Journey into Mystery 83

The Stonemen from Saturn!

In Norway an American doctor with a bad leg and a cane named Donald Blake is on vacation. While admiring the beautiful countryside, he fails to notice a red UFO landing in the distance behind him. As he heads back to town, the spacecraft opens and some strange Stonemen emerge, looking like a mix between the Thing and the Maoi statues of Easter Island. They run some tests to prove they are stronger in this atmosphere compared to their own on Saturn. An old man spies the beings as they then test out their ray guns. With success they then declare their plan to conquer the planet.

The old man races back undetected to a nearby village. He warns the townspeople of what he saw, but nobody believes him. Except for Don Blake. He goes to investigate. Following some odd footprints, Blake quickly discovers the stone aliens and they quickly become aware of him!

Stumbling over a branch, Don Blake accidentally snaps it loud enough to reach the aliens's ears. The Stone Men chase the lame doctor up a hill. He trips over a rock and loses his cane to the ground. Crawling up the gravel, Blake discovers a cave to hide in. He tries to find another exit, but a boulder blocks his path. With no way out, Donald Blake quickly sinks into despair.

In his desperation, Blake accidentally triggers a lever on the cave wall. It activates a door in the wall that reveals a secret chamber within. Don goes inside where he finds an ancient cane lying on it's side on a raised part of the ground where sunlight can hit it. Don picks it up and decides he'll use it to pry that boulder out of the way.

As Don prepares to move the boulder, he whacks the cane against the stone when with a flash of lightning he and the cane have transformed. No longer stands the weak, lame doctor. In his stead stands the power and strength of the gold-tressed Norse thunder god, the mighty Thor. In his hand his enchanted hammer Mjolnir takes the place of the cane with it's inscription...

Now as the god Thor, he is able to lift the boulder blocking his exit. Outside he tests his skills and abilities. If he lets go of the hammer for more than 60 seconds, he reverts back to Don Blake. Whenever he throws his hammer it will always come back to him. He can split trees in half with it. If he taps the ground twice, he summons a mighty storm. If he taps it 3 times, the storm ends. And if he taps it just once he turns back into Don Blake. He vows to use this power to get rid of the Stone Men.

At a nearby NATO air base, an incoming fleet is being monitored. They send out a unit to deal with the threat, who is then quickly dispatched by the Stone Men's advanced technology. They can make 3D illusions, such as a giant dragon appearing in the sky as if it were real. The NATO military fires rockets at the spacecrafts, but they are all deflected by their powerful force fields. Witnessing all of this, Don changes into Thor who swings his hammer around to fly off and meet the enemy head on.

Thor lands in the middle of a field surrounded by Stone Men. He bats them all back, encircling himself with Mjolnir. They bring a steel cage down on the thunder god, but Thor is stronger than steel bars. When Thor knocks all of their weapons out of their hand, the Stone Men summon a giant robot called the Mechano-Monster. One powerful blow of Mjolnir annihilates the robot.

With the Mechano-Monster's defeat, the Stone Men lose all hope. They race back to their ships and depart Earth, back to where they came from. As the NATO soldiers close in, Thor decides to change back to Don Blake. He doesn't want their curiosity to expose any of his secrets. All that the NATO men can see when they reach the location is a man with a limp and a cane wandering off. But he couldn't possibly have anything to do with the events that transpired.

Notes:

Now we welcome Thor to the roster of Marvel characters. This universe is quickly becoming packed and we're only halfway through 1962. Now that we've learned about Thor and what he can do, next time we'll learn a bit more about who Don Blake is as he heads back home to the States.

The List

1. Amazing Fantasy (Spider-Man) #15
2. Fantastic Four #1
3. Fantastic Four #4
4. Incredible Hulk #1
5. Fantastic Four #5
6. Amazing Adult Fantasy (X-Men) #14
7. Journey into Mystery (Thor) #83
8. Fantastic Four #2
9. Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #27
10. Fantastic Four #3
11. Incredible Hulk #2

Amazing Fantasy 15

Spider-Man!

