Tales to Astonish 40

The Day That Ant-Man Failed!

by

Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby & Sol Brodsky

As Henry Pym works to invent a new gas mask for the army, an armored truck company has been having problems. Howard Mitchell, owner of Mitchell’s Armored Trucks Co. is livid about it. His armored trucks have been targeted by an individual known only as “The Hijacker.” He steals the trucks full of money and leaves the private guards in a state of confusion, where they don’t remember what happened. As he chews out the latest guards over the latest incident, Mitchell mentions contacting Ant-Man to stop the thief.

Howard Mitchell’s plea is heard. An ant outside his window picks up the words “Ant-Man” on its antennae and then broadcasts it to other nearby ants until the signal travels to Henry Pym’s lab. Henry Pym is alerted by a device on his wrist that picks up the signal. Henry races to a machine in his secret communications room that translates the message to him. He inhales his shrinking gas and enters his tiny catapult.

With the press of a button, Ant-Man launches himself outside. Flung towards a pile of summoned ants outside Howard’s office, Ant-Man’s trajectory is off as he nearly smacks right into the brick wall. The ants shift just in time to cushion Ant-Man before he is seriously injured. Ant-Man mounts one of the ants as it carries him up the side of the building to Howard Mitchell’s window.

Inside, Howard Mitchell is startled, but pleased, to see Ant-Man. He explains the situation to the tiny hero. Ant-Man comes up with a plan. He wants Howard to announce that one of his vehicles will be carrying a huge payroll the next day. This will lure the Hijacker out to stop the truck, where he will find Ant-Man waiting. As the men agree to this plan, Ant-Man takes note of some Inca artifacts decorating Howard Mitchell’s office. Howard explains that he visited Peru the previous year where he spent some time with the natives there. Satisfied, Ant-Man takes off.

The next day, Ant-Man prepares his plan. The guards fill up the armored truck as he appears. They begin to praise his presence, when suddenly Ant-Man is struck ill. He topples over, clutching at his abdomen. Complaining that his appendix will rupture if he isn’t treated, the ants carry his limp form away. The policemen argue if they should cancel the plan, but they already have the truck all loaded up, so they carry on without him.

As the crew drives down a quiet highway route, they find a big moving truck blocking the road. The policemen drive cautiously closer. Suddenly, the back of the truck starts to open. The armored truck is pulled inside by a giant magnet. The back door shuts and out appears the Hijacker. He throws a gas bomb into the armored truck, knocking all of the guards out. Minutes later, the Hijacker is trying to weld open the locked door to the money inside the armored truck.

Suddenly, Ant-Man appears. Ant-Man announces that his sickness was a ruse to trick the Hijacker. Instead of going to the doctor, he had gone to a catapult he had set up in a nearby alley. From there, he launched himself to a rooftop where he had a working model of a tiny plane waiting. From the plane, he tailed the truck until it made its stop on the highway. He suspected the trap there, so he descended onto the truck where he put on his newly invented gas mask to protect himself from the fumes that knocked out the guards.

Angered, the Hijacker attacks Ant-Man. When he fails to grab him, he goes back to opening the armored truck with his blowtorch while Ant-Man hides inside the vehicle. Ant-Man send a signal to the nearby ants as he avoids being caught. He ducks inside the truck’s ignition, so the Hijacker stabs at him with the key. Turning on the ignition causes the area Ant-Man is in to violently vibrate. The vibrations toss him through into the engine block. This makes the Hijacker start honking the horn right in Ant-Man’s tiny ears. Ant-Man disables the horn before he is deafened.

The ants finally arrive. With Ant-Man trapped on the hood of the truck, he braces himself on a windshield wiper. The Hijacker attempts to grab him again, when the ants respond to Ant-Man’s commands. They turn a knob inside the truck to fling the windshield wiper up, so Ant-Man can use the momentum to get flung onto the Hijacker’s mask. Ant-Man rips the Hijacker's mask away, who quickly succumbs to the the fumes of his own bomb.

With the Hijacker defeated, Ant-Man commands the ants to remove his mask entirely. Hijacker is revealed to be Howard Mitchell all along, just as Ant-Man suspected. The police quickly arrive to take him into custody. Ant-Man explains to the officers that he figured it was Howard Mitchell because of the Inca artifacts decorating his office.  He had heard rumors that the Inca in Peru that Howard had visited had created a special vapor that causes memory lapses. Once he comes to and realizes the jig is up, Howard explains further: His company was losing money. If he was the one stealing the money from the trucks, people wouldn't have expected it and if he was the one to ask for Ant-Man’s help, they wouldn't suspect him. While the cops quip about him being "sick", Ant-Man takes off on his ant.

