Inspired partially by the news of Stan Lee's 95th birthday, partially by a conversation with my good friend Cath West, I've decided to spend this year re-reading all of Marvel's super-hero comics from the 1960's in chronological order. Most but not all of them were written by Stan Lee himself.
At the beginning of the 1960's Marvel Comics published comics in various genres: science fiction, horror, westerns and romance. Almost all of them were written by Stan Lee, a virtual workhorse who could churn out scripts every day. There were various artists who drew the comics, including Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Gene Colan, Don Heck and Bill Everett. Larry Lieber, Stan's younger brother, wrote and drew "The Rawhide Kid". It seems like talent runs in the family.
Stan Lee had already written super-hero comics in the 1940's, but he'd lost interest in them. He preferred to write emotional comics like "Millie the Model". Incidentally, for years he made fun of "Millie the Model" in the letter pages. I didn't realise until years later that he wrote it himself. Stan had a sense of humour. It's easy to see that he built emotion into his super-hero comics, beginning with the Fantastic Four.
I intend to read the comics at the rate of at least one month per week, at most one month per day, and write a short summary. It'll be easy in early months when there were only one or two comics in a month. By the late 1960's it was 12 comics per month.
I'll use the cover date as shown on the comic covers, even though it's very inaccurate. It's about 10 to 11 weeks ahead of the actual release date, which means Fantastic Four #1 was probably on sale in mid August.
Since there will be a lot of posts on this subject, more than 130, I considered creating a new blog to write about the 1960's Marvel comics. As tempting as it sounds, I'll include them in this blog. After all, most of the comics I shall write about contain characters featured in recent films.
Fantastic Four #1
Title(s): The Fantastic Four
The Fantastic Four meet the Moleman
The Moleman's Secret
Writer: Stan Lee
Artist: Jack Kirby
Villain: Mole Man
In the early days of Marvel comics it was common for stories to be split into three to five parts. Sometimes, as in Fantastic Four #1, the parts were given different titles.
The Fantastic Four received their powers as a result of being bombarded by "cosmic rays", whatever they might be. In 1961 nobody had been into space, so anything was possible. Maybe every Earth astronaut would return with super-powers. In the following years there were repeated space journeys, culminating with the first landing on the Moon in 1969, so we knew that it wouldn't happen. Because of this the Fantastic Four origin has been rewritten several times in the last 50 years. That's unnecessary. We don't have to pick at everything that's inaccurate in the comics. Stan Lee wrote a fantastic story, perfect as it stands.
The Mole Man has the honour of being Marvel's first super-villain. His name is actually spelt as one word in this comic, "Moleman", but this is changed in later stories.
Cosmic Rays are basically broken atoms moving at near light speed. They're highly energized, most typically the nucleus with the electrons stripped away, but also stray electrons and neutrinos in the mix. Stan probably remembered Einstein talking about them in the opening ceremonies of the 1939-40 World's Fair which was held in Queens, New York . (No wonder it was so easy for Steve and Bucky to take the girls there in Captain America, huh?)
ReplyDeleteDamn. I left off the beginning of that sentence. It should have read "My guess is that Stan probably remembered..." It was nothing but speculation, as you point out. But there's a fair chance. It was a big deal at the time, and covered with front page headlines in New York newspapers. I don't think he remembered anything about cosmic rays and what they were, just about Einstein talking about their power & potential. (But i thought you might like to know since you asked, so i tossed in a quickie version)
DeleteYesterday and early today. Yes, i did toggle the Notify Me button on them all. I think. Before i started leaving comments, i ran into a couple old posts with my comments to which you replied, but i hadn't toggled the notification so it took a while to see them. That was a good reminder.
I'm glad you're still here, and that you didn't stop the blogging. I've been missing them and this weekend was the first time in ages that i've spent time on one. Yours was the first place i headed. Mostly i've been jumping around on the list, looking at whatever caught my attention. And sometimes looking for particular titles to see what you had to say about them. I jotted down a few titles that i thought were "missing" from list.
For example - have you seen The High Crusade? I wouldn't call it an adaptation of the Poul Anderson novel of the same name. That was just an inspirational launch point. The film is a comedy with Rick Overton and John Rhyss Davies. Knights heading out on the Crusades accidentally capture a UFO. Things escalate.
Thanks and Sorry, no new blogging since Blogger broke my habit. I'm still posting regularly, if not daily, but just on my weird little game world i've been building for the last few years.
Damn, that sounds rugged. Yeah - "Lung Infection" is a symptom, not a diagnosed cause. I'll be popping back in, hopefully fairly regularly, and will check out the Hospital posts to learn more.
I've been going through my own Much more minor medical things. Happily, no more lung issues since the pulmonary emboli almost a decade back. But the eyes were going until i recently got cataract surgery. Routine crap really, but losing the ability to see things like what i'm writing was pretty damned disruptive for a couple months. Now i've got prescription glasses for computer distance and can finally work again.
If i can herd my wandering brain back around to it and scrape off all the inertia.
And maybe rebuild some blog reading habits at the same time.
I became a "serious" film fan in 2003, when I bought my first DVD player. I'd watched films all my life, mostly on television, but only casually. Even when I bought my first VCR in 1997 I didn't take films seriously. It was the quality jump to DVD that made me say Wow! But I still didn't start visiting the cinema regularly until 2013.
DeleteI should have started my blog in 2003. That would have given a better overview of what I've watched. It was a spontaneous decision to start blogging in 2010. I went to see the recently restored version of "Metropolis" in England's oldest cinema (very appropriate!) and I was so overwhelmed by the film and the atmosphere in the cinema that I felt the need to write about it. So I sat down and started a blog in the middle of the night. And 13 years later I'm still here!
Blogging is fun, even in the dry periods when I have writer's block or I see that my latest post has got hardly any readers. Try it again. It's a good way for a hermit to express himself.