Elsewhere in Midtown Manhattan, a teenager named Peter Parker is rejected by his classmates for being a science geek. They almost invite him to a dance, but decide against it. Peter is an orphan who grew up by his elderly aunt May Parker and her husband Ben Parker. They both love their nephew dearly, encouraging his academic achievements. Something his fellow students are less than stellar about, making Peter Parker an outcast.

On one particular day, Peter goes to a science exhibit after school involving radiation by himself. There is a demonstration involving radiation rays. Unseen by everyone, a tiny spider descends from the ceiling into the ray, soaking up the radiation. The spider finds its way onto Peter's hand and bites.

Peter feels strange. He leaves the exhibit to clear his head, when he is nearly run over by a speeding car. Leaping out of harm's way, Peter finds himself stuck on the side of a building. He climbs the building up to the roof where he manages to crush a steel pipe with his bare hands. Then he is able to easily descend back down by a thin cable.

On his way back home, Peter sees a competition at a local gym. Anyone who can defeat Crusher Hogan wins $100. Peter goes home to make a disguise for himself and returns to test his new skills and win the $100 prize. The masked Peter quickly makes a mockery of Crusher Hogan, which is witnessed by a TV Producer. After Peter wins the money, the producer pulls him aside to offer a spot on the Ed Sullivan show.

Sometime after Peter returns home, he starts designing a more showy costume. He invents his web-shooters, these mechanical devices that go around his wrists so he can shoot out sticky web fluid paste that he also invented. Now in his classic red and black webbing outfit he comes up with his stage name, Spider-Man.

Spider-Man Appears. At his first show, he crawls around on the walls, shoots candles out with his webbing and swings around a lot. As the show ends he walks into a crime in progress. The criminal runs right past him with a cop chasing behind. Spider-Man just stands there and watches the crook escape in an elevator. The cop stops his pursuit and chews Spider-Man out for not helping. Spider-Man who has had enough of people telling him what to responds, "Sorry pal! That's your job!" When Peter returns home, his aunt and uncle gift him with a brand new microscope just for being a good person.

As the days follow, Spider-Man has become very famous, catching the eye of every newspaper. One night, after another appearance of Spider-Man, Peter sees a cop car in front of his house. An officer explains to the young man that a burglar broke in and shot his uncle Ben. They have the murderer surrounded in an old warehouse, but it's too dangerous for them to go inside. Shaking off the tears, Peter dons his Spider-Man costume and goes after the criminal.

Finding the old warehouse Spider-Man sneaks inside. Leaping from the shadows, Spider-Man confronts the burglar and uses his webbing to dispose of the gun. Spider-Man punches the burglar off his feet. He gets a closer look. It's the man who ran past him before. The criminal he could have just tripped, but chose not to. He webs the burglar up and sends him down to the police. Peter walks home in the dark as tears stream down his face, blaming himself for his uncle's tragic death at the hands of this burglar; if he hadn't been so careless. Learning that in this world, with great power, comes great responsibility.

Notes:

So here is Spider-Man with our heaviest origin story yet! Everybody knows Spider-Man's origin yet if you sit down to read it in detail the emotions still hit harder than any story we've had up to date. A lot of it has to do with Ditko's beautiful dark, moody lighting Then Stan Lee breaks the darkness with his levity in the narration, something we'll be seeing a great deal more of, a bit in excess at some places. It works here to balance this very dark tale.