Notes

Ant-Man is very clever apart from being an intelligent scientist. No signifacant character development.

The Hijacker barely comes up again except I think he shows up later in a Marvel team up book. He is largely forgotten as just another Scooby-Doo villain, just like The Protector from awhile back.

Review & Rating

Another fake out ending for the Ant-Man. It’s a little better paced than the Protector story from a few issues ago which this one largely reminds me of. The villain makes a bit more sense, even if his methods are a bit lacking. It shows Henry Pym isn't above lying to everyone, including the police, in order to accomplish his goals.  Seeing Ant-Man get trapped in the hood of a car is a bit novel, and results in some entertaining panels. It was also fun seeing the creators realize how ridiculous Ant-Man’s catapult system is when he nearly kills himself against a wall.

It's still a pretty substandard Ant-Man tale, where the interesting bits are being dragged down by everything else. A boring villain, a lame plot, a troubling resolution. Anyone who reads this story knows that Howard Mitchell is the villain at the same time Ant-Man figures it out when he draws attention to the Incan stuff. It would be better if we just saw that stuff decorating the office without Ant-Man pointing it all out.

The thing with the Inca feels a little bit vicariously racist, but I feel like this one can pass because they never say that they directly gave the bad guy the artifacts, he could have just as well stolen them. The implication of native people having access to this magical vapor is a tad absurd, but this is the Marvel Universe where magic and strange science things exist.

I am placing this one between the Incredible Hulk #2 and Fantastic Four #7. Both odd stories featuring antagonists with very convoluted plots that are beaten in convoluted manners. But which have a few interesting/entertaining moments, like how that issue of Hulk opens up with him stomping around a rural town and the Fantastic Four’s visit to Washington DC in the other. Only to suffer from having a nonsensical plot at the heart of it.

Next Issue: The Human Torch quits the Fantastic Four!

Fantastic Four 11b

The Impossible Man!

by

Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

At a hobo camp, a strange, green, long-faced alien lands amongst the hobos. It claims to be hungry. When he asks the hobos for food, they inform him that the only way to get food is to have cash and the best place to get cash is in a bank. The strange alien takes this information to heart. He morphs into a small rocket jet, flying to the nearest bank he can find. Once inside the bank, he shrinks himself down so he can get under the vault door. A startled banker notices him as he returns to normal size with an audible “pop!” sound. The banker runs out of the room as the alien being takes two large sacks of cash for himself. A group of security guards notice him. After he refuses to drop the money sacks, they open fire. The alien “pops!” again, turning himself bulletproof before they can harm him.

News of this encounter is quickly picked up by local law enforcement. They contact the Fantastic Four, who have more experience in these strange cases. Reed Richards agrees to help, so the team travel out to a restaurant where the alien is. They find it at a table covered in piles of dishes and food. Thing and Reed approach the being and try to explain how things work on this planet regarding money. While devouring the food, the alien explains how things work where he comes from. On his planet of Poppup, his race has developed the ability of automatic evolution. Whenever something threatens to harm the Poppupians, they can morph their bodies to a form that counteracts that danger. He got bored of life on his planet, so he changed into a rocketship and left his home planet to have a vacation on Earth.

The Thing gets so frustrated with the alien’s demeanor that he throws a punch. Before his fist lands, the alien’s face turns into a bed of thorns that pierce Thing’s rocky skin. The Human Torch flames on in reaction to his hurt teammate. As he lunges at the alien, it evolves into a large bubble of water. Torch collides into it, which pops and douses his flame. The alien boasts to Sue that he is too much of a gentleman to hurt a lady. Sue uses her powers of invisibility to distract the alien while Reed sneaks up behind him with a stretched arm. Just as he is about to grab the alien, it morphs into a tiny rocket and flies off towards the exit, unaware that the Invisible Girl is blocking his way. He pops into a stream of flower petals to make it past her and reforms into his regular form.

The alien declares that the Fantastic Four have ruined his meal. He only came to earth to make new friends and enjoy himself, but they have spoiled that. Thing says they should all rush him at once. As the team does, the Impossible Man, as Thing dub him here, turns into a giant, fire-resistant buzzsaw that flings them all away. He continues his path of destruction outside until he sees a group of people startled by him. The Impossible Man suddenly comes to a realization; the people of earth cannot change their form the way his race can. This means he must be the most powerful being on the planet.

