Direct Course #2

Flash #121

 “Falling for my trap!" -The Trickster 

The Trickster Strikes Back 

by John Broome, Carmine Infantino & Joe Giella
                         
In the courtyard of a state prison, prisoner James Jesse alias The Trickster, is tasked along with the other inmates to make toys for children. The guards are not aware that inside the model plane he has made is a jet propulsion system using compressed air inside of it. With some protest from the guards, James mounts the model plane and manages to fly it up over the prison wall. One guard takes a shot at him from the guard tower, but misses as the criminal flies out of range.

At Picture News, where Iris West works, they receive the information on The Trickster’s escape. Iris’s boss asks her to go into their archives to find out what they already have on him to make a new story about him. Looking through their file, Iris finds that he was an aerialist. He invented special shoes using compressed air to allow for him to walk on air, so he could not fall from the tight rope. Unsatisfied with being only an aerialist, he turned to crime, using his shoes to rob airplanes in mid-flight. Eventually the Flash caught him, using a pogo stick. As Iris is about to Phone her boyfriend Barry Allen to cancel their date in light of this new story, she receives a call from him who also has to cancel.

Barry Allen must cancel their date plans, for he is secretly the Flash, and he must rush out in search of the escaped Trickster. During his search he finds a robbery already in progress by two random crooks. He grabs their stolen necklace, and brings the crooks to the police station. As the Flash is delivering the crooks, the Trickster appears on the police station roof. He snatches the necklace out of the Flash’s hands using an extended hook.

After dropping the crooks into the police station, the Flash rushes up the side of the building after the Trickster. He leads the Flash across electric power lines, the Flash having to run slower to keep his balance. The Trickster shoots an arrow down behind him, severing the electric line so that the Flash will fall with it and be electrocuted. The Flash uses his speed to build up air pressure to slow his descent and avoid the falling wire. After the Flash gets his bearing, he realizes he’s lost the Trickster.

A news report tells of the Flash’s constant duel over the next several days with the Trickster. The Flash failing to stop him with every encounter, as the Trickster continues his ploy to steal the jewels from robberies already in progress as the Flash stops them. At his apartment, the Flash sits down and tries to figure out where the Trickster’s hideout is, because he knows he can capture him if he does, before he can take off to the air with his special shoes.

The Flash figures out that the Trickster must be hiding out in a toy factory, because with every encounter the Trickster shows up with some new toy-like device to stop the Flash. Speeding from one toy factory to the next, he finds one on the edge of town with a light still glowing in its second story window as dusk approaches.
Rushing instead the factory, the Flash find the Trickster at work. The Flash grabs him and tosses him around until wires and arms start falling apart, only to realize that this Trickster is a dummy. The Trickster looks on while mocking the Flash, hidden behind a door. Just as the Flash realizes what’s going on, the dummy explodes in his hands.

Thinking the Flash dead, Trickster briefly laments the passing of his foe when he suddenly gets tap on his shoulder. It’s the Flash, and he’s still alive. He reveals that just as the dummy exploded, he used his speed to vibrate through a wall of the building, and ran around to another window that he then came back in through. The Flash then grabs the Trickster’s hand and gives him a super-speed whirl, spinning him around and around in the air until he’s too dizzy. Completely baffled, the Trickster complies for the Flash to take him back to prison.

After the news reports that the Flash has caught the Trickster, Barry and Iris meet for a date. As they dance together, Barry has to bow out and rest, for his foot is injured from having to cover  five thousand miles in one day in search of the Trickster as the Flash. He can’t reveal this to Iris who doesn’t know he is the Flash, and she responds accusing him of just being lazy.

Notes/Observations/Thoughts

• The Trickster is a jerk!

• With that out of the way, I just picked this issue at random. It’s the second appearance of the Trickster, who is a bit of an odd villain for the Flash. He’s kind of a very low-key version of the Joker, but for Flash instead of Batman.

• The Trickster is pretty clever despite his kinda dopey-ness. He lures the Flash to his terrain, a high wire in the form of an electrical wire, knowing that the Flash would have to slow down after him to keep his balance. Then when he believes he’s killed him, the Trickster for a moment shows regret at his actions, because the Flash was such a good dueling buddy.

• My favorite part of this story is that news report on what is happening between the Flash and the Trickster is written over a montage of what is happening, whether on purpose or not, it makes that moment feel more cinematic than most silver age stories.

• I also like that the Flash takes a moment to just sit down and think things through, which lead to him figuring out how to find the Trickster.

• The ending is supposed to be humorous, I guess, but it just makes Iris come off as a shrew, which happens a lot in the silver age. It’s not like it’s the character is at fault for being depicted that way, it’s mainly men who are writing the woman character that way, and these days it’s just embarrassing.

____________________________________________________________________

Flash #121 - 2nd story

 “You carry the “ball" and see if you can get past me!" -Bill “Beefy” Lawson

Secret of the Stolen Blueprint 

by John Broome, Carmine Infantino & Murphy Anderson
                         
At his college’s 10 anniversary, Barry Allen runs into his old roommate Pete Forester. After introducing him to his girlfriend, Iris West, Barry learns that his old friend is trying to get the drum up the courage to propose to his girlfriend, Doris Hunt. However, his old rival  Bill “Beefy” Lawson keeps trying to butt in and take her for himself.

Pete tried to get Beefy to stop talking to his girlfriend, when Beefy challenges him to recreate what happened when they played football together long ago, using a balloon as the ball. Successfully recreating an incident from their past makes Pete look like a weak fool in front of Doris’s eyes.

Deciding to help out his friend, Barry changes into the Flash. He uses his super speed to make Pete win through more challenges that Beefy sets up for him, without anybody being able to see him through vibrating so fast. This makes Beefy miss as he attempts to tackle Pete, and he trips on his face.

In his nearby hotel room after the afternoon festivities, Barry awaits for Pete to call him on his phone to tell him about some new scientific development. When he receives the phone call, Pete tells him that the blueprints of his discovery have been stolen by foreign agents. Berry knows this is a job for the Flash, so he tells his friend that he is good friends with the Flash and will contact him at once.

Appearing as both the Flash and Barry simultaneously through the use of super speed at Pete’s lab. As the “three” of them discuss the disappearance of Pete’s blueprints, Beefy enters the room to see if he can lend a hand after he just got done giving a tip to some skin-divers. The Flash figures out the the skin-divers must be the thieves, because he guesses that they used a submarine to reach the country. Too busy to pay attention on their way to the coast, the Flash makes Barry “vanish” and uses his speed force to bring his two friends to the coast with him.

The Flash dives underwater in search of the skin-diving foreign agents as his friends remain on the shore. Reaching the enemies, he kicks at super speed in the water, causing an undertow effect like a ship’s propeller blade, bringing them towards him.

Back on shore, the Flash brings the agents up with him, and Beefy punches one of them out. The Flash uncovers the blueprints just as the police arrive, Beefy telling them that he wants to make sure the Flash gets some of the credit for stopping the thieves. The police tell them that the coast guard has been alerted to find the sub that the agents were heading to.

Pete is feeling so happy that his blueprint he’s been working on for over 10 years have been rescued, that he could finally propose to his girlfriend. The Flash grabs his friend and rushes him over to Doris, unbeknown to Pete, and he pops the question. Doris cheerfully accepts as the two embrace.

The next day, Iris and Barry are having coffee on the balcony of their hotel room. With the college’s Reunion Bulletin in hand, Iris reads that the Flash helped in bringing Pete and Doris together. Iris wonders when the Flash will help Barry propose to her, while Barry wonders what she is thinking.

Notes/Observations/Thoughts

• I didn’t like this one as much as the other story. I do like it when superheroes are forced into the odd social situation, but with this one the Flash seems to make things more complicated for himself more than he should to maintain his secret identity.

• In addition to that, for a story based on a social situation, I think the characters should have more depth to them. All we know about Pete is that he has a girlfriend he wants to propose to, he’s a scientist of some sort which isn’t really explained, and he’s friends with Barry. We get nothing out of his girlfriend Doris. The only one here with more dimensions to him, is Beefy who is a big asshole bully, but still seems to be friends with both Barry and Pete. 

The images, story, and all character names on this page are trademarked DC/Marvel Characters, and used without permission. No infringement is intended.