The List

1. Amazing Fantasy (Spider-Man) #15
2. Fantastic Four #1
3. Fantastic Four #4
4. Incredible Hulk #1
5. Fantastic Four #5
6. Amazing Adult Fantasy (X-Men) #14
7. Fantastic Four #2
8. Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #27
9. Fantastic Four #3
10. Incredible Hulk #2

Incredible Hulk 1

The Hulk
by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

"Fan out, men! We've got to find that -- That Hulk!!" -US soldier

In a military installation somewhere in the American Southwest, a team of scientists is hard at work on a new experiment. Spearheaded by Doctor Bruce Banner, under the duress of General Thunderbolt Ross and his own assistant Igor, Banner has created a gamma bomb for the military. Today is the day of the dates test. General Ross's lovely daughter is there accompanying her father and flirting with doctor Banner. As the countdown begins, a car speeds out onto the site of the detonating gamma bomb. Banner tells his assistant Igor to delay the countdown until he can get motorist off the grounds. Igor has more malicious intent. As Banner races through the test site in a jeep, Igor ignores Banner's instructions. Just as Banner explains to the teenage driver that the area is forbidden, the bomb reaches it's final seconds. Bruce shoves teenager Rick Jones down into a ditch where he is safe, but the scientist has no such luck. The bomb goes off and Banner is caught in it's wake. He does not die, he becomes stuck in a panicked, screaming pose for hours. 

When he finally comes to, Bruce and Rick find themselves in a military infirmary. Rick explains to Banner that he is an orphan, he tells him that nobody has ever risked their life for his, so he decided he'd do the same. As the day starts turning to night, a Geiger counter left in their room starts going off wildly. Banner suddenly starts panicking as the counter increases louder and louder, he keels over and his body starts changing, becoming bigger, stronger and gray. He has changed into a monster soon to be known as the Hulk. As Rick points this out, Hulk casually bats him away which knocks the boy hard onto the ground. Desiring freedom, Hulk smashing the wall of their room down and makes his way out of the military installation and is quickly confronted by army men that he smashes and frightens away.

As Hulk runs off into the night, Rick Jones chases carefully behind him. Somewhere in the Hulk's brain a trace of Banner' guides him to his off-site cabin to secure the Gamma Bomb formula. When he reaches the place, he finds his assistant Igor rifling through his things. Igor attempts to shoot Hulk, but the grey monster yanks the gun out of his hands and crumbles it in his fist. Hulk knocks Igor out, in the process he knocks over the notes of the Gamma Bomb that he was looking for. Rick takes them and mentions Banner's name which irritates the Hulk to hear. The monster then sees a picture of Banner. Rick tried to make Hulk understand that he is Banner, but this drives the Hulk even madder. Before Hulk can do something to quiet Rick, the first rays of dawn peak through the window and the Hulk turns back into puny scientist Banner. Just in time for the police and military to arrive.

The police question Bruce and Rick, who act dumbfounded about anything regarding the Hulk. They confiscate Banner's notes for safe keeping and take the unconscious Igor into custody. Betty arrives, greatly concerned about Bruce. Bruce begins to break down a little at all of the events. Rick, who is growing irritated at the relationship developing between Betty & Bruce, quickly shows her the way out as Bruce expresses his desire to rest and his fear of becoming the Hulk again to Rick.

Igor, who is now awake and in prison, contacts his comrades behind the iron curtain. He has a very tiny micro-transistor embedded on his fingernail that allows him to transmit a signal to them. The message quickly gets sent up the commie chain until it reaches a small, somewhat grotesque looking man called the Gargoyle. The Gargoyle immediately becomes obsessed with find the Hulk. He gets a submarine ready and only hours later fires a rocket from it with himself inside in order to reach the location in which the Hulk was seen in America. As the late afternoon sun goes down, Rick & Banner are driving a jeep through the desert. Banner explains that if he is going to turn into the Hulk again, he'd rather do it outside where he'd potentially do less harm to people. Soon as the day turns to night, the transformation takes place and the Hulk & Rick emerge out of the wrecked jeep. The Hulk has a strong desire to find Betty as the Gargoyle looks on from a distance.