Chaos runs wild on the streets of New York as the Impossible Man lets loose on its citizens. He hails a cab, but turns into a frightening monster when the cabbie refuses him a ride. Impossible Man starts driving the cab himself. The Fantastic Four quickly pursue him, flying above in their Fantasticar. Thing leaps down and grabs the back of the cab to stop the alien’s momentum. He attempts to pick Impossible Man up, but fails as he makes his density too strong for the Thing to lift.

Suddenly the National Guard arrive. Reed explains the situation to them. Before they can attack, Impossible Man changes into a bomb set to go off. The soldiers flee in a panic as Reed grabs hold of the alien bomb, using his stretching powers to hurl him into the substratosphere. Impossible Man gives himself wings to glide back down, but the Human Torch creates a fiery spiral in the sky to hypnotize him. The pattern renders him unconscious, so he comes crashing down in front of the FF. Reed and Sue quickly attend to the fallen being to see that he isn’t seriously injured. As they do, the Impossible Man wakes up, excited to find out that they actually care about him. This gives Reed an idea.

Reed figures out how to beat the Impossible Man. He realizes his mannerisms are like a child’s; constantly seeking attention. So, Reed orders the group to completely ignore the alien, no matter how distracting he might be. The plan is quickly announced to the public, some of who think Reed is turning coward. Regardless, the entire population of Earth follows suit. Every prank that the Impossible Man pulls is completely disregarded and soon the being from planet Poppup grows bored of Earth. Swearing never to return, the Impossible Man turns into a rocketship and leaves the planet as the FF look on.

Notes

The first appearance of the Impossible Man, a Poppupian who, like the Skrulls, can change their body into whatever they want.

Another instance of Reed taking charge of the situation and coming up with the ultimate solution.

Fire Power: The Human Torch can make flaming spirals that hypnotize foes.

Review & Rank

This is a really fun issue of the Fantastic Four. One of the most amusing stories so far, with a lot of wacky drawings of the Impossible Man to emphasize just how over the top this new character is. This entire issue in particular, both parts 11a and 11b, seems to be aimed at the child audience.

It’s a pretty entertaining, simple story about a weird, goofy alien who visits Earth. He’s got a very unique design and personality that apes Mr. Mxyzptlk from Superman, but with Stan Lee’s touch of humor. Stan Lee’s writing style is kind of a strange combination of Shakespeare meets Groucho Marx.

I am placing this story below the Puppet Master's 1st appearance. It's not as compelling as that story is and I find it more entertaining than Thor's journey into the future in JIM 86 below it, which is another fairly simple story, but a tad too convoluted for my tastes and the artwork in it isn't as enjoyable.

Next Time - Ant-Man gets trapped in a car.

Fantastic Four 11a

A Visit With the Fantastic Four

by

Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

On a crowded Manhattan sidewalk, children and teenagers wait in line for the latest edition of the Fantastic Four comic. As the real Fantastic Four walk on by, they encounter a group of kids playing “Fantastic Four”. They show off for the children, amusing and bewildering the kids with their presence and advice. When the FF reach the Baxter Building, they run into their mailman, Willie Lumpkin. He has a huge sack of letters all addressed to the Fantastic Four. The Thing uses his strength to take the letters from Willie on one finger. Free of his burden, Willie wonders if he can join the team since he can wiggle his ears real well as a power. Reed jokes that they’ll keep him in mind.

After the Invisible Girl uses her belt beam to open their private elevator, the group ascends to their living quarters. Thing puts the huge sack of mail on the table and the Fantastic Four begin sorting through it. Thing finds a package addressed to him. Hoping it is food, Thing quickly opens it to find a spring loaded boxing glove whack him in the kisser. He starts blaming the Yancy Street Gang and takes his frustration out on his new dumbbell. 

Reed finds a way to cheer his friend up. He’s been working on a new formula to return Thing to his normal human state of Ben Grimm. Thing splashes the serum on and immediately starts looking like his human self. Johnny Storm decides things are getting too mushy for his liking and cuts off to the garage. 

This makes Reed reminisce about his own youth. Reed and Ben became friends when they were roommates in college. Ben was an All-American football star and Reed was a brilliant scientist, receiving all kinds of accolades for his dedication. It wasn’t long before both served the U.S. during World War II. Ben became an ace fighter pilot for the marines over the Pacific Theater of war. Reed, on the other hand, worked underground for the OSS, the entire time dreaming about being with Sue Storm. 