Direct Course #1

Atom #7

 “Why have you strayed from you regular route?"-Hawkman 

The Case of the Cosmic Camera 

by Gardner Fox, Gil Kane & Murphy Anderson
                         
At a telegraph company station in Ivy Town, they receive a signal that somebody tripped an alarm at the Avalone Factory payroll office. The cops are dispatched and rush up through the building as the robbery is in progress, but fail to find the crooks. They reach the roof where they the criminals were, finding no one when they reach it. With the nearest roof being 60 feet away, and the absence of any kind of helicopter or plan, the police are baffled in how they escaped. So, they decide to ask Ray Palmer, research scientist, to help them figure the mystery out.

The next morning, Ray receives a visit from the chief of police, Baxter, to help them figure out what happened. Ray Palmer theorizes that the crooks escaped the rooftop via helium gas-filled balloons (like Gonzo in The Muppet Movie). Apparently there was a fad in Europe called “balloon jumping” where people would jump over buildings while holding onto balloons. Ray just so happened to be working on a net-trap with helium balloons strapped to it, so he can capture and band some birds. The police chief leaves, as Ray Palmer tells him he’s getting ready to go on a bird-watching date with his girlfriend, Jean Loring.

On their date, Ray uses a doppler radar unit to measure the speed of the birds’ flight, when Jean notices something odd through her binoculars. Before she can alert Ray, a massive earthquake trembles beneath the two of them, causing them to fall to the ground. The shaking suddenly ceases, and Jean reveals that the type of birds they are watching are flying in the wrong migratory direction. They suddenly see more birds flying the wrong way.

Meanwhile, Hawkman is talking to a couple of birds, who tell him that they don’t know why they are being driven to fly in an abnormal way. Hawkman quickly guesses that it has something to do with radiation. He cannot use his spaceship to trace the radiation, because his wife Shayera has taken it back to their planet Thanagar and report to the police chief there. Instead, Hawkman finds some contact lenses that were used in a previous mission of his, that are specially designed to track radiation waves.

Seeing the radiation with his contacts in, Hawkman realizes that this radiation is more rare than the normal kind. A kind which can only be emitted from a Cosmitron, which exists back on his planet Thanagar in a museum. He decides to contact his wife to see if the camera-like device has been stolen.

The Atom (Ray Palmer) is at the Ivy Town police station, trying to help them solve the case of crooks that vanished off the rooftop. An alarm is sprung, and the police rally to go after the criminals along with the Atom. As the police arrive at a building near the coast, they look up to see the criminals escaping just how Ray Palmer figured, by balloons. They hit a searchlight on the men, but one of the crooks shoots it, so the cops can’t see them. The Atom reveals he borrowed a spear-gun, and at a size small enough to do so, plans to ride it up to them.

Shot right up to the crooks, the Atom rides the spear all the way to their balloons. He takes out a small pin, to him as big as a sword, and starts popping the balloons one by one, forcing the criminals to come down over the sea. The last of the three crooks, manages to make it to their getaway boat, before his balloons are popped. The driver of the boat quickly pulls away, and the Atom fails to capture them. Being blown by the wind out towards the sea instead inland, the Atom his grasped by a flying hand.

The hand belongs to Hawkman, who decides to help the Atom capture the crooks that got away. Reaching the boat, they knock them both out and the Atom stays, as Hawkman flies off in search of the Cosmitron. Hawman finds the device, which looks like a camera, on the ground of the coast. Suddenly, a tiny spaceship full of tiny aliens descend over Hawkman, attacking him. They latch on to Hawkman’s wings and use gravity controls to push him down to the ground. The tiny aliens take off, leaving Hawkman unconscious as his head hits the ground hard. After he reawakens, Hawkman goes to the Ivy Town police station to tell Atom what has just happened.

On their spaceship, the tiny aliens reveal that what the Cosmitron does, is that it absorbs the energy of earthquakes. The aliens then use that energy to create a small tri-dimensional replica of earth, and whatever they do to that earth, happens to the real one. To test it, one of the aliens sends a telepathic message to the UN, to tell them that they are now the rulers of earth. If they agree, they are to send up a green flare for them to see, if not, then a red flare. They threaten that if they don’t, the aliens will cause terrible disasters to the planet. The people in the UN vote no, and a red flare is sent up. Dissatisfied, the aliens hold a knife to the earth, and start making a small incision.

Back on earth, Hawkman with the Atom on his shoulder, fly over the damaged area of middle America. We are then told that a long time ago, the tiny aliens are actually from earth. They lived under the surface of earth, in a place called Thale, where a million years ago they created the Cosmitron. They used it many, many times to conquer other planets. Eventually it ran out of power, so they had to return to earth in order to recharge it from the power of the earth’s earthquakes.

Trying to figure out how to approach the Thalens, Hawkaman realizes that he can send the Atom up in a fully operational model that he has, of his Thanagar spaceship. After reaching their ship, the Atom shrinks so small he can travel between the atoms of both ships to board them. Once on the ship, he quickly finds the Cosmitron. He throws it down towards earth, where Hawkman manages to catch it. Unaware that the miniature globe that the Thalens were using, is actually inside the Cosmitron.

The Thalens quickly descend to earth after Hawkman. The Atom battles the beings on top of the Cosmitron, as Hawkman uses his mace to batter their small spaceship. Hawkman captures them all in his hands, before they die plummeting to the ground. The Atom shrinks more to go inside the Cosmitron and stitch up the section of earth that they had made the incision in. Once outside, he takes one of the Thalens’ ray guns and blasts it at the Cosmitron, disabling the whole thing including the duplicate of earth.
As the story wraps up, Ray Palmer and Jean are about to go bird-watching once more, when they are come upon by a man named Carter Hall (who is really Hawkman) along with his wife (who is Shayera). He says that they too enjoy bird-watching and would like to accompany them. They both have an odd feelings about the other, but agree, with Ray predicting that they’ll be seeing a lot more of each other.

Notes/Observations/Thoughts

• In my DC posts, I don't think I'll have more quotes aside from the heading for most of these and just let the stories breathe by themselves. I am also not going to cover them chronologically, as I have with the Marvel ones. I think it's a lot easier with DC to just grab a random issue or storyline, for older stories in particular, than it is to do with Marvel stuff.

• For my first DC synopsis, I decided to pick what felt like a quintessential silver age story. It’s the first time the Atom and Hawkman team up, which is something that will happen quite a lot. There’s something I find oddly comforting about them being friends. It’s not like Marvel, where whenever heroes meet, they always, ALWAYS, have to have some big egostitical throw-down. In here they meet up, hang out, and solve the strange plot they find themselves in.

• Apart from that, it also has the weird plot involving the criminals and their balloons. And then the even stranger plot of the Thalens and their Cosmitron. Which has 3 of the major componets to a silver age story. It has unidentified random criminals, not just some arch super-baddies, and aliens invading at the same time. And weirdness, my favorite.

• I think the idea of the copied earth is kind of interesting. If you think about it a little deeply, it’s almost like they created a voodoo or poppet doll of earth. It uses natural ingredients just like them to this universe, the energy out of earthquakes. Then they take pictures of the earth and from their copy, they start pricking it with a knife instead of a needle.

The images, story, and all character names on this page are trademarked DC/Marvel Characters, and used without permission. No infringement is intended.

Marvel Compass #11

Tales To Astonish #35

 “Now it is time to use another formula of mine..." -Henry Pym

The Return of the Ant-Man 

by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber & Jack Kirby, Inking by Dick Ayers, Letters by John Duffy
                         

After a brief retelling of his origin, we find Henry Pym has decided to restore his shrinking potion. This time instead of throwing it away, he chooses to keep it hidden in a safe in his office. Since his previous adventure, Henry has started to study up on ants, in particular how they communicate. After months of work, he uses this knowledge to create a special helmet devised to communicate with ants.

The same day that Henry has finished the work on his helmet, he receives a top secret project from the US government, to develop a formula to create a gas that makes people immune to radiation (WHAT?!!). It helps that Henry Pym also find this a bit far-fetched “What won’t those government boys ask for next?!” but not by much.

After weeks of work are put into this anti-radiation formula, some reds gets wind of this project. They decide to notify some of their agents in the US to steal the formula for themselves. The agents burst into Henry Pym’s lab with guns drawn. The red agents try to get information out of Pym, but he refuses and tells them that he’s the only one who knows the whole formula, while his assistants each only know part of it. The reds threaten that they will blow the lab up after they have gotten the information they need.