At the cabin on General Ross and his daughter, Betty seems incredibly anxious after the ordeal of the last couple of days. General Ross suggests she go outside to get some air. Taking his advice she goes out for awhile contemplating if the Hulk is even real after all. To make this pondering all the more ironic, the Hulk suddenly pops up out of nowhere which surprises Betty so much she faints. As Rick tries to reason with the Hulk to let her go, the Gargoyle lets his appearance be known.

The Gargoyle holds the monster and the teen at gunpoint. Upon firing it, he tells them that it is a gun which will make the two of them obey his will, which seems to be just that. They quickly recover and follow the small, ugly communist back to the submarine he arrived in. General Ross finds his daughter as she awakes from fainting and vows to her that he will hunt down the Hulk if it takes him forever.

From the Gargoyle's submarine, another rocket is launched. On board is Hulk, Rick and himself. As the three pass across the hemisphere night turns back into day because of different time zones. When they finally land, the Gargoyle is bewildered, but quickly figures out what happened. He becomes confused as to why the doctor would want to become that incredible monster. The Gargoyle begins to weep about his on plight, being stuck in this grotesque form. Banner decides he will help him to look more like a normal person using his scientific know-how. Banner quickly gets to work and before too long using radiation in some capacity, he turns the small man into average size, normal-looking person. The Gargoyle shouts at a picture of Khrushchev saying it was all his fault for the way he was. He then facilitates the escape of Bruce and Rick. He discharges some gas throughout the facility, cause a panic among the personnel. As this goes on he launch a rocket with Rick and Bruce on board back to the US. The Gargoyle remains where he is as the entire complex explodes.


Notes

1st appearance of Hulk/Bruce Banner, Rick Jones and Betty & General "Thunderbolt" Ross.

1st plot directly involving Soviets "behind the Iron Curtain"

Tales to Astonish 27

The Man in the Ant Hill
by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

"How will I ever get back to normal?!!" -Henry Pym

To show up his naysayer peers, a blonde scientist named Henry Pym has developed a serum for shrinking things. His hope if his experiment is a success is to use this formula to shrink things from shipping items at a reduced cost to shrinking an entire army for travel in just one plane. After months of planning and experimentation, Henry successfully shrinks a chair. For the final test, the scientist tests the serum on himself which works too well. Faster than he was expecting, the scientist rapidly shrinks.

In his excitement, Henry Pym realizes he left the antidote to his serum all the way up on a windowsill in his lab that he is now hopeless to reach. Running outside, Pym contemplates loudly on what he’s going to do when some ants spot him. The insects chase the small man down into their ant hill. Henry manages to evade them, when he slips and falls into a puddle of ant honey. Another ant spots Henry who is now stuck in the honey and it helps him out of his sticky situation. Before the two can exchange pleasantries, the other ants rush after the tiny scientist.

Henry Pym escapes. After sighting an unused matchstick, Pym grabs a pebble and tosses it to strike the match head. The fire from the match keeps the attacking ants at bay long enough for Henry to fashion a lasso and climb his way up higher in the ant chamber. Higher up he is greeted by another ant’s pincers which grip Pym around his body tightly. Pym uses his judo skills to over power the insect and fling it down towards the flames. Reaching the surface, Henry Pym is still pursued by the ants, but he notices the nice ant who helped him out of the honey. This ant allows Henry to climb onto its back so he can ride up to the windowsill of his lab where he bathes himself in the antidote formula. With himself back to normal size, the scientist decides to dispose of the rest of his formula so this will never happen again. At the next meeting with his scientist peers, Henry admits that his experiment was a failure and agrees to work on more practical projects in the future.

Notes:

1st appearance of Henry Pym, who will go one to have many adventures as the hero Ant-Man and many other guises.