The reminiscing is broken as Sue starts feeling uncomfortable. She still hasn't made up her mind about him or the Sub-Mariner. Reed acquiesces and starts reflecting on their failed mission to space. Reminding everyone of how they got their powers and became the Fantastic Four. How despite Ben’s protests they flew a rocket right into a cosmic storm that downed the rocket and gave them their fantastic power. How after the crash landing, Ben started changing into an orange, rock-hided monster looking Thing. How Johnny spontaneously ignited. How Sue started fading away and Reed saved them by stretching his arm out long enough to signal a passing plane.

Sue breaks the reflecting again as she starts sobbing. Reed wonders what is wrong and Sue explains that she has been getting a lot of hate mail for not contributing enough to the team during their adventures. Reed reassures her by explaining to us that Sue is as important to the team as Abe Lincoln’s mother was important to him. In a much better explanation, Reed describes how she has helped. She helped them fight the Skrulls last year and she rescued them all in their first encounter with Doctor Doom. Ben gets angry with the readers, this causes him to revert back to his rocky form of the Thing.

As Reed and Sue try to comfort Ben, an alarm goes off. It must be from the Human Torch, so they all head to the garage. The source of the alarm seems to be coming from the spaceship they have from their mission on Planet X a few months ago. Inside, they find Johnny next to a birthday cake. They all surprise Sue for remembering her birthday. As they celebrate, Ben looks out of a window to see Willie Lumpkin on his way back with another full sack of mail.

Notes

This is the most 4th wall breaking issue yet. The Fantastic Four read their mail, answer fan questions and celebrate Sue’s birthday.

We learn a number of new things. Reed Richards and Ben Grimm first met in college, where they were roommates. They both served in World War II, Ben as a fighter pilot and Reed as a spy in the OSS. Reed has been pining for Sue since then (which makes things kinda icky if you think about their age difference.)

The events in this story take place roughly a year after the Skrull invasion, so we’ve had over a year of Fantastic Four already in the Marvel Universe. I know Marvel later develops the sliding time scale, but for right now that doesn’t exist and it’s more like the Peanuts or Archie where the characters just don’t age very much. I bring this up now, because this is the first reference to modern day characters having been directly involved in historical events like World War II.

The Reed/Sue/Namor triangle is brought up again as a subplot.

Review & Ranking

This is pretty much a non-story. The Fantastic Four answer fan mail and celebrate Sue’s birthday. We get some interesting back story finally on Reed & Ben. It’s too bad they didn’t have room to explore how the Storms fit into things beyond Reed wanting to be with Sue. It’s has more value to Marvel as a whole for that reason than some of the other stories around this time (Ant-Man, solo Human Torch, upcoming Thor stories for example)

This story mostly works on charm since the story that there is, is rather simple and served as an excuse to answer fan questions about the Fantastic Four. The most grating part is Reed’s explanation of Sue’s importance to the team. He gives this oblivious, sexist diatribe about Abe Lincoln’s mother and how important she was to him, despite a lot of people not knowing who she is. Besides that face palming speech, as Reed goes on the explain after that, Sue has been a major help to the team in specific situations. Besides being the only one of them to best Doctor Doom in their first encounter, she spied on the Miracle Man in #3 to help them defeat him and she helped Johnny defeat the Wizard in Strange Tales. Her infatuation with Namor has stopped him from totally defeating the team and helped get him to betray Doctor Doom on their behalf.

The rank I am giving this issue is above Incredible Hulk #4a which sort of rehashes who the Hulk is and below Tales to Astonish #35 which also reintroduced a main protagonist in the Marvel Universe, Henry Pym/Ant-Man. It makes sense to me to place it between those two.

Next Time: The other half of Fantastic Four #11 as the FF meet the Impossible Man!

Journey into Mystery 89

The Thunder God and the Thug!

by

Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

Thor returns from his latest adventure to the office of doctor Don Blake. A couple of waiting patients notice Thor flying by. Instead of entering his office where Thor's secret identity of Don Blake is likely to be exposed, the thunder god enters a floor above his office. This floor houses a mannequin shop, which happens to be empty. Thor dresses one of the mannequin dummies up like himself and tosses the plastic figure out the window. This tricks the patients into thinking Thor has flown off, while the real thunder god can change back into the persona of Don Blake.

As the day lingers on, Don Blake and his nurse Jane Foster daydream about each other. Don wishes he could marry her, but doesn't think he has a chance with his lame leg. Jane wishes he would show some kind of affection her way, but believes he's too stuffy to be romantic. She proceeds to have daydreams about being a domestic with Thor; polishing his hammer, ironing out his red cape and cutting his long-blonde hair. 

