Time to start the countdown to the site’s sixth anniversary, like I did last time.
That retrospective was supposed to include all the comics that I had inherited before I even learned out to read… but there was one fringe case that I left out.
Capitan America #12 (1973)
Published by: Corno
By all means this one SHOULD have been among the others, but unlike everything else I covered I simply cannot remember reading this one back then.
It is possible that I bought it years later, but my copy is in such a terrible condition… the cover is barely holding on together… that it seems likely it was part of that batch and I simply forgot it.
Tales Of Suspense #90 (1967)
by Stan Lee & Gil Kane
This is a rare case of the Italian reprint having a cover that is less clunky than the original, where Cap had to share the book with Iron Man.
The Italian version translated the title “…and men shall call him traitor!” with “everyone will call him traitor”.
The story begins with Captain America already prisoner of Red Skull.
Cap obviously escapes, following his enemy’s ship.
The money shot of the issue is definitely the Red Skull encasing New York City inside a plastic bubble AND levitating it!!!
That’s great, Stan, but you didn’t say anything about the Red Skull’s “anti-gravity impulse waves” so you could’ve told us how THOSE work.
It’s all kinds of insane that the Red Skull, who I remind you was one of the highest-ranking Nazi officers, has the technology to do THIS… and he only uses it in this story.
Cap has to fight a knock-off Spider-Slayer for a bit…
…and then fights the Red Skull one-on-one. With karate.
But the Red Skull is close enough to the controls to threaten to let the city fall to its death, unless Captain America agrees to serve him for the next 24 hours…
… WHICH HE DOES.
He even has to pledge allegiance in a public address.
Tales Of Suspense #91 (1967)
by Stan Lee & Gil Kane
Even that isn’t enough to make the cover.
Yep, this is a Gil Kane story if I ever saw one.
Red Skull, I don’t want to teach you how to Nazi, but you had Cap swear allegiance for 24 hours… and you completely squander the first 23 hours!?!?
Do you even need a nuclear submarine when you have a flying ship that can lift entire cities?
This panel raises SO many questions.
First, why is the Navy giving the Avengers the exact coordinates of one their nuclear submarines?
In this period the Avengers are a wholly private organization!!!
Second, the Red Skull is well-connected enough to know about this super-secret meeting but not enough to get the coordinates himself?
Third, what do you mean Cap has 60 seconds? You wasted THE ENTIRE 24 HOURS???
Cap, you could have just waited LITERALLY ONE MINUTE, you didn’t HAVE to answer!
You’re not even directly on New York right now, what was the Red Skull going to do if you didn’t answer?
It’s not often that a 60s comic drops some coordinates that are accurate.
Also Captain America didn’t know the Red Skull had a lie detector around, he could have just lied.
You couldn’t just electrocute him there, Red Skull, you HAD to take him to a DIFFERENT lethal trap to execute him? I mean, I’m glad that you didn’t, but come on!!!
Cap manages to escape right in time.
The Red Skull even has a mind-control device to take over the submarine.
Why did you even need to make Cap agree to serve you if you could have mind-controlled him from the start!? And if you had this kind of technology, why couldn’t you use it in the 24 hours that you completely wasted???
Also, why did the Red Skull order the submarine to re-surface? Aren’t these things supposed to fire their nukes from under the sea? That just allows Cap to get inside and stop the launch!!!
Cap doesn’t even do THAT, because he knows exactly how to set the sub’s reactor to cancel our the Red Skull’s mind control.
Sounds legit.
The Red Skull doesn’t even notice that his mind control isn’t working anymore, so he accidentally reveals that Cap is not a traitor.
So now the Red Skull is the one in charge of the world’s most advanced nuclear submarine.
For the next 60 seconds.
Cap, I love you buddy, but sometimes you REALLY need to shut up.
Historical significance: 0/10
The Red Skull’s love for plastic weapons sometimes weirdly pops up.
Personal significance: 0/10
As mentioned I have no recollection of reading this. I could swear that I saw a cartoon based on this, but it’s probably wrong since I think they only adapted Kirby stories.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
On the DC scale it would be pretty tame, but at Marvel this is peak nonsense.
Does it stand the test of time? 2/10
The story makes no sense if you think about it for more than one second. Both Captain America and Red Skull are walking stereotypes with no depth, and the action is quite underwhelming; outside of that shot of the plastic bubble encasing New York, there isn’t a single memorable sequence.
Uncanny X-Men #10 (1965)
by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby
If you’re only familiar with the modern X-Men, it might sound strange to consider that they went to the Savage Land for the first time within the first ten issues.
The X-Men are busy training…
…except Angel, who is captivated by some news about a guy in Antarctica.
Also Cyclops, you keep complaining, but you were ALSO not training!
Since they saw a guy fighting in the cold, they immediately assume he’s a mutant.
Hilariously, not only it will turn out that he’s NOT a mutant, there isn’t any explanation for why he’s not bothered by the cold.
Professor X immediately confirms we’re not dealing with a mutant. Notice he mentions that he’s been contacted by Washington about this: it’s easy to forget given the later years, but the X-Men used to have an official liaison with the authorities.
Few things showcase that the series has yet to find its tone than the fact that Xavier explicitly sends them on a mission on the other side of the planet… because they are bored.
