Tales of Suspense in the 1960s

Jan 29

Jan 29 Tales of Suspense in the 1960s

Like all of Marvel’s other sci-fi anthology books, Tales of Suspense made the shift to superheroes in the 1960s with the introduction of Iron Man in issue #39. There were many hands involved in the creation of Iron Man. Although the concept and design of the character were the work of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the work on the first issue was written by Stan’s brother Larry Lieber with art by Don Heck. Heck would be a primary artist of Iron Man in the pages of Tales to Astonish and holy shit is it an eye sore. In my opinion, Don Heck was one of the worst artists in Marvel stable at the time. His work always looks like shit, especially when compared to others at the time. His terrible work really stands out when compared to others like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. I’m not the only one out there who thinks Heck was terrible, noted science fiction writer Harlan Ellison once said he was the worst artist in comics at the time. I’m inclined to agree. My first encounter with Heck’s work was when I started collecting Marvel’s old Essentials line of black-and-white reprints of older comics and it was always an eyesore to look at Heck’s work without any coloring, but I digress.

Iron Man has also struck me as a character that was short on ideas when he was first created. Stan Lee was coming up with all sorts of different characters at the time and I’d argue that Iron Man was one of his weakest creations. Not just because of Iron Man himself, but for the repetitive melodrama and love triangle that was a staple in nearly every book Stan Lee wrote. It was also the sloppy Don Heck art, the ugly Iron Man design, and a host of uninspiring rogues for the hero to fight.

It took the creative teams of this title seven issues to even come up with something as basic as a supporting case (with Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan, who appeared in issue #45) The villains were all one-note Cold War inspired characters like the Crimson Dynamo (issue #46), the Mandarin (issue #50), the Black Widow (issue #52), and the Unicorn (issue #56). While these characters would go on to be either recurring foes in the pages of Iron Man for years or, in the case of the Black Widow, become an iconic hero, these characters did not become the slightest bit interesting until they were put in the hands of more talented writers. Another milestone from this period of comics was the introduction of Hawkeye the archer in Tales of Suspense #57, who would eventually become a mainstay in the Avengers for years to come. Again, his origins were uninspired, where he was tricked into helping communists because he had a boner for the Black Widow.

Also during this period of time, from issue #49 to 58, Tales of Suspense also included stories about the Watcher, who was previously introduced in Fantastic Four #13. I think this was an attempt to frame the final science fiction stories with a recognizable character until anthology titles like Tales of Suspense shifted into entirely superhero books. By issue #53, Stan Lee took over as the writer for the Iron Man stories not that it helped the quality of the stories.

At the time, Marvel couldn’t just spin off characters into their own titles due to a printing deal that limited the number of books they had to publish. This meant that Iron Man would stay in the pages of Tales of Suspense until 1968 when Marvel was able to strike a new printing deal and expand the number of books they put out per month. In the meantime, the space that was reserved for science fiction stories was soon replaced with Captain America. Marvel brought back the character in issue #4 of the Avengers and unlike the attempt to revive the character in the 1950s, it was a huge hit. Captain America then appeared in Tales of Suspense #58 in a story where the Chameleon tricks Iron Man and Captain America into fighting each other.

In the following issue, Captain America became the regular back-up feature in the book for the rest of its run. Where as Don Heck continue to crap out horrible work in the Iron Man features, Jack Kirby the artist for most of the Captain America stories during this run. Unfortunately, these early Captain America stories are not overly memorable because Stan Lee continues to struggle to create meaningful foes for Cap to fight. They were usually communist inspired or generic criminals. For example issue #61 featured Captain America fighting a character named Sumo because — get this — he was a sumo wrestler, but also is Vietnamese because apparently Stan Lee couldn’t tell the difference between Japan and Vietnam.

Eventually, Stan just started rehashing old Captain America stories. Starting with Captain America’s origins where are more-or-less the same as when they were told in Captain America Comics #1 back in 1941. The only noticable difference was instead of being injected with the super soldier serum, in this story he is “bathed in vita rays” because the Comics Code Authority still had the comic book industry by the nutsack. Issues #64 and 65 were just redrawn version of stories previously told in Captain America Comics #1, namely “Case Number 2” where Captain America and Bucky fought a pair of mind readers named Sando and Omar, and “The Riddle of the Red Skull” which was featured the first appearance of the Red Skull. At least the later was useful as it reintroduced readers to Captain America’s greatest villain… sort of. See, the Red Skull was a Captain America villain back in the day, but he only appeared in a handful of issues in the 40s and 50s, he didn’t really become a major recurring foe of Captain America until the character’s revival in the 1960s.

Issues #66 through 71 featured Captain America stories set during World War II. Over in the Iron Man side of things, there wasn’t really much going on, because I guess Stan was really drawing blanks for new villains for Iron Man to fight. Issue #69 featured the introduction of the Titanium Man another (you guessed it) Soviet themed villain. Stan must have really pat himself on the back for realizing titanium was stronger than iron, but really he was hitting the bottom of the well of creativity in my opinion. By issue #72, Captain America’s stories were brought back to the modern day and were slowly getting better.

In issue #73, Don Heck was finally replaced by Gene Colan (who was drawing under the pseudonym of Adam Austin. Colan was a nice change of pace after Don Heck, but personally, I don’t think his work on Iron Man is that great. I feel like Colan was at his best when he was drawing things more in the realm of fantasy and horror, such as his work on Doctor Strange and Tomb of Dracula. Still, I’ll take Gene Colan over Don Heck any day. I guess another reason why Colan’s work on Iron Man didn’t resonate well with me is because the book was still being written by Stan Lee and Lee just really didn’t know what to do with the character. Lee would finally turn over writing duties of Iron Man to Archie Goodwin, finishing off a rather tepid story about AIM that would ultimately get resolved in the first issue of Iron Man when the hero was given his own series in 1968.

While over on the Captain America side of things, the title continued to be written by Stan Lee and drawn by Jack Kirby. However, I’m thinking Jack Kirby was getting a lot more input in the stories, as he was in the other books he was working on. While these early stories were still not that impressive by comparison, they did introduce a number of iconic characters that would become the bedrock of either the Avengers or Captain America. This included the Avenger’s butler Jarvis (in issue #59), love interests Peggy and Sharon Carter, Batroc the Leaper (all three in issues #75), the Super-Adaptoid (issue #82) and MODOK (issue #93). Also returning in the modern age was the Red Skull (issue #79) who would first wield the Cosmic Cube. Captain America’s run in Tales of Suspense would finish with a story featuring the Black Panther.

Once Marvel was free to publish however many books as they want, all of Marvel’s anthology books were being replaced with new solo books. Tales to Astonish was replaced with Incredible Hulk and Sub-Mariner; Strange Tales was replaced with Doctor Strange and Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD; Journey into Mystery was replaced with Thor. Lastly, Tales of Suspense was replaced by a new Captain America book which continued its numbering from Tales of Suspense, beginning with issue #100.

However, there were to leftover anthology-sized chapters of the on-going Iron Man and Sub-Mariner books. This resulted in the first one-shot of the Marvel age, Iron Man and the Sub-Mariner, which featured these stories before the Iron Man and Sub-Mariner titles were published. I have included this one shot here because this is where it fits best.

As for Tales of Suspense, the title was brought back as a one-shot in 1995, which also featured stories about Iron Man and Captain America. The series was briefly revived in 2017 for five issues (continuing with the series legacy numbering). This time around stories featured Hawkeye and Winter Soldier.