Fantastic Four 1

The Fantastic Four

by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby

"Those words... "The Fantastic Four"! What can they mean?" -shopkeep

A flare is shot into the sky above a panicking crowd of people. It spells out The Fantastic Four, to summon the various members of the group. They are: Young, blonde, socialite, Susan Storm who can turn herself invisible, her teenage brother the enthusiastic motor-head Johnny Storm, who can burst into flames and fly at will, a gruff, grumpy monstrosity with an orange rocky hide called the Thing and Reed Richards, the shooter of the flare, with the ability to stretch his body to any form he chooses, brilliant scientist and who is also the leader of the team. He has summoned them together to go on their first case, but first we get a bit of back story.

Reed, the brilliant scientist that he is, decided he and the US need to beat the commies to a manned space mission. He got those closest to him, his fiancee Susan, her brother, and his pilot friend Ben Grimm to agree to join him. Ben starts out apprehensive to the whole thing, due to his knowledge of the threat of cosmic rays surrounding the earth, but Sue manages to poke at his pride to get him to go along with them. So all four of them steal away into the night to a rocket that Reed Richards had built for the government. As soon as they depart the earth’s atmosphere, as Ben rightfully predicted, the whole missile is bombarded with cosmic rays. As all four of them panic, Ben’s hands start to feel to heavy to keep control of the spacecraft and the vessel falls back down to earth.

The four emerge from the wreckage relatively unscathed. Suddenly, Sue vanishes before their eyes, as soon as she reappears orange rocks start forming all over Ben’s exterior turning him into the Thing as he goes to clobber Reed who he feels superior to. With emotions running high Reed manages to subdue Ben’s new found strength by finding out he has stretching powers of his own and wraps his limbs around his friend. After they’ve calmed down, Johnny suddenly bursts into flame and flies around. Realizing they all have powers now, they decide to use these powers for the good of mankind, the four of them take on superhero names: Sue goes by the Invisible Girl, her brother Johnny goes by the Human Torch, Ben Grimm goes by the Thing due to a comment made by Sue and finally Reed decides he’ll call himself Mr. Fantastic. And so the Fantastic Four were formed.

Returning to the present, the Fantastic Four discover their mission. Power plants have been sinking all over the world, into the earth itself, each of them precipitated by what seems to be an earthquake. Reed charts these incidents to be centralized from the location of a mysterious place called Monster Isle. The four immediately head off to the island where they do indeed find it to be populated by monsters. Reed takes care of a three-headed winged beast in their way, but the confrontation triggers a cave in which swallows up both Reed and the Human Torch into it. The two of them survive by Reed stretching his body thin into a parachute which Johnny holds onto. After the two of them land deep in the underground, they are both rendered unconscious by the sheer brilliancy of a room full of shimmering diamonds. When they come to they find themselves in special blue suits that restrain their eyesight. The also find themselves the prisoner of an underground resident calling himself the Mole Man.

Back on the surface, Thing saves the Invisible Girl from some huge bi-pedal blue creature before the two of them continue their search for the missing teammates. Underground, the Mole Man reveals his troubled past to the other half. Long ago before he was the Mole Man, people trated him poorly because his looks. No one would date him, he couldn’t hold down a job, no one would treat him like a human being. So he decided if society will shun him he’ll do the same. He searched for the center of the world to find some solace where he could be alone, but he stumbled upon Monster Isle in his travels. Once there he navigated the cave system until he found what he was looking for, however his celebration of finding the place lead to an avalanche which caused a cave in and cost him his sight. He then figured out how to master the creatures underground and he’s survived all this time. Now he wants to destroy all of the earth’s power plants in a bid to take over the world and make it to his liking.

The Mole Man’s monologue is so long, the Thing and Sue manage to find his lair and the half of their team stuck there. They all get into a massive fight with the Mole Man and his creatures. Johnny flames on and uses his flame to create another cave in as all four of them flee to their waiting aircraft outside. The entire island appears to explode behind them as they speed away.

Notes

1st appearance of the Fantastic Four and Mole Man

Generally regarded as the introductory issue to the Marvel Universe. There were stories in the late 30's & 40's before this as well as Westerns, Romance & Fantasy comics that become incorporated into the Marvel Universe.