How hard could it be to find one guy in Antarctica?
I would really love to know the reason behind making THIS the subject of an X-Men story; my theory is that Lee&Kirby were just as bored as the heroes and just wanted to write an adventure story.
But it’s a chance for Kirby to go wild. Pun intended.
Marvel Girl is captured, because it’s the 60s and that’s in her contract, but thankfully the real hero of the issue shows up.
This is Ka-Zar, also known as Marvel Tarzan and… no that’s just about what he’s known for.
There WAS a Golden Age Ka-Zar, but they’re completely unrelated.
Ka-Zar is on a very weird Marvel niche, in that he has all the qualifications for being a superhero and he’s had a few serials and miniseries… but he never quite seems to graduate from supporting character.
Despite the fact that he can hold most of the original X-Men on his own!!!
He’s typically more chill than this, though. He’s quite savage in his first appearance, pun intended.
Perhaps to avoid making him sound TOO derivative of Tarzan, he will drop the third person very quickly and start talking normally.
The Savage Land will be more ubiquitous, because why WOULDN’T you use an excuse to have superheroes facing dinosaurs?
Angel also gets captured…
…but he can be excused, because these “savages” have extremely advanced technology to deal with superpowers.
A mistake that got to publishing (and wasn’t corrected in the digital version, thankfully) is Marvel Girl calling Angel “Scott”, which is Cyclops’s name. You can excuse it as a Freudian slip, though.
I understand panicking at the sight of a T-Rex, but you really needed Angel to tell you to try untying HIS ropes!?
She does it after distracting the dinosaur by throwing some rocks. At this point she’s definitely not powerful enough to defeat it on her own, her telekinesis was really limited at the time.
Ka-Zar to the rescue, thanks to a stampede of mammoths!
I could describe the fight, but apparently Ka-Zar is too awesome for words.
The melodrama between those two can get quite unbearable in the early issues… and throughout their entire career, honestly.
And so the X-Men leave, without having really learned anything… except for finding a place where they can return decades later.
Most of the time taking advantage of the climate for wearing less than usual.
Historical significance: 8/10
The Savage Land is a popular destination for superheroes: sooner or later EVERYONE ends up there. Not that I’m complaining, dinosaurs are awesome.
And so is Ka-Zar, sometimes.
Personal significance: 0/10
I have vague recollections of being confused for how different the X-Men look in the various books that I’ve covered last year, so maybe I was also influenced by this? Probably not.
Silver Age-ness: 7/10
As mentioned there is no explanation for why Ka-Zar doesn’t mind the cold, despite being the entire reason why the X-Men show up.
Does it stand the test of time? 4/10
Kirby’s artwork does the heavy lifting, since this is BARELY an X-Men story.
I get the feeling Ka-Zar is mostly a Stan Lee idea, since he does show up in multiple other series he writes when Kirby is not there, and Kirby would draw Ka-Zar only one more time after this.
The Savage Land feels more like a Kirby concept, and he’s able to go all-out with its depiction.
We’ll never know who came up with what idea, obviously. But thank goodness Ka-Zar improved because he’s kind of insufferable in this.
Tales Of Suspense #39 (1963)
by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko
You might remember that Corno loved to place an unrelated old story when they needed to reach the required number of pages. Most of the time they chose pre-Marvel horror stories, but this one was published in the same issue where Iron Man debuts.
It’s the story of a castaway being rescued by Vikings who tell the story of their leader Gundar…
…who cursed them after they tried to rebel.
There is no indication that this is set in the Marvel Universe proper, but I don’t see why not.
But the Vikings finally manage to return home…
…because the guy who shipwrecked on their island is ALSO named Gundar.
Historical significance: 0/10
I don’t expect Thor to meet Gundar anytime soon.
Personal significance: 0/10
I vividly remember some of those brief stories. This is not one of them.
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Not really.
Does it stand the test of time? 6/10
Harmless fluff.
Manhattan is connected to other areas by five major bridges and several smaller ones, and by the Lincoln and Holland tunnels and a number of subway tunnels. The Red Skull just destroyed them all with incalculable loss of life. And this guy needs a nuclear sub?
Incalculable loss of lives.
Spaceship.
Instant antigrav platic bubble.
MIND CONTROL! (you will only eat bratwurst und krauts!)
The best way to explain the silliness of this issue is that the experimental, selfdestructing submarine, is equipped with a RichardsDrive(TM) to go into submarinespace AAAAAAAAARRRRGH
It’s always insane how foolishly villains use incredible technology that is in their hands. I wrote an article five years ago about “The Great Super Star Game” in which the Huntress and Sportsmaster arrange a baseball game between a team of heroes and a team of villains. They had at their disposal a device that could view anywhere they wished, and could pluck people from one place and teleport them to another (which is how they gathered their teams). Why would someone who has that ever be an open super-villain? Those two were only in villainy for the money. This is the ultimate secret theft machine! And they should never be stuck in prison with such a device available to them, either. The possibilities are endless!
Ultimately, the only way to continue reading stories like this is to accept that the machines are mere plot devices and ignore all logic.
Later on there’s the (in)famous scene where Hercules singlehandedly tows Manhattan, which had been moved earlier in the story…Marvel Team-Up #28, it seems.