I can’t remember the first comic I ever read or owned, whether it was Marvel, Dell/Gold Key, Charlton, or Classics Illustrated. To be sure, it wasn’t DC, not even when Burt Ward and Adam West ruled the television waves.
Memories twigged when I recently saw a good/very good copy of Marvel Tales 1 from 1964 offered by an online dealer for US$235. It’s one of a few issues that stand out over time, changing interests and the reading of thousands of comic books. It’s a book containing the reprints of six origin stories from about two years previous.
If anything, it was a marketing masterpiece by Marvel, offering the origin stories of its top characters at the time, including Spider-Man and Thor. Nothing sold better than sizzle and allowed people, if not kids, a chance to catch up.
I always had a soft spot for Marvel’s reprint anthologies, including Marvel Tales, Fantasy Masterpieces and Collectors’ Item Classics. Just to be sure, it’s not the Marvel Tales series of 1949. But knowing what I know of Marvel, the title was probably used again to protect its copyright hold on the name.
Nevertheless, those anthologies containing reprints were like opening a history book for me. Being a kid then, I had no idea that in the real world, those reprints would become part of the battle for royalties and creative ownership between the artists and the publishers that continued for decades.
Nevertheless, my coverless Marvel Tales 1, of which I have no recall as to how it came into my possession, with all those origin stories, captured my imagination that, I would say, hasn’t been snagged by another book. Sure, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series runs through my veins, mixing in with Al Bester’s science fiction short stories. Conan and Doc Savage pulps are also in those vascular tubes, along with the art and storytelling of Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and many others.
I repeatedly read the coverless 25-cent masterpiece of artistic storytelling that somehow appeared in my life from somewhere. But the story of the birth of Spider-Man from some unknown, obscure title, touting that great responsibility comes with great power, made the 10-year-old me truly believe the world would be different if LBJ and Khrushchev had read the tale. But wait, there’s more! Here’s proof that the Incredible Hulk appeared in a comic book before the Tales to Astonish issues I bought at the variety store at the corner of Oakwood Avenue and Rogers Road in Toronto.
Whoa.
Iron Man, Sgt. Fury and the mediocre Giant Man were enjoyable reads. However, learning about the origin story of an ordinary person with a disability who became Thor, a character I already loved, in a book called Journey Into Mystery, while being chased by rock monsters from Saturn opened my eyes to the rich history of comic books that I knew very little about, and the beginnings of a simple understanding of perseverance.
Other anthologies, like Collectors’ Item Classics, offered early Fantastic Four, Iron Man, and Dr. Strange. What a great way to fill in the holes in my small off-the-rack collection.
But it wasn’t until I read my first issue of Fantasy Masterpieces that I realized the history of comics goes back quite a long way, offering evidence of something called the Golden Age of Comics, where Captain America, Sub-Mariner and a different Human Torch existed. A different Human Torch? The same Cap and Subby? And Kirby’s bad guys all seemed to have these protruding lower jaws. And who’s this guy, Alex Schomburg? Wait, is the Red Skull from the 1940s? Everyone knew Bat Man, Superman, and Wonder Woman were from the ‘40s, but Marvel?
I missed the first two issues of Fantasy Masterpieces and the commotion around Fin Fang Foom (I still don’t get a literary buzz about it), but I was mesmerized when the Golden Age Cap, Subby, and Torch stories appeared.
I waited every month for a reprint book to appear at one of the local convenience stores in my Toronto neighbourhood, or my dad would bring copies home from a Queen Street West shop. These books offered a key to the past I was not part of because of age.
And one day, a one-shot Marvel Super-Heroes appeared in 1966. Who is this Daredevil in a yellow costume? And I didn’t grasp the publishing and comic storytelling significance of the epic two-part Human Torch and Sub-Mariner battle from the Golden Age that began in Marvel Mystery Comics 8 from 1940, that of being placed in New York City rather than a made-up Metropolis or Gotham City. I enjoyed every panel despite Sub-Mariner’s simple dialogue, which seemed limited to “Bah!” Or at least that’s my memory of it.
It was the first peak of the cover of Fantasy Masterpieces 9, released in 1967, that widened my eyes. This reimaging of Marvel Comics 1, of a flaming android inside an oversized test tube, was majestic. The new cover art by Gil Kane, inked by Frank Giacoia, depicted an engulfed Human Torch from 1939 inside an oversized glass laboratory container. The cover throw promised the origin tale of the original Human Torch. And there were three short sci-fi stories along with the superheroes. It was a joy to read and reread that issue.
That era of innocence of reading comics, which in many ways was low-grade science fiction or fantasy, has passed. Hopefully, there is a semblance of innocence in the current age of comics that hasn’t been completely engulfed by the current collectors’ market.