As the agents leave Henry’s office, he notices another agent posted outside his window, so he can’t slip out that way. At least not in his normal form. He suddenly dons his ant helmet and a suit he made, to prevent being wounded by ants. In his Ant-Man garb, he fashions a small contraption out of a rubber band around an ash tray. He takes the shrinking potion out of his safe, drinks it, shrinks, and uses the rubber band contraption to launch himself up to the window ledge. Ant-Man is able to crawl through a small crack in the window to reach the outside, where he lowers a string to climb his way down towards an ant hill.

Inside the ant hill, Ant-Man watches the colony and starts to get a feel for their vibrations. He tries to be stealthy but forgets that the ants can smell him, and the start to rush him. Ant-Man switches his helmet on to attempt to communicate with them. He manages to get most of them to stop, except for a vicious bull ant. Ant-Man lifts the ant up, suddenly realizing that while in his smaller form he pertains his normal human strength, and tosses the ant away. The bull ant returns to retaliate, seizing Ant-Man’s arm between it’s pincers. The pain his reduced due to Ant-Man’s steel mesh suit, and he punches the and out with some judo move. He tunes his helmet in again to the ants’ wavelength, getting them all to follow him.

Outside of the ant hill, Ant-Man is encountered by, what is to him, a massive beetle. He quickly digs a large hole beneath his own feet, and lures the beetle towards it. The beetle falls in and Ant-Man seals it up with dirt. Ant-Man mounts one of the ants under his control, as they all head back towards his lab.

Looking in through his window, Ant-Man sees that the red agents have gathered up all of his assistants tied up inside of his lab. He and his ants slip in through the window crack, and he starts to untie one of his assistant’s ropes. The assistant feels something on his hand, and tries to shake it off, unintentionally knocking Ant-Man off. He is caught by his swarm of ants. Eventually Ant-Man manages to loosen his assistant’s bound hands.

Ant-Man realizes he still needs to deal with the red agents’ guns. He uses his helmet to tell the ants to swarm all over one of the enemies. They comply and begin the sting and bite him all over, forcing the gun from his hand. Once on the floor, the gun’s barrel is infiltrated by more ants producing large amounts of honey inside to jam it up. Swarmed with ants, the red agents all drop their weapons, frantically trying to get the ants off of them. As they do this, Henry Pym’s science team have gotten loose.

While the scientists take care of the situation, Ant-Man mounts an ant to sneak back into his office, where his growth serum is. After bathing in it, he turns back to normal human size, takes off his outfit, and joins the others so they won’t get suspicious. The science team keep the reds bound as they were, until officers will arrive to deal with them. Henry Pym ponders if he’ll ever have to become Ant-Man again, as the shadow of Ant-Man looms behind him on the wall.

Bearings

• Ant-Man will return in the next issue of Tales To Astonish. (These bearings will work better once we’re fully into the Marvel Universe and it’s harder to tell which way is up.)

Notes/Observations/Thoughts

• This was okay, nothing great. I like the adventures of Ant-Man better when he’s outside and in the ant colony, than when he’s dealing with the typical commie villains. If they had focused more on that kind of action, I think Ant-Man’s stories would have been a lot more fun, than what we will get in issues to come.

• Anti-radiation gas. WHAT?!! Wouldn’t this still be a pretty big deal, even in the Marvel Universe where things like Unstable Molecules and Pym Particles and Atlantean technology exist? I can suspend my belief on a great number of things in the Marvel Universe, since I know the history with Kree and the High Evolutionary and Atlantis and visits by the Celestials. And even then there’s all the magic and other dimensions. (I know all of that doesn’t exist yet, but it’s a lot more fun to me of thinking that way.) Maybe there’s leftover technological advances that make some of these things work, that we don’t have access to in our reality. But an anti-radiation gas still seems like a big deal.

• Henry Pym sure gets invested in things rather intensely, I wonder if this type of behavior will have any ramifications later on...

Quotes

“If I could discover what their electronic wavelength is, I could tune in and learn more about them!” -Henry Pym

“Ants! They’re all over me!! Hundreds of them!!” -Red agent

The images, story, and all character names on this page are trademarked Marvel Characters, and used without permission. No infringement is intended.

Marvel Compass #10

Journey Into Mystery #83

 “By the beard of Odin, what have a stumbled onto?!!" -The old man

The Stone Men From Saturn 

by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber & Jack Kirby, Inking by Joe Sinnott, Letters by Artie Simek
                         
On the coast of Norway, a man with a cane is enjoying his vacation from the United States. He is a doctor, and his name is Don Blake. As he is walks around the wilderness, he is unaware of a spacecraft landing silently behind him. The beings leave their craft, to explore the area they have just landed. They appear to be made out of stone, and claim to come from Saturn.

The Stone Men start to pull down trees and leap from tall cliffs without injury, showing off their mighty strength to each other. An old man notices them and runs back to his village. At the village, nobody believes a word he says, but Don Blake overhears him and decides to check it out the next day.

Exploring the area the old man described, Don attempts to spy on the Stone Men quietly. He accidentally steps on a twig. breaking it loud enough to draw the aliens’ attention. They start to chase the doctor, when he loses his cane for his crippled leg, and is forced to hide inside of a nearby cave.

Deep inside the cave, Don searches for another exit. There is one, but a massive boulder is blocking it. Don decides to give up, resting against a slab of stone, waiting for the Stone Men to come get him. As he crouches down in wait, he accidentally triggers a lever on the wall, making it turn around to reveal another chamber.

When Donald Blake enters the chamber, he sees a staff there waiting for him. He picks it up to use as a lever to move the boulder blocking his exit. As he struggles to budge the massive rock, he smacks it against the side of the stone. A blinding transformation of thunder occurs, as doctor Donald Blake starts to transform into the Norse thunder god, Thor. He looks down at an inscription upon the staff, which is now a massive hammer. “Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of... THOR”

As the mighty Thor, he is able to pick the boulder blocking his exit out of the way. Outside, he drops his hammer and ponders on the best way to go about civilization as he is. After a minute of thinking, he turns back into Don Blake, and realizes he must keep holding onto the hammer within a minute or he will revert back to his human form. Turning back into Thor, he starts testing his strength, much like the Stone Men had before. He can split trees in half, call down a raging storm, and turn back into Donald Blake depending on the sequence that his stamps the hammer, which turns back into a staff when he turns human again. Satisfied, Blake goes in search of the invading Stone Men.

While the previous events were happening, a NATO air base has become aware of the invaders’ incoming fleet. They send a squadron of jets up to meet them, but they are frightened away when a huge grey dragon comes out of nowhere. This is a trick by the Stone Men, their ships are able to cast 3D illusions. The NATO men start shooting missiles at the spacecraft to no avail, they are easily stopped by their atomic force fields. Don Blake sees what is happening, transforms into Thor, and flies off.

Landing over a ridge, Thor brings the attack to the Stone Men as they begin to land. They shoot a steel cage down around Thor, but he manages to break out of it. They attempt to shoot Thor, but he manages to knock all of their guns out of their hands when he throws his hammer. They send a giant robot, which Thor smashes apart with one swing of his weapon. In panic the Stone Men begin to flee from earth, back to Saturn, scared that there are more like him.

More NATO forces arrive, curious as to why the aliens all fled. All they see is a man walking away from the scene with a limp leg and a cane.

Bearings

• Thor will appear again in Journey Into Mystery #84

Notes/Observations/Thoughts

• Yay Thor! I like Thor, some people have trouble getting past his dialogue, but I think it’s just part of the Marvel song.

• Thor is a bit middling in the early days, but once Jack Kirby gets ahold of him more firmly, and they start doing Tales of Asgard, I think Thor is the most consistently good series in the 60‘s for Marvel.

Quotes

“I’m helpless without my cane.” -Donald Blake

“Perhaps by using this as a lever, I can move the boulder!” -Donald Blake

“I can feel my body bursting with power-- Power such as I’ve never known!” -Thor

The images, story, and all character names on this page are trademarked Marvel Characters, and used without permission. No infringement is intended.

