended. Their replacements were revivals of My Girl Pearl (with the heroine, formerly a dumb beauty type, now a dumb teenager) and Rawhide Kid (introducing the version of the Rawhide Kid familiar today). From April the cap on how many issues Marvel could do was apparently raised. Until midway through the next year the new cap seems to have been around ten, although there were some months where Marvel’s output dropped lower. The four SF/horror titles all went mostly monthly in the course of the year (they all skipped Nov./Dec.). I think Kid Colt Outlaw briefly went monthly in the middle of the year.

 

In January 1961 Two-Gun Kid ended. Amazing Adventures (later Amazing Adult Fantasy and then Amazing Fantasy) began in March, as a monthly. (Dr. Droom debuted in the first issue, but was never cover-featured.) Linda Carter, Student Nurse began in June, and Fantastic Four in August. (Marvel put out seventeen issues in August and fifteen in September, but only two in October. This is consistent with the cap now being eleven.)

 

At the start of 1962 Marvel was publishing three bimonthly westerns, five bimonthly teen/humour titles, the bimonthly Linda Carter, Student Nurse (which apparently had comedic, melodrama and romance elements), two bimonthly romance titles, five monthly SF/horror titles, and one bimonthly superhero title. The issues cap was apparently an average of eleven per month into mid 1963.

 

1962

-Incredible Hulk began its run in March, probably replacing Teen-Age Romance on the schedule.

-Spider-Man debuted in the last issue of Amazing Fantasy in June, the same month as Thor, in Journey into Mystery, and Ant-Man, in Tales to Astonish. The Torch’s series in Strange Tales began the month after.

-Marvel’s first annual, Millie the Model Annual #1, also appeared in June (with all-new stories, according to the cover). Strange Tales Annual #1 followed the next month (with all reprints).

-Two-Gun Kid was revived in Aug., probably replacing Amazing Fantasy. This was the introduction of the masked Two-Gun Kid.

-Iron Man debuted in Dec., in Tales of Suspense.

-Amazing Spider-Man began its run in Dec. 1962, probably replacing Linda Carter Student Nurse.

1963

-Sgt. Fury began its run in March, probably replacing Incredible Hulk.

-Dr. Strange debuted in the back of Strange Tales in April.

-Gunsmoke Western and Love Romances ended their runs in May. This took Marvel back down to three bimonthly westerns, and ended its romance line for a while.

-June saw the second Millie and Strange Tales annuals. Strange Tales Annual #2, with its Torch and Spider-Man team-up story, was the first Marvel superhero annual. Fantastic Four Annual #1 and Patsy and Hedy Annual #1 appeared the next month.

-Avengers and X-Men debuted in July. The same month Amazing Spider-Man (permanently) and Modelling with Millie and Patsy Walker (temporarily) went monthly.

-"Tales of Asgard" began in the back of Journey into Mystery in August.

-Iron Man’s second suit of armour debuted in September.

-In October the "The Wonderful Wasp Tells a Tale" series started in Tales to Astonish, and the "Tales of the Watcher" series started in Tales of Suspense.

-Judging by the covers, this was the year in which the Millie and Patsy titles began to move in a more dramatic direction.

 

1964

-Captain America returned in Avengers #4 in January (After a try-out appearance, featuring an impostor, in Aug. 1963 in the Torch’s feature in Strange Tales)

-Daredevil began its run in Feb., probably replacing Kathy.

-The Thing becames the regular co-star of the Torch’s feature in Strange Tales in June.

-The Hulk’s feature was added to Tales to Astonish in July (a Giant-Man/Hulk fight appeared in the previous issue).

-Captain America’s feature was added to Tales of Suspense in August (an Iron Man/Captain America fight appeared in the previous issue).

 

1965

-In Mar. the line-up of the Avengers was changed.

-In May "Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D." replaced the Torch and the Thing feature in Strange Tales, and the Sub-Mariner replaced Giant-Man in Tales to Astonish.

[ClarkKent_DC]

Luke Blanchard said:

Here's a title that might interest Clark.

What's more, the GCD attributes the art on the issue's story to Bernie Krigstein. Apparently, it was reprinted recently in The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics, which the Captain reviewed here. Dell also published a second issue, 87th Precinct #2, with art tentatively attributed by the GCD to Ed Ashe.

What -- ? I've never heard of this! Wow!

[Luke Blanchard]

I don't know much about guns-

 

-but aren't those really tiny bullets?

[Travis Herrick (Modular Mod)]

Maybe its a CO2 BB gun pistol.

[Luke Blanchard]

I don't associate Fawcett with painted covers, but Strange Stories from Another World had them. I particularly like this one and this one. The GCD attributes the covers to Norman Saunders.

[David Warren]

My advice, DO NOT get kidney stones!!!!!!

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

David Warren said:

My advice, DO NOT get kidney stones!!!!!!

I'll second that motion!

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

Check out this local ad.

[Luke Blanchard]

I have a copy of Climax Adventure Comic #18. The lead tale is a "Geminis" story called "A Game of Hide-and Seek".This is set just after the outbreak of WWI. The title character, who doesn't use that name in the story, is Phil Jackson, a former British spy who has fallen out with the agency he worked for. He contacts a gunmaker he knows in Paris, who is subsequently murdered. Jackson believes he has been killed by a professional assassin, and tries to figure out who the killer is in Paris to assassinate and where he will strike from. Meanwhile the assassin tries to murder the gunmaker's daughter, who witnessed his crime, killing a number of other people in the attempt. The little girl manages to reach Jackson, who succeeds in killing the assassin. He learns that the assassin was in fact hired by British intelligence to murder him.

I've never found the story entirely satisfactory, but the art is striking. I wanted to know who drew it, so I looked the issue up at Ausreprints after failing to find the feature at the GCD. It turns out the series was written and drawn by two Spanish creators, Carlos Echevarria and Alfonso Font. Ausreprints has an article on "Geminis" and the careers of its two creators here that includes images of some of the feature's splash pages. (Nudity and adult language appear marginally in the article.)

[Luke Blanchard]

Rat-Man, from Italy

 

Wikipedia has more, including a link to his official website.

[Luke Blanchard]

5 and the Infinite

More on the Spanish original here (the page translates well through Google's translator).