A First Issue

Here's another new acquisition. It's a copy of AMAZING ADVENTURES #1. I got a really good deal on it in an auction on Ebay. The book was very tightly graded and is actually nicer than I had expected it to be on arrival. The first appearance of what is arguably the first superhero of the Marvel Silver Age.

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.

Ditko Madness!

Two more purchases for my Ditko archives:


I landed this book in lower grade just this week. Strange Suspense Stories #20 from Charlton Comics, 1954. I think this is the earliest Steve Ditko comic that I currently own. During the time when he was heavily influenced by Joe Kubert's work, but developing that distinct Ditko style.

This is Amazing Adult Fantasy #14. Don't let the sub-title fool you. The stories were just plain silly, but the comic was illustrated by Steve Ditko from cover to cover. Generally each issue of Amazing Adult Fantasy contained three stories. As I recall, all of the books were drawn by Ditko, including the covers. This title followed the numbering and a name change from Amazing Adventures. One issue later (#15), it would change its title again, dropping the "Adult" to become merely Amazing Fantasy. That was the issue that introduced the Amazing Spider-Man by Steve Ditko. And there was never another issue of Amazing Fantasy, for the book then became The Amazing Spider-Man and the numbering started over with #1.

This is a very young Neil Young. Why is this photo here? Because I've always thought that Neil Young looked like he was drawn by Steve Ditko when Young was...well, young!

Pre-hero Marvels

"Pre-hero Marvels". Now there's a totally esoteric term that only a die-hard comic book fan could decipher.

What it refers to are comic books published by the firm known as Marvel Comics before they started doing super-hero books. Until roughly 1961, with the publication of the FANTASTIC FOUR #1, Marvel was earning its place on the newsstand shelves by putting out science-fiction, fantasy, horror, western, and quasi-romance comics. Superhero comics, which had been very popular some years before, had fallen into the doldrums and Marvel wasn't publishing any superhero titles. That was reserved almost exclusively for DC Comics which was still doing okay with its long-time mainstays Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc.

But calling them "pre-hero Marvels" isn't even quite correct itself. For Marvel Comics wasn't--technically speaking--even called Marvel Comics in the very early 1960s. It had first appeared as a company called Timely Comics, then became Atlas Comics during most of the 1950s. After that, it went through a series of varying corporate names until, finally, settling on Marvel Comics when they returned to publishing superhero tales.

When I was a kid I enjoyed the pre-hero Marvel titles. It wasn't because of the stories, really, which were derivative in nature and which were also pretty much retreads every issue. The stories were largely either straight up monster tales pitting a regular guy against a huge monster who was either supernatural or an alien or a mutant. The regular guy would always defeat the giant monster by the end of the story. Some stories were riffs on old pulp tales that had been copied, the comic book editor fairly sure that the offended writer was either dead or wasn't reading comic books.

So it wasn't the stories themselves, really, that attracted me.

What floored me then, as now, was the artwork. And most of the artwork for those late 50s and very early 60s Marvel monster comics was created almost exclusively by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko with occasional stories being done by the likes of Don Heck and Dick Ayers. All during the early history of Timely/Atlas/Marvel, the editor-in-chief (Stan Lee) would corral one or two artists upon whom he came to depend as the workhorses that kept the company in the black and Lee with gainful employment. This was his main task--making sure his uncle (who owned the company) was happy enough with the bottom line to keep the presses going and Lee's paycheck regular. This was not easy to do, and the company had come close to being closed down several times. It was only Lee's ability to keep an ear to the ground to detect what was popular enough to sell on the stands that provided Marvel with the impetus to remain profitable.

So for a number of years, Marvel's bread-and-butter were the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror titles being produced solidly and with great imagination by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. These books, since they were the ones printed just prior to Marvel's breakout superhero titles, are known today as the "pre-hero Marvels".

Since I loved them as a kid, they satisfy my need to have items of nostalgia around me as I get older. Plus, I think they're good investment quality collectibles. And I've been picking them up as I can over the past months.

Here, then, are two of my recent purchases:

Amazing Adventures #2. This title later went on to become Amazing Adult Fantasy, which went on to become the Amazing Spider-Man.

Amazing Adventures #6. The final Silver Age appearance of Dr. Droom, who was, arguably, Marvel's first superhero.