Marvel Compass #9

Amazing Fantasy #15

 “That's your job!" -Spider-Man

Spider-Man 

by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko, Letters by Artie Simek
                         
An average day in the life of bespectacled teenager Peter Parker, is being woken up for school by his Uncle Ben and Aunt May, who he lives with. He goes to school where he is mocked and made fun of by his fellow students, for being a science geek. His most vocal proponent being high school jock Flash Thompson.

All of that is interrupted when Peter goes to a science exhibit on radioactivity. Unseen by everyone, a small spider descends through one of the experiments and bite Peter on the hand before falling to the floor. Peter suddenly feels very weak and dizzy, a trait he might have developed from his Aunt May, and rushes outside to get some air.

Oblivious to everything else from the odd sensations he is feeling, Peter narrowly avoids getting hit by a car, by leaping up onto the side of a building. Astonished, Peter climbs up to the roof where he manages to crush a steel pipe sticking out of it. Peter realizes that the spider must have given him these powers.

On his way home, Peter sees an ad for whoever can last 3 minutes in the wrestling ring with Crusher Hogan, will be rewarded $100 dollars. At home he discards his glasses and makes a makeshift mask for himself, before rushing back over to the gym. He calls out the challenge to Crusher Hogan who accepts. As Peter outmaneuvers Hogan in the ring, a tv producer looks on extremely impressed. Having beaten Hogan, Peter is offered a spot on Ed Sullivan by the producer. Back at home, Peter works on a better, more flashy costume. He also creates webshooters that come out of his wrists in preparation.

Dressed now in his proper costume, Peter appears on TV as Spider-Man. He wows the audience with his tricks and acrobatics. On his way out of the studio, a man runs past him with an officer chasing him. Spider-Man does nothing to help him, letting the criminal get away. At home, Ben and May give Peter a new microscope.

Spider-Man has many more appearances in the day ahead. On one particular night, Peter is returning home, when he sees a police car outside his home. The officer informs him that his uncle has been shot by a burglar. Running on instinct, Peter goes to his room and dawns the Spider-Man costume.

Spider-Man swings off to the warehouse that the burglar is hiding out in. He surprises the criminal and gets the drop on him, knocking him out. Spider-Man suddenly recognizes the man as the crook he decided not to stop back at the TV studio. He lowers the man down for the police and sneak away. Peter leaves the scene with tears of guilt in his eyes, as he makes his way back through the dark city.

Bearings

• Spider-Man will appear again in Amazing Spider-Man #1 as will the rest of his supporting cast.

Notes/Observations/Thoughts

• So here is Spider-Man! Everybody knows Spider-Man. Spider-Man is good.The origin story isn’t very long, but I don’t think it needs to be. And I think most people already know it. I don’t have a lot to say about the origin story itself, it’s very good and memorable. I do have some thoughts about Spider-Man the character however which I’ll get into next.

• Spider-Man is such a popular, iconic character, and I think one of the reasons this is, is because he sits at the center of the Marvel Universe. While nearly every other hero is fighting some cosmic, mystical, or any other kind of foreign threat, Spider-Man mainly battles criminals just trying to steal money. There is some argument that Daredevil is like this too, but he also has a professional career of being a lawyer, where Peter is just an average teen who is into his science. All of the other heroes do what they do, in order for somebody like Peter to remain in his (mostly) average life. This is why Spider-Man is so popular outside of the Marvel Universe, somebody that readers can relate to. However, inside the Marvel Universe, people usually see him as a menace, or reviled, or at the very least a nuisance. Even Peter Parker himself can’t stand that somebody as annoying as Spider-Man is the most central figure, that he tries to quit so often. This is also why Jonah (a facsimile of Stan Lee) has such a hate-on for him. It’s not him, not his paper, not his astronaut son, but it is this annoying Spider-Man who is the most central character in their reality.

Quotes

“He’s midtown high’s only professional wallflower!” -Liz Allen

“Surprised to see me?” -Spider-Man

The images, story, and all character names on this page are trademarked Marvel Characters, and used without permission. No infringement is intended.

Marvel Compass #8

Incredible Hulk #2

“Why am I locked in here??" -Hulk

The Terror of the Toad Men 

by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Inking by Steve Ditko, Colors by Stan Goldberg, Letters by Art Simek
                         
Wandering aimlessly in a stream of water, the Hulk is come upon by a policeman of a nearby small town. The man starts firing a gun at the Hulk out of fear, with the Hulk chasing his car as he drives away. The man leads him into the small town “Get off the streets! Lock the doors!” The citizens rush into their homes, looking on as the officers of the town fail to subdue the monster. Suddenly, Rick Jones show up to calm down the Hulk.

Meanwhile (after a lengthy flashback to issue #1), in space a ship is heading straight towards earth, it is the ship of the Toad Men. They fire a magnetic grappler at earth, it focuses in on the most brilliant, scientific mind, which is none other than Bruce Banner. They plan to capture him in order to find out how advanced earth’s sciences are.

Equipped with mining gear, Bruce Banner and Rick Jones head off to a cave, after being stopped by General Ross and his daughter Betty. The voice their concerns about the Hulk, before letting them go. Rick and Bruce build an encasement for the Hulk inside the cave, so that the next time Bruce Hulks out,  they can keep him in there where he won’t harm anyone. Suddenly, Rick and Bruce are swept off their feet, and magnetically pulled into a wall of the cave. “Doc, look! In the shadows ahead! Coming towards us! They-- they look like giant human toads!”

Captured in the Toad Men’s magnetic ray guns, they pull Bruce and Rick into their spacecraft, and shoot off back into orbit around earth. The captain of the Toad Men tells them his name is Torrak, he then threatens that if they do not tell him how scientifically advanced humans are, he will us a magnetic repulsion ray to pull entire cities out of earth’s atmosphere. Bruce refuses and after Rick Jones cheers him on, the Toad Men promptly shoot Rick back to earth. Bruce notices that their orbit is approaching the side of earth that the sun isn’t exposed to, and starts to change. The Hulk bursts into the area of the ship the the Toad Men are in. He gets hold of one of their guns and fires it at them, knocking several out and holding the others at bay.

Down on earth, the military base run by General Ross, is ready to launch missile at the spaceship, when Rick appears and tells them to stop, for Bruce is on the ship. Rick is ignored and the military strike the ship in space, bringing it down to earth. The army moves to surround the crashed vessel.

From the destruction, Bruce Banner steps out and the army surrounds him, taking him into custody. In the rest of the ship, the remaining Toad Men dig out a tunnel underground with their guns to escape the army. As they re-emerge they shoot a flare into space, signaling the rest of the attacking fleet.

Imprisoned, Bruce speaks with Rick, who worries what will happen when he turns into the Hulk again. General Ross is suspicious that Bruce Banner is a traitor, so he has him locked up under 24 hour guard. General Ross receives a phone call that there is a massive alien invasion starting to come down across the globe. Every TV set is interrupted by the face of the Toad King, who issues a threat.

On TV, the Toad King tells everyone hat he plans to use his mighty fleet to send the moon out of orbit and crash down into earth, unless everybody surrenders to his forces. General Ross denies them, and they carry out their plan.

Inside his prison, as day falls to night, Bruce Banner changes into the Hulk yet again. He smashes his way out, heading towards the Ross’s house in search of the general. Betty shouts for help when the monster enters, alerting the nearby army headed by General Ross. Ross commands a tank to crash through the wall of his own house to capture the Hulk. Rick Jones runs in to try and stop everyone. He tries to talk the Hulk down, but the monster bats him away.

The whole platoon of men try to tackle the Hulk, but he merely shrugs them off. He runs runs off taking Betty with him as a hostage. Rick figures out the he’s heading for Bruce’s lab and follow them. He tries to talk the Hulk into saving earth from the impending moon crash when the proximity of the moon to the earth triggers an earthquake right under them, knocking everybody out. Night turns back into day, and the Hulk turns back into Bruce Banner.

As Bruce Banner, he realizes he can use his gamma ray gun to try and counteract the Toad Men’s magnetic ray that’s pulling the moon down into the earth. While preparing his gamma machine, the military arrive to take him back into custody, but Rick Jones sprays them all down with a fire hose. With the military distracted, Bruce successfully uses his gamma ray to reverse the pull of the Toad Men’s magnetic field. This sends the entire fleet sprawling through the void of space, and sends the moon back into normal orbit. Bruce is let go of being a suspected traitor, after having saved the world from the terror of the Toad Men.

