The 1st Ant Man - and odd little Jewel from 1958 - Marvel copied this in TTA #27

[PGCMint]

Most are aware that Tales To Astonish contains the 1st appearance of what would later be called The Ant Man. It is a spendy and fairly difficult book to find in high grade.

 

In this issue, a scientist gets splashed with formula, shrinks down and befriends some ants. later regaining his original size, etc.

 

What is quite interesting is that this story, close to identical, was first issued in Alarming Tales #6 1958. It is quite obvious that the Marvel staff "borrowed" this story and changed it a just bit for their mag.

 

Below are some pics from the story and I hope they are clear enough to read.

Mark

[Aman619]

how much? : )

[FourthWorld]

Here's a link to the price

[FourthWorld]

You can "buy" this one Right NOW!!

[FourthWorld]

or you can spend more on this copy (is willing to take an "offer" though).

[Mutant Manatee]

Great artwork by Angelo Torres and Al Williamson too!

[Flash105]

So will Overstreet revise......

Will Marvel get sued.....

 

 

[tth2]

Great artwork by Angelo Torres and Al Williamson too!

Yup, the art is excellent!

[AtlasFan]

That's nothin...check out Harvey's BLACK CAT MYSTIC #60. There is a story called "The Ant Extract" by Kirby...in this quite interesting story. A meek and mild scientist discovers that he can obtain the "proportional strength" of a spi...I mean..ant from a serum extract of the insect.

Prototype???

 

Oh, and good luck trying to find a nice copy...I have mine. MU HAHAHAHAHA!

 

[rodan57]

Richard Matheson wrote the The Shrinking Man in 1956 and it was filmed as The Incredible Shrinking Man in 1957.

[MR.COMICBOOK]

So will Overstreet revise......

Will Marvel get sued.....

 

I wonder if thier are more books like this about other Marvel heroes? the artwork on Alarming Tales is much better, goes to show you a lot of homage goes on in this industry. just look at the stuff that made Frank Miller popular or the Batman stuff that was homaged from the Shadow.

[Sharkey]

Richard Matheson wrote the The Shrinking Man in 1956 and it was filmed as The Incredible Shrinking Man in 1957.

 

Exactly, the mid to late 1950s comic books shamelessly stole plot and story ideas from giant monster and sci-fi movies of the same era. In this case I'd say the popularity of the movie probably prompted a number of "me too" comic scripts that incorporated people shrinking and fighting the now giant insects.

 

As much as I love the pre-hero genre, there are very few unique ideas in those stories, many of which were recycled plots from old comics books owned by the same company or slightly modified plots from other companies.

 

 

[buttock]

Mystic 57 from 3/57 is just as similar. You could say that Harvey ripped off Atlas.