Commotion from outside suddenly breaks Don and Jane's reverie. Mob leader Thug Thatcher is being transported from the local courthouse to a prison. He has been convicted of selling substandard steel to construction companies. As the armored truck turns onto the street just below the building Blake's medical practice is in, another vehicle rams right into it. Thatcher's men start a gunfight with the police in the armored truck. With the police's attention diverted by the gunfire, the gangsters are able to rescue their boss. Just as they are about to tack off, Thug Thatcher gets clipped in the shoulder.

With their boss injured, two of Thug Thatcher's men notice Don Blake's office listed on the mailboxes inside the building they are next to. They proceed to kidnap Don Blake and Jane Foster, taking the doctor with them and leaving the nurse tied up as a hostage if Don refuses to cooperate. Once at Thug Thatcher's hideout, Blake is introduced to the boss and his girlfriend Ruby.

Doctor Blake sucessfully operates on Thug, removing the bullet lodged in his shoulder. One of his men take Blake's cane as he works on Thug. Thug orders his men to take out the doctor, much to Ruby's reproach. Without his cane in hand to turn into Thor, Blake uses a mental link he has with Odin as the men draw their guns. Odin responds by sending down a bolt of lightning to strike the gangster holding Don's cane. The doctor grabs the fallen stick and after a blinding flash of light, Thor appears.

The gangsters look on in amazement at Thor's presence. They can't figure out what happened to the doctor, so Thor explains that he was passing by and rescued him. Thor attacks the entire gang as they move to shoot him. He blows a tablecloth around the whole group and leaves them tied up to a tree. Thug Thatcher and Ruby flee the scene.

Ruby and Thug flee back to Don Blake's office as Thor continues to battle the gangsters. He downs a whole row of trees with his hammer to block their escape route. As Thor waits for the police to arrive, Ruby and Thatcher hold Jane hostage in order to attract Thor's attention. Thatcher orders Thor to drop his hammer when he arrives or he will shoot the girl. Thor complies and then uses a magic vocal trick to make it sound like the place is surrounded by police. This distracts Thatcher long enough for Thor to pick up his hammer.

Thor uses his hammer to knock the gun out of Thatcher's hand. Before he can retrieve it, Thor creates a magic updraft with his hammer that floats Jane Foster safely out of an office window. Thor follows her out of the building as Thatcher starts shooting at him. As a crowd watches on, Thor places Jane safely on a rooftop and goes back to deal with the mob boss.

Thug and Ruby are spotted fleeing from Blake's building. He lures Thor over to a nearby construction site where a tower frame stands. As he ascends the building frame in an elevator car, Ruby pleas with him to return and face his consequences. Thug refuses and starts firing his gun down at Ruby, who is saved as Thor puts himself between her and the bullets.The forming crowd watch as Thor confronts Thug Thatcher. From the ground he shoots a bolts of lightning at the elevator car. Thug tails it across a steel beam that Thor shoots more lightning at, causing some of the substandard steel to melt. On the steel girder, Thug spots a bucket of hot rivets. He threatens to throw them down at the crowd, when the steel beam under his feet starts to buckle and give way.

In freefall, Thug Thatcher is saved by Thor. Thor returns the gangster to the police, who wait beside a frantic Ruby. As the cops take him away, Thor makes a prayer to Odin who grants him his wish. Ruby suddenly forgets all memories of Thug Thatcher as Thor flies off.

Notes

This is the second time I've posted this. I tried to use the Blogger app on my tablet and it seems to have eaten the original post.

New powers of Thor. He can magically throw his voice, create updrafts of wind to make people float. He can mentally contact Odin who will grant his wishes, including making lightning strikes and making people lose some of their memories.

Review & Ranking

This is the worst Thor story I've reviewed so far. The best part is the characterizations of Ruby & Thug Thatcher, whose relationship feels more developed than a lot of the Marvel protagonists so far. It loses some of that with the memory loss ending. It would be better if they kept Ruby around as a supporting character in the series and explore her a bit more, but she and Thug don't make a return for many. many, many years in the future.

I rank this story in between Incredible Hulk #5b (the one with General Fang) and above Tales to Astonish #39 (the one with the Scarlet Beetle) It's about as middling as a Thor story can get, with a bonus of being just a wee bit sexist.

Next Time: The Fantastic Four read the mail!