Johnny Storm, The Human Torch

[Henry R. Kujawa]

Just added a new post to my blog, this one spotlighting the often-maligned JOHNNY STORM, THE HUMAN TORCH series.  The first 5 covers (so far), lovingly restored, in all their 4-color glory.

 

http://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/2011/10/human-torch.html

[Luke Blanchard]

I should have checked; but still, he may not have had time to do a feature, particularly a full issue feature, on an ongoing basis.

 

The Rogers Sunday strip ended mid-way through 1965. Possibly that led to his doing those Cap stories.

[Kirk G]

I know iTs a back-up feature of "tales of the Watcher" from the Silver surfer (1968) initial seven issues...but were there others, earlier?  I'm sure that the "modern series" were redrawn versions of older stories...redressed, updated as it were But how did these early "Tales of the Watcher" varry from "Tales Told by the Wasp" back-ups to the Ant Man/Giant Man feature Tales to Astonish?  Is there a complete catalog listing for these stories somewhere?  (If the Watcher debuts in FF #13, then that would fall about 1963. That leave a window of only five or so years for all these back-up features to appear, correct?

George Tuska did one TALES OF THE WATCHER story (Oct'64), and several episodes of CAPTAIN AMERICA (plot & layouts by Jack Kirby / Oct'65-Feb'66).

[Luke Blanchard]

The first version of "Tales of the Watcher" ran in the back of Tales of Suspense behind Iron Man's feature for a while before Captain America was added to the book. There are accounts of some of the stories at Marvel Genesis.

 

From what I understand, the Watcher and Wasp's tales stories were basically of a piece, except the Watcher was a protagonist in some of his, especially later on. The stories are all catalogued at the Grand Comics Database. The first series of "Tales of the Watcher" appeared in Tales of Suspense ##49-58, the Wasp's tales series appeared in Tales to Astonish ##51-56 (in ##57-58 she instead had solo adventures), and the second Watcher's tales series appeared in Silver Surfer ##1-8 and recycled its stories from various places. (The GCD's pages on the Surfer issues note the source stories. The original version of the Watcher's origin appeared in Tales of Suspense #53.)

[Jeff of Earth-J]

I did a run-down of the "Tales of the Watcher" series last year here:

http://captaincomics.ning.com/forum/topics/tales-of-the-watcher

[Luke Blanchard]

Thanks, Jeff. The GCD says the Marvel Super-Heroes #23 story (which I didn't know about) was based on a story from Amazing Adult Fantasy #12.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

No, thank you. I edited my initial post to reflect the new information.

[Henry R. Kujawa]

Just add another set of "restorations" to my blog. These are all from early-60's issues of STRANGE TALES, featuring "The Human Torch And The Ever-Lovin' Thing". Well, except for this "fantasy" cover, which features Dr. Strange!

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NvlMyfrirTs/TrMIpHdm6QI/AAAAAAAAAN4/O3bi-...

http://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/2011/11/and-ever-lovi...

[Philip Portelli]

Those covers are pretty exciting, probably moreso than the stories!

[Kirk G]

Ironically, I have most all those covers, and the one with Quicksilver and Wanda on the cover....arguably the most valuable and rare one... has some vandalism inside, where panels have been cut out with sissors, and blue ball point pen has accentuated Wanda's, er, naughty bits!

 

Why would Henry have stopped just short of the greatest Torch/thing cover all all, the penultimate final cover the the HUGE Watcher head.... so large, that I didn't even recognise it as him for years and years...I thought it was Kang, to tell you the truth...and then I realized he had a robe on!

[Philip Portelli]

When I got the Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch crossover, I thought that it took place between X-Men #11 and Avengers #16 but they were still with Magneto here. Now I'm wondering if the response from this issue was great enough to convince Stan to spotlight the Twin-betweeners in Avengers instead of having them join the X-Men.

[Kirk G]

Does Henry have ALL of these covers in such pristine condition, or is he linking to other cover scans and just assembling them for our viewing pleasure. (And it IS a guilty pleasure, I assure you.   I used to have dreams of going through old comic boxes, yard sales and stacks of magazines, and coming across a silver age marvel comic that I had never seen before.  This usually was one of the split books, as I was least familiar with them, and frequently, it would be a previously unseen cover from the classic "The Quest" saga in Tales to Astonish.  Must say something about my pysche, or at least my unconscious!)   Does anyone else have dreams like this?

 

PS: Boo to all of you who mock up fake silver age covers just to get our hearts racing...  Last time someone did something like that was back in an early issue of the Jack Kirby Collector, where four Marvelmania posters from the early 1970s were doctored up to look like Jack Kirby covers... until the fake was revealed...(April fools joke, indeed!)

[Henry R. Kujawa]

I think it goes like this...

 

X-MEN #6 / Jul'64 -- "Sub-Mariner Joins The Evil Mutants!"

STRANGE TALES #128 / Jan'65 -- "Quicksilver And The Scarlet Witch!"

X-MEN #11 / May'65 -- "The Triumph Of Magneto!"

AVENGERS #16 / May'65 -- "The Old Order Changeth!"

 

 

"the penultimate final cover"

 

Penultimate means one before the last.  The Watcher story WAS the last one.

 

 

"Does Henry have ALL of these covers in such pristine condition"

 

All of the Torch/Thing covers are scans of my own copies. They're all in pretty BAD shape, and took MANY HOURS of clean-up to make them look as good as they do.

 

The first 5 issues of ST (as with the first 8 FF's I posted) were all scans from someone else's collection, which I then remastered.  But those Torch-Thing covers were mine. They were done sometime earlier, and are the only ones I actually have.  In the late 70's, I got ahold of ST #135-168 as back-issues. It's a shame I didn't go back further with those.

 

At my site, I have a whole section devoted to "fantasy" versions of covers.  No fooling involved, it's made very clear they're "alternate" versions of covers I've put together myself. Many of them involve early-70's "three-sided border" covers, which was one of the worst design decisions they ever made.  (Astonishingly, many DCs from the same period are even worse.)