General Ross tells Betty that he’s suspicious of some connection between Banner and the Hulk “I still feel there’s some connection between him and that ding-blasted Hulk!” The Hulk is last seen imprisoned in the cave that he and Rick built in, while Rick stands guard outside.

Bearings

• Hulk will be seen again in Incredible Hulk #3, as will Rick Jones and General Ross.

• Betty Ross on the other hand, won’t be seen until Incredible Hulk #5 (#4 in flashback only according to my source)

Notes/Observations/Thoughts

• Amidst all of the crazy science, there does seem to be a theme of imprisonment throughout the story. The Hulk crosses paths with a small town, forcing it’s citizens to remain inside their homes, Bruce is imprisoned by both the Toad Men and General Ross. The entire earth is held prisoner by the Toad Men and their magnetic field. The Hulk is imprisoned in the cave that Bruce and Rick set the containment in at the very end. The earth is imprisoned, while Banner is imprisoned, while the Hulk is imprisoned inside of Banner and Banner is imprisoned inside of the Hulk.

• It also lightly touches on living in fear. The public are just as afraid of the Hulk as they are of the Toad Men’s invasion.

• The moon falling into the earth? I know he hasn’t been created yet, but in retrospect, I wonder how The Watcher felt about that.

• A lot of this story is very similar to the Fantastic Four’s second adventure with the Skrulls. An attacking alien invasion, the military out to go after the main characters.

• The Toad Men seem kind of dumb, but they accomplished a lot more than the Skrulls did when they tried to invade in Fantastic Four #2

• Rick Jones is a lot more pitiable in this issue than last. The final panel where he’s keeping Hulk contained is particularly striking.

• Next time in Marvel Compass, we introduce that amazing Peter-guy!

Quotes

“I’ll lead you to safety!" -Rick Jones

“You are powerless against our magnetic ray guns!" -Toad Man

“It might be better if darkness never came!” -Bruce Banner

The images, story, and all character names on this page are trademarked Marvel Characters, and used without permission. No infringement is intended.

Marvel Compass #7

Fantastic Four #5

 “One flip of a switch and they will be mine!" -Doctor Doom 

Prisoners of Doctor Doom 

by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Inks by Joe Sinnott, Colors by Stan Goldberg, Letters by Artie Simek
                         
Inside his fortress, a man encased in metal with a green robe around him places figurines of the Fantastic Four on a board. Next to him are books on demons and sorcery. The man’s name is Doctor Doom, and he claims that the Fantastic Four are nothing more than his pawns. He leaves his castle and flies off in a helicopter.

In the Fantastic Four’s skyscraper headquarters, Johnny is reading The Incredible Hulk comic book. He proclaims that the Hulk reminds him of the Thing, who is sitting right next to him. Thing snatches the comic, and Johnny responds by igniting his hand and burning the comic while Thing is holding it. They start rough housing, until Reed and Sue stop them. All of the lights suddenly go out in the building.

Above their building, Doctor Doom’s helicopter drops a giant net over the entire skyscraper. Johnny tries to burn out of it, surmising that it must be made of asbestos after he fails. Doctor Doom calls out from his shark-faced helicopter, “Fantastic Four!! Heed my words! This is Doctor Doom!!” Reed recognizes the voice as a student he went to college with named Victor Von Doom. He was into magic and tried to contact the nether world using a machine he had made, but it blew up in his face. The last Reed had heard, he was in Tibet. Doctor Doom wants to take Susan as a hostage, so the the rest of the Fantastic Four will do as he says. Sue complies, and joins Doom in his cockpit.

The rest of the Four are gathered up in a cell and pulled up into the back of Doom’s helicopter. Doctor Doom flies them all over to his castle, and releases the Four except for Sue, who he leaves bound. Placing Reed, Johnny and Thing on a metal platform in the middle of his throne room, Doom tells them he has created a time machine. He wants them to go back in time to retrieve Blackbeard’s treasure. He presses a button, sending Reed, Johnny and Thing back in time, before telling Sue that with the gems of Blackbeard’s treasure, he plans to rule the world.

“It worked!! Look! Look where we are!” shouts Johnny as they gather their surroundings. Worried about blending in, Reed spies two pirates arguing over a bundle of clothing they've stolen. The Thing bursts out, making the pirates run in fear of him being a demon. Fitted in the stolen garb, including a fake beard the the Thing wears, the team go to a nearby tavern where they are spotted by some other pirates. The pirates drug the three of them, knocking them all out.

Waking up, Reed, Johnny and the Thing find themselves on a ship. The pirates above plan to make them swab the decks. The Thing break up out of the hull of the ship and starts fighting the men. Johnny and Reed quickly join in, when suddenly their ship is attacked by another. Johnny leaps off of the ship with a shout “Flame on!”

The Human Torch attacks the second ship, burning it’s sails and creating much chaos among its denizens. He flies down into the sea, creating a large smoke screen of steam like he did when they were battling Namor. Mr. Fantastic stretches himself from ship to ship, creating a bridge out of his body for the Thing and the pirates of their ship to run across. The successfully beat the other pirates, and proclaim the Thing as Blackbeard, due to his (fake) beard. The three realize that the legend of Blackbeard must be about him.

Believing Doctor Doom’s intentions for the gems to be dangerous, Reed dumps the gems out and replaces them with chains from the ship. The Thing decides he will remain here in the past where pirates revere him, instead of coming back to the present where he is seen as nothing but a monster “In the twentieth century I’m nothin’ but a monster... a freak!” Suddenly, the Thing gets the pirates, now under his command, to tie up Johnny and Reed into a boat where they can’t interfere with him staying. Just then a twister approaches the ship, destroying the vessel, and sending the group spilling into the sea. After the ensuing chaos subsides, Reed, Johnny and the Thing gather one an island, chest intact, as in the present Doctor Doom presses a button.

An intangible square of light falls over the FF, minus Sue, sending them to the present. After revealing that the gems once belonged to Merlin and have magic properties to them, Doctor Doom opens Blackbeard’s chest to find the waiting chains. While enraged at the group’s con, the Thing rushes and clobbers him sending Doom’s body to split apart. It turns out he’s a robot. From the ceiling, a globe with Doom’s face descends telling them “I am in a hidden room above you!” He locks them in the room that the group is in and starts to drain out all of the oxygen.

As Doom is too busy watching three of the Fantastic Four suffer, he’s forgotten all about Sue. She turns invisible, and finds a switch to short-circuit the machine Doom is using. This opens the room to where the others are, and the Invisible Girl rushes in to rescue them. In order to avoid any booby traps, Mr. Fantastic stretches himself out a barred window to a nearby rock. The Thing uses the leverage to pull the wall out of the side of the building. The come across a moat full of crocodiles. The Human Torch does a trick, by burning to the intensity of atomic heat, to solidify the water so they can all get across. He then surrounds the entire castle in flame, trying to smoke Doom out of his castle. Doctor Doom uses a jet pack to fly out of his castle, with Johnny in pursuit. The Human Torch nearly catches him, but his flame starts to grow too weak making him fall. With Doctor Doom escaped, the rest of the FF race over to find Johnny hanging from a tree branch. Reed promises of both Doom and Namor, “We’ll devote our lives to tracking them down!”

Bearings

• The Fantastic Four will appear again next issue in Fantastic Four #6

• As will Doctor Doom appear again in Fantastic Four #6

Notes/Observations/Thoughts

• First appearance of Doctor Doom, the Fantastic Four’s archenemy.

• Second meta reference in the Marvel Universe, Johnny is reading Incredible Hulk #1.

• Reed plays leader here well, knowing how to tick Doom off in just the right way by giving him false hope in the form of a treasure chest full of chains.

• Each member of the Fantastic Four all get their own moments in this story. Mr. Fantastic cons Doom with the chains, The Human Torch leads the through the moat by using his powers (I don’t know how what he did worked, but if you start trying to bring logic and our reality into the Marvel Universe it starts becoming a much less fun place.) The Invisible Girl rescued them from Doom’s prison, and the Thing clobbered that robot, and smashed their way out of the prison.

• Still much tension between Human Torch and the Thing. It starts getting less serious in a few issues between them. Especially once Alicia shows up.

