These Monsters Ate My Lunch!

I met up with my pal Rick Fortenberry for lunch today. He brought me two more additions to my comic collection that I'd purchased from another mutual friend, Earl Shaw.

From good old Earl I got an AMAZING ADVENTURES #4 and and STRANGE TALES #90.

I especially love the cover for STRANGE TALES #90. Sometimes I think Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby was constantly trying to outdo one another in creating outrageous monsters for the covers of the various science-fiction and fantasy comics they were writing and illustrating for Stan Lee. This particular monster is just so over-the-top that it's one of my favorites from Jack Kirby. And it's classic Kirby--he excelled at these kinds of giant, blocky, reptilian creatures. Orrgo is one of his best (although it's obvious that Stan Lee named it).

Strange Tales #90 featuring Orrgo! What a great monster! What red-blooded American kid could possibly resist that cover? Not this one!

The issue of AMAZING ADVENTURES gets me closer to completing that set. It's an interesting series to own for the simple reason that technically speaking, it's the very first ongoing Marvel superhero comic. One story in each issue of AMAZING ADVENTURES featured a character called "Dr. Droom" who was a kind of master of the mystic arts. The stories were simple and naive yarns, but for all of that Droom stands out as the very first attempt at an ongoing superhero at the fledgling Marvel Comics. (Keep in mind that they weren't yet calling themselves 'Marvel'.)

Amazing Adventures #4 featured several typical stories from Kirby and company, and one Dr. Droom yarn.

First page of the Dr. Droom story which was relegated to the back of the book in this issue.