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morganminstrelFirst, a bit of history.
Everyone knows the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Spider-man, all the Marvel superheroes. But before the first issue of FF was published in 1962, Marvel Comics had had a rather spotty publishing reputation. Known as Timely in the 1940s, the publisher had been the home of such heroes as the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner and Captain America. By the late 40s/early 50s, though, sales had dried up and young editor Stan Lee (nephew of publisher and owner Martin Goodman) was forced to shut their doors and lay off all the staff. By the mid to late 50s, Goodman had apparently seen there was more money to be made (thanks to the success of EC comics, among others), just not in superheroes. So, Stan approached artists like Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby about coming back to draw stories in such magazines as "Tales of Suspense" and "Journey into Mystery," under the "Atlas" imprint. (Generally speaking. The comics were mostly published without imprints on covers, but "Atlas" is a good catch-all.) These weren't superhero tales, though--they were science fiction stories (well, as close to SF as the comics would get at the time--alien invasions and such), code approved "horror" and, most importantly, tales of monsters with names like Fin Fang Foom and Gorgilla. These stories were not always the best, and there's no question that the scripts were churned out as fast as Stan could write. But the art and especially the monster designs were pretty extraordinary.
Many of the stories laid the ground for the explosion that would come with Stan and Jack's Fantastic Four, and many have been reprinted. But there are still 39 of Jack Kirby monster/sf stories from Marvel that have not been reprinted.....and here are almost all of them!
I've been reading through these for the past few days and, yeah, some of them aren't the best. But there's something to enjoy in each and every story and some of them are quite good indeed! (I also enjoyed seeing the hand-lettered blurbs for the "new comic" Fantastic Four and "What is the Hulk? The Hulk is coming!" Just fun.
So, enjoy! Great art, often silly stories...what more could one ask for?
Everyone knows the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Spider-man, all the Marvel superheroes. But before the first issue of FF was published in 1962, Marvel Comics had had a rather spotty publishing reputation. Known as Timely in the 1940s, the publisher had been the home of such heroes as the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner and Captain America. By the late 40s/early 50s, though, sales had dried up and young editor Stan Lee (nephew of publisher and owner Martin Goodman) was forced to shut their doors and lay off all the staff. By the mid to late 50s, Goodman had apparently seen there was more money to be made (thanks to the success of EC comics, among others), just not in superheroes. So, Stan approached artists like Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby about coming back to draw stories in such magazines as "Tales of Suspense" and "Journey into Mystery," under the "Atlas" imprint. (Generally speaking. The comics were mostly published without imprints on covers, but "Atlas" is a good catch-all.) These weren't superhero tales, though--they were science fiction stories (well, as close to SF as the comics would get at the time--alien invasions and such), code approved "horror" and, most importantly, tales of monsters with names like Fin Fang Foom and Gorgilla. These stories were not always the best, and there's no question that the scripts were churned out as fast as Stan could write. But the art and especially the monster designs were pretty extraordinary.
Many of the stories laid the ground for the explosion that would come with Stan and Jack's Fantastic Four, and many have been reprinted. But there are still 39 of Jack Kirby monster/sf stories from Marvel that have not been reprinted.....and here are almost all of them!
I've been reading through these for the past few days and, yeah, some of them aren't the best. But there's something to enjoy in each and every story and some of them are quite good indeed! (I also enjoyed seeing the hand-lettered blurbs for the "new comic" Fantastic Four and "What is the Hulk? The Hulk is coming!" Just fun.
So, enjoy! Great art, often silly stories...what more could one ask for?