• Doctor Doom’s plan seems a bit odd, since the Blackbeard’s Merlin’s gems thing doesn't turn into a plot later, despite how much Johnny wants it to when he mentions Namor possibly getting ahold of them. My theory is that Doom just wanted to try out his time machine, and wanted to use somebody else to test it. 

• Next we'll check back in with the Incredible Hulk!

Quotes

“For of all the humans on earth, only I have the power to defeat them!" -Doctor Doom

“I’ll teach ya to compare me to a comic book monster!" -Thing

“Bah!" -Doctor Doom

The images, story, and all character names on this page are trademarked Marvel Characters, and used without permission. No infringement is intended.

Marvel Compass #6

Incredible Hulk #1

 “The whole world's going batty! Even this kookie radio-- it won't play! All it gives out with is static!" -Rick Jones

The Coming of the Hulk 

by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Inks by Paul Reinman, Colors by Stan Goldberg, Letters by Artie Simek
                         
In the middle of the desert at a military testing ground, all preparations are ready to test Bruce Banner’s Gamma bomb. Igor, Banner’s colleague, warns him that he thinks the bomb is too dangerous, and tells him that he should have confided in him his secrets of the Gamma Ray. Just then General Ross bursts into the room, demanding that they start testing the bomb at once. General Ross’s daughter, Betty, assures her father that Bruce knows what he’s doing. Igor tries again to pry information out of Bruce in case he’s made any errors. “I don’t make errors, Igor!”

The countdown begins, and just as it does, Bruce notices a teenager driving a car right through the testing grounds. Bruce tells Igor to delay the countdown, as he races out into the field to save the boy. Igor disobeys Bruce, leaving the countdown as is. The teenager, now parked in his car, tells of how some other kids bet him to sneak onto the testing grounds. Bruce runs towards the car, and leads the teen to a nearby trench for safety. At that moment, a finger triggers the fire button, and the gamma bomb successfully goes off, catching Bruce Banner in it’s wake.

Hours later, Bruce finds himself in the same position, still screaming when he finally snaps out of the shock he is in. He has been moved to an infirmary on the army base where a doctor tells him, “You absorbed the full impact of the Gamma Rays!” The teenager is there as well, who reveals his name as Rick Jones. Rick decides to stay at Banner’s side, since he saved his life. As night falls a change starts coming over Banner, his shirts is torn and his face becomes monstrous, as his muscles enlarge and his skin turns grey. He pushes Rick Jones out of the way and smashes a hole in the wall to escape from. On his way out, soldiers in a jeep come across him too fast to miss. Hitting the monster, the soldiers’ jeep crumbles and the men come spilling out of it. The monster runs to hide, as Rick Jones comes trailing after him.

While searching for the monster, one of the soldiers dub him Hulk, which seems to stick as a name. Hulk stealthily heads towards Bruce Banner’s home quarters on the base, with Rick still following him. Inside Bruce’s cabin, Igor is busy ransacking the place in order to find the Gamma Ray formula of Bruce’s. As Hulk enters, Igor whips out a gun and fires it into Hulk’s shoulder. Not even phasing him, Hulk grabs the gun out of Igor’s hand and smashes it “So! This is what the puny humans fear!" Hulk tosses Igor onto a nearby table, destroying many bottles in the process. One such bottle topples over showing Banner’s Gamma Ray notes taped under it, and Rick quickly grabs it. Hulk sees a picture of Bruce Banner, but cannot remember being him until Rick tells him so. Hulk starts to enrage at this revelation when the sun starts to come out, turning him back into Banner.

The army quickly arrives at the cabin looking for Hulk. The find Igor, who they assume was in league with the Hulk and carry him away. They ask is Bruce or Rick had seen the Hulk, but they deny it. Some of the army men who had seen Hulk claim that he must have been a gorilla, or an escaped circus bear. The army takes Banner’s Gamma formula for safekeeping. Betty shows up worried about Bruce. After she leaves, Bruce broods about turning into the Hulk again.

In the army base’s prison, Igor has a sub-miniature transistor short wave sending set embedded in his thumbnail. He uses it to send a signal behind the Iron Curtain, to tell them about Hulk. The message is sent to a small, ugly man called The Gargoyle. The Gargoyle plans to either imprison Hulk or kill him. He send a call to a sub to fire a rocket to the US. The army’s missile defenses destroy the rocket, but not not before the cap of it lands. The Gargoyle emerges from inside.

Bruce Banner and Rick are driving along in a jeep when night falls, and the transformation begins once again. Hulk destroys the jeep, before he decides to find Betty, who he vaguely remembers, while Rick tries to get him to stop. The Gargoyle looks on from a safe distance. Inside the Ross home, Betty is fretting about Bruce, and General Ross suggests she goes outside to clear her head. Betty strolls outside, when suddenly she comes across Hulk, and faints at the sight of him. Rick tries to get Hulk to put Betty down, when The Gargoyle shows up.

The Gargoyle shoots Hulk and Rick with a gun that dispenses pellets that saps their will. As Gargoyle leads them away, General Ross find his daughter as she reawakens, believing she’s going crazy. She does note that there seemed to be something sad about the Hulk. The Gargoyle who has sapped the will of a truck driver, commands him to a rendezvous where a boat is waiting for him. They take the boat to a waiting sub that fires a jet heading back to behind the Iron Curtain. As they travel, night turns to day and Hulk turns back into Bruce Banner.

After they’ve landed, Gargoyle is infuriated, not knowing where the Hulk is. Rick and Bruce try to bluff their way out of it, but the Gargoyle figures out the Bruce and Hulk are the same person. Gargoyle is confused to why Bruce would want to be a monster, just like him. Showing some sympathy, Bruce says he’ll turn Gargoyle back into a normal human, but if he does Gargoyle will lose is intellect. Gargoyle agrees to the operation, afterwards he speaks angrily at a picture of a communist leader. “It was because of you that I became what I was!” Just as it was ultimately his fault that Bruce has become Hulk. You could easily blame Rick, but it was that spy who didn't delay the countdown when he could have prevented the whole thing.

Not long afterwards, smoke fills the commie base as a rocket prepares to take off. The soldiers find the Gargoyle in his more humanoid form. He pulls a trigger, killing himself and everyone else in the room, as Bruce and Rick take off in the rocket towards America.

Bearings

• 1st appearances of Hulk/Bruce Banner, Rick Jones, Betty Ross and her father General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross. They will all appear again in Incredible Hulk #2.

Notes/Observations/Thoughts

• Yay! Let’s welcome the Incredible Hulk into our roster of characters, along with Rick Jones who will play a very important role in about a decade. We also meet General Ross and his daughter Betty Ross for the first time.

• I thought this was a very good origin story, I like it a little better than The Fantastic Four’s overall. Things seem to work out just a little more logically, at least until the commies show up. The story is completely linear, without any flashbacks, which makes it just a bit more enjoyable to me.

• My favorite line of this story comes from Betty Ross, when she says what I’ll quote her saying below in the quotes section. I love it when characters acknowledge the world that they live in, instead of being in ours. Which also ties in with the top quote I used from Rick.

• Probably reading far too much into it - The quote at the top that I used, I thought fit well sort of encompasses the story as a whole (which is what I’m trying to do with them, inspired by The Wire.) My thoughts on this particular one, is that the “radio” Rick is trying to play is actually a Geiger counter, so all it’s playing is static. When Bruce Banner Hulks out, with this version of the Hulk in particular, it’s like he turns into a static copy of Bruce.

Quotes

“The trouble with you is you’re a milksop! You’ve got no guts!” -General Ross

“Human?? Why should I want to be human?!?” -Hulk

“But today, with the strange, almost supernatural forces all around us, I feel as though we’re on the brink of some fantastic unimaginable adventure!” -Betty Ross

The images, story, and all character names on this page are trademarked Marvel Characters, and used without permission. No infringement is intended.

Marvel Compass #5

Fantastic Four #4

 “I thought he had died long ago!" -Mr. Fantastic

The Coming of Sub-Mariner

by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, inks by Sol Brodsky, Colors by Stan Goldberg, Letters by Artie Simek
                         
Reed, Sue and Ben are in their tower hideout, lamenting the still missing Johnny. Reed points out that it’s Ben’s fault that Johnny quit the team, forcing him to listen to his recap of last issue. Ben flips a table over, before they all depart in the Fantasticar in their separate sections in search of the Human Torch.

