More Old Comics!

Recent additions to my comic book collection. It's been nice to add a few books after not being very active in the hobby for several months.

Fantastic Four #29. I now only need #20 to complete my run of the 20s numbering. This is a nice issue featuring the appearance of The Watcher, one of Jack Kirby's most fascinating creations. The ink work during this stretch was by Chic Stone. Some folk love his work, while others are not impressed. I was always generally happy with his inks, but I have always felt that he never really understood what Ben Grimm was all about, nor how to handle inking the character.

Tower Comics was a relatively short-lived company. But they had some of the best talent around, with Wally Wood leading not only their artist stable, but standing in as the man who was putting the company together. Wood had left Marvel after disputes with blowhard Stan Lee and took this opportunity to create some truly amazing superhero comics. I've often wondered what kinds of superhero comic EC might have produced if they'd not been driven out of business by the Comics Code Authority. I reckon Tower Comics is largely the answer to that question.

Wood's covers were absolutely stunning.

Dynamo #4

Tower Comics was a company that tried to enter the comic book marketplace in the 1960s. Encouraged by the success of DC and Marvel with their revived superhero lines, the publishers thought it was a risk worth taking. To that end, they hired some of the finest creators around to write and illustrate the new books they were going to introduce.

Aboard for the the project were folk such as Reed Crandall, Gil Kane, Steve Ditko, Roger Brand, Steve Skeates, Dan Adkins, Len Brown...and in charge of most of the projects, Wally Wood.

Wally Wood was already a comics legend when he was tapped by the owner of Tower Books to create the new line of comics. Because of Wood's reputation, it was no trouble for the company to attract other top talent. It didn't hurt that Wood knew many of the greats from his days at EC Comics.

The flagship title for the new company was T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. It was a clever combination of superheroes, James Bond, and the Man from U.N.C.L.E.. It should have been quite the success, and in in many ways. But neither DC nor Marvel were going to stand around and allow an upstart comics company to intrude on their newly realized resurgence in comics. What followed was one of the earliest uses of flooding the market with product in an effort to squeeze out a new publisher by denying it space on the newsstands and within the very weird and monopolistic world of newsstand distribution. Thus, the project was all but killed off before it could set up a solid foundation.

One of my favorite characters from the company was Dynamo. For a brief time, he had his own comic title, illustrated by Wally Wood. Wood's covers for this book were amazing. I'm not sure they'd have passed unobstructed through the offices at Marvel, but they were effective works and stand the test of time.

My copy of DYNAMO #4. Cover by co-creator Wally Wood, one of the best comic artists ever.