On the ground, Sue goes invisible while searching for her brother. She becomes a bit parched, stopping at a soda shop for something to drink. Which she does while invisible, freaking out a nearby youth.

Reed takes a more dramatic approach to finding Johnny. He waits by the side of the road, plucking a teen-ager off of his motorbike. Reed asks if he’s seen Johnny, then puts him down and starts heading towards a field where some youths are playing baseball.

It turns out Johnny is at a garage with some of his friends, working on a car. The Thing successfully finds him there, prepared to fight him Johnny flames on. Knowing Johnny can’t fight with all the gas around, Thing lifts up the car they were working on, and smashes it into the side of a wall. They start going at it, when Thing starts turning back into his human form of Ben Grimm. Human Torch runs off, just as Ben reverts back to his monstrous Thing form.

Johnny reaches the outskirts of The Bowery in Manhattan. He decides he’ll blend in with the rest of the human derelicts that inhabit the area. Hiding in a cheap hotel, where people are sleeping right next to each other in cots, Johnny finds a comic from the 1940‘s featuring Sub-Mariner. Johnny recalls his sister talking about him, “Yeah, just like sis said, he could live underwater, and was as strong as ten men!” Johnny is interrupted by a man who claims there’s a bum around there who is just as strong as Sub-Mariner was supposed to be. He tries to get the bum to show Johnny how strong he is, but the bum is having none of it. Annoyed, the bum bats the man off his feet with his fist. He’s rushed by more men, who he succinctly knocks to the floor. More men come after him with boards and other weaponry, when Johnny ignites his own hand to get them all to stop. Giving the bum a shave with his hot finger, Johnny reveals that the bum is, in fact, Sub-Mariner.

Meanwhile, Reed is still out looking for Johnny. He looks in helicopters and trains with no luck. Invisible Girl searches The Bowery while invisible, but fails to find him, and Johnny fails to see Sue just as he leads Sub-Mariner out of the cheap hotel. Johnny flames on and carries Sub-Mariner over the ocean, where he dunks him down into the sea. Feeling the water all about him, he finally remembers that he is indeed, Namor, the Sub-Mariner. He also remember that he has an undersea kingdom, which swiftly returns to. He finds that it has all been destroyed by radioactivity “The humans did it, unthinkingly, with their accursed atomic tests!” He knows that his people could not have perished due to radioactivity however, and promises to find them one day. Re-emerging from the ocean, Namor sees Johnny waiting at a dock, and declares revenge on the human race for destroying his undersea kingdom.

Back at their headquarters, the rest of The Fantastic Four see Johnny’s flare shooting up from the docks. They race over in the Fantasticar, where Johnny explains to them the situation. Under the sea, Namor finds a giant whale-like creature with legs he calls Giganto, and awakens him using a horn. He leads Giganto towards the coast of New York. New York is quickly evacuated, and the military set up perimeters in preparation for the attack.

The Military fire artillery at Giganto to no avail. Reed encircles the creature with a smoke screen to slow it down. Johnny tries to do anything, but Giganto spouts water out of its blowhole, dowsing Johnny’s flame. Mr. Fantastic stretches his arm out to save him. Namor continues to blow his horn, guiding the monster into many buildings, destroying them all. Thing gets an idea, and goes to a military depot where they strap a nuclear bomb to his back. Thing carries it deep into the opened mouth of Giganto.

Inside Gianto, Thing finds the debris of many eaten vessels over centuries. Thing sets the bomb down and triggers it, when a creature with pincerse that Giganto must have eaten whole, starts attacking Thing. Thing manages to clobber it, and race out of Giganto’s mouth, just in time for the bomb to go off. The blast kills Giganto. Johnny and Reed collect the Thing.

Namor boasts above the three of them that they have still not defeated him, “You haven’t beaten me yet! As long as I have this horn, I can summon countless other sea monsters to attack you!” when using her invisibility, Sue grabs the horn out of Namor’s hand. Namor runs after what to him is his horn floating away and stumbles right into Sue “Well! Here is a prize worth catching!” Namor tells her that he’ll show the humans mercy if she promises to be his bride. Before Sue can decide what to do, the rest of the Fantastic Four show up, to which Namor tells them he’ll have both. He promises to unleash more sea creatures, until the humans are rendered back to living in caves.

Sue says she’ll agree to be his bride if he’ll call off his attack. Namor is appalled at this being some sort of sacrifice, and lashes out at the FF. Johnny flames on and starts encircling the sky faster and faster until he’s whipped up a tornado to suck up Namor and the corpse of Giganto into it. He shifts the tornado over to the deepest part of the sea. Namor loses his horn from the chaos, and is deposited in the ocean’s depths. Down there he vows to return one day, stronger than ever.

Bearings

• The Fantastic Four will appear again next issue in Fantastic Four #5

• First appearance of Namor, the Sub-Mariner since the golden age. He will appear again in Fantastic Four #6

Notes/Observations/Thoughts

• This issue brings my favorite character back into the Marvel Universe, Namor, the Sub-Mariner. The most sure thing about Namor is that he is arrogant and angry. But somewhere in that arrogance and rage is a well defined character, who is not after just world conquest, or riches. There is reason behind his rage. In this story, he has just woken up from about a decade of thinking he was nothing more than a street bum, into realizing that he is a prince of an undersea kingdom that has seemed to have been destroyed by humans in his absence.

• Reed plays leader here when he guilts Ben into searching for Johnny, which ultimately pays off. Reed’s method searching is pretty peculiar, pulling teenagers off their motorbikes, and just sort of wandering around aimlessly for Johnny.

• Sue isn’t much better, after what seems like maybe 10 minutes of searching, she decides to stop and get a soda. She’s much more effective later when she grabs Namor’s mighty horn.

• Points for Thing actually finding Johnny in a logical place, and his near sacrifice to stop Giganto. Points off for his “One-side, woman!” and scaring Johnny off when he first finds him.

• Human Torch saves the day again, although the ending seems a bit rushed with his tornado thing.

• Really love the panels in The Bowery when Johnny is hiding out there. You can feel the dinginess, and almost smell the cheap alcohol.

• Poor Giganto. While Namor has been “asleep” for nearly a decade, Giganto has probably been asleep for centuries, only to be woken up by Namor’s horn and attack the city by his guidance. All to die by a bomb going off inside of it.

Quotes

“You young fool!! Do not feel proud of what you have done!!” 
-Namor

The images, story, and all character names on this page are trademarked Marvel Characters, and used without permission. No infringement is intended.

Marvel Compass #4

Fantastic Four #3

 “If we're a team, we should look like a team" -Invisible Girl 

The Menace of the Miracle Man 

by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Inks by Sol Brodsky, Colors by Stan Goldberg, Letters by Artie Simek  

The latest sensation in the New York of the Marvel Universe is capturing the citizenry’s attention. He is called the Miracle Man, and at this particular show, the Fantastic Four are in attendance. Miracle Man spots them, and calls them out. He proclaims “Next to my power, they are nothing!” At which point, he grows to a huge size, turns his body to a gas form, and then unleashes bolts of lightning. He then challenges the Thing to a test of strength, revealing two large tree stumps, one for Ben to cut through with his hand, and one for himself. It takes Ben all of three hits to smash the stump in two. When it’s the Miracle Man’s turn, he cleaves his stump with only one swipe of his finger through it. Angered, the Thing tries to attack Miracle Man, but his fist bounces right off. The rest of the Fantastic Four hold Ben back, and leave the show. On their way home, Reed contemplates what would happen if Miracle Man turned out to be a criminal. After the success of his show, the Miracle Man is now plotting to strike fear in humanity using the display of a statue outside a movie theatre.

The Fantastic Four reach their headquarters, a large tower in the middle of New York. At home, Johnny decides he’ll see what’s on TV and finds that they’ll be premiering the movie at the theatre. Sue reveals that she has made costumes for them all to wear the cement their roles as crime fighters. On the TV, Johnny notices that the Miracle Man is at the movie premiere, he makes some odd gesture and suddenly the monster display comes to life. It starts attacking everyone. The Fantastic Four call the commissioner, who has received a note from Miracle Man declaring war on the human race, for him to conquer.

The Fantastic Four split up in the Fantasticar in search of Miracle Man. Reed finds the monster, just as it is destroying and robbing a jewelry store. He stretches his body into a net to stop it, but is knocked out when the Miracle Man throws a brick at his head. At the police headquarters the commissioner tells Reed how disappointed he is in him.The Human Torch finds the monster as it is battling the army, trying to destroy their new atomic tank.

Sue and Ben see Johnny’s flame in the sky. They follow it to where he is battling the monster. Before they reach him, the Human Torch manages to burn the monster down to cinders, since it is just made of wood and plaster. The Miracle Man shoots a chemical foam at Johnny, snuffing out his flame. The Thing prepares to retaliate, but the Miracle Man causes the ground beneath Ben’s feet to tremble and swallow him up to his shoulders. The Invisible Girl tells Johnny and Ben that she’ll capture Miracle Man on her own. She sneaks into the back of a truck he has stolen, that carries the atomic tank.

Back at their headquarters, Ben, Johnny and Reed argue over Sue trying to take action by herself. Ben recounts their origin if you’re new. Johnny and Ben get into it for a bit, with the Human Torch storming off. Meanwhile, Sue has followed the Miracle Man to a junkyard full of cars. He plans to hide the atomic tank there. Suddenly, Susan is alerted by a dog who has caught her scent while she’s invisible. The Miracle Man figures out she must be there, and hypnotizes her into revealing herself. Under his spell, the Invisible Girl fires her Fantastic Four flare to summon the others, so that Miracle Man can dispose of them. Ben and Reed see it from the roof, and take off in a helicopter.

Meanwhile, Johnny is at a soda fountain where his friends are annoying him, asking if they can join the Fantastic Four. He sees the flare in the sky, and takes off as his friends beg him to join the group “Where the Human Torch goes, he goes alone!”

Reed and Ben reach the junkyard first, where Miracle Man is pointing a giant key at them. The key transforms into a machine gun that he starts firing and Mr. Fantastic and Thing. Mr. Fantastic rolls up into a rubber ball to bounce fast enough to avoid the bullets. Thing lunges between Reed and the bullets, taking the full brunt of them on his rocky exterior until the gun runs out of ammo. The Miracle Man tries to flee, with Sue in tow, using the atomic tank, when Human Torch finally arrives.

They grab an antique car that happens to be lying around, and chase after the atomic tank. The tank fires back at them, hitting a tire. Mr. Fantastic stretches into a tire to replace it, fitting himself to the spokes. Johnny leaps out of the car, flaming on after the tank. Human Torch burns so brightly that it blinds the Miracle Man, forcing him to stop and get out of the tank. Thing nearly clobbers Miracle Man, when he is stopped by Reed and Johnny. Reed makes Miracle Man take Sue out of her trance or he will sic Thing on him.

Reed has figured out that all off Miracle Man’s “miracles” were actually acts of hypnotism that he used to fool everyone into seeing his tricks. Human Torch’s brightness canceled his powers out by nearly blinding him. Thing can’t get over the fact that the Human Torch was the one who saved them all. This causes Johnny to leave the team. Reed worries about what would happen, should the Human Torch decide to fight against them.

Bearings

• The Fantastic Four will appear again in Fantastic Four #4

• The Miracle Man will appear again in Fantastic Four #138

Notes/Observations/Thoughts

• Impact on the world: Since there are people like the Fantastic Four in the world now, people are ready to see even more impossible things, whether they are real or not.

• It’s funny that Sue, the one who turns invisible, is concerned with their appearances. Maybe she is over-compensating with how tenuous the group seems to be holding. Especially as we see at the end where Johnny, her own brother, leaves. 

• Sue finally does something useful. She trails the Miracle Man to the junkyard, unfortunately she’s caught, but without her the rest of the Fantastic Four would not have shown up. It’s a shame how the rest of the group react to her going after him by herself.

• Thing shows both sides of himself in this issue, he risks his life blocking the bullets from Miracle Man’s machine gun for Reed. However, he also annoys Johnny to such an extent that Johnny leaves the team.

• Reed doesn’t do a whole lot in this issue except getting hit a lot. His leadership does show up at the beginning where he’s already thinking what would happen if the Miracle Man turns against humanity, which he does.

• Human Torch saves the day! And then quits. What an angsty teen-ager.

• The Fantastic Four are now officially superheroes! In the last two issues they were on the run from the military and wearing civilian clothing. With this issue they get their costumes and live in the Baxter Building.

• It’s ironic that the Miracle Man was trying to launch his plan by becoming celebrity, that when he is beaten, it launches the Fantastic Four even more, into their superstardom.

• Next issue brings back one of my favorite characters to the Marvel Universe: Namor, the Sub-Mariner: Marvel’s First Mut... No, Marvel’s first anti-hero.

Quotes

“I ain’t gonna wear this fool outfit!” -Thing

“One Invisible Girl can sometimes accomplish more than a battalion!” -Invisible Girl

“Do as I say, or I’ll turn you over to the Thing!” -Mr. Fantastic

The images, story, and all character names on this page are trademarked Marvel Characters, and used without permission. No infringement is intended.

Marvel Compass #3

Tales To Astonish #27

 “It works! I've done it!!" -Henry Pym

"The Man In the Ant Hill" by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Inks by Dick Ayers, Colors by Stan Goldberg, Letters by Artie Simek
                         

In the splash page opening, like blood flowing through your veins after a wound, a man is being chased by hundreds of ants through their colony.
Having successfully shrunk a chair, a scientist named Henry Pym declares that his formula is ready. He pours a growth serum onto the chair, turning it back to normal size. Henry recalls a science convention months ago, where his peers had mocked him for his wild theories. He tells them he will show them all, and prove to be a better scientist than any of them. While working on his formula, he envisions a world where he can shrink items to reduce shipping costs, and able to shrink an entire army so they will all fit in one plane.
Back in the present, Henry uses the shrinking serum on himself, and begins to shrink. Too fast it turns out, suddenly he is reduced smaller than a blade of grass. He quickly runs out of his lab to the outside. Henry has left the growing serum on a table out of reach, and cannot turn back to normal height without it. As he runs through his lawn some ants working on their ant hill hear his shouting, and run towards him, ready to attack.
Henry Pym outruns the ants and uses their ant hill to escape. Falling through their colony, he lands in a puddle of honey. He struggles with the sticky honey, when an ant spots him. Coming towards Henry, the ant offers a limb which the scientist grabs to pull himself out with. Henry spots a matchstick poking out of the ground, as more ants start to come after him. He throws a pebble, striking the match head.
The fire keeping the ants at bay, Henry climbs up a lasso he has made to the top of a cliff. Up there another ant awaits him, but he manages to knock it down using Judo. He flees the ant colony outside to right next to his building where he spots his enlarging serum on his windowsill. The ants come out and begin to rush him, Henry spots the one that rescued him out of the honey, and signals to the window to it. The ant comprehends, and Henry mounts the ant up the wall of his building to the waiting serum.
Bathed in the serum, Henry grows back to his normal size. He decides to dump what is left of his formulas, so there will be no danger of them being used on an unprepared society. When he sees his science peers again, he tells them that his experiment simply did not work.

Bearings

• Henry Pym will appear again in Tales To Astonish #35

Notes/Observations/Thoughts

• Our second superhero. Not yet, but in his next appearance he will be able to communicate with ants more fully, and begin many new adventures, as Ant-Man. Not many of them are all that good, but we might find something interesting as we go through them. At least they only take up about 8 pages of story.

• I love that of all things, the benefits Henry Pym thinks up for his serum, is a reduced shipping rate. How would those items then get back to normal size?

• A lot of this reminds me of Alice in Wonderland with all the growing and shrinking going on.

• Not a whole lot more to say about this issue. A lot of good shading effects by Ayers in this story. It's a bit of a stealth origin, since I don't think Stan or Jack had in mind turning him into a hero until later, when their hero books started to become successful and decided to bring him back for competition with DC's The Atom.

• I’m not going to talk about the other 2 stories in this issue, just the Marvel Universe related one. This goes for the other anthology titles. I just want to focus on that for these Marvel Compass segments. Maybe somewhere down the line I’ll feature some of those in a different section.

Quotes

“Then, you shall know I’m a greater scientist than any of you!" -Henry Pym

“Nobody *gasp* can even hear my small, weak voice now!" -Henry Pym

The images, story, and all character names on this page are trade marked Marvel Characters, and used without permission. No infringement is intended.