Stan, Jack, and Steve - The 1950's. (1954) 4 4

[Prince Namor]

There's a lot of misconceptions about comics produced in the 50's, especially in regards to what Stan did, what Jack did, etc. and the best way to dispel some of these myths, is show it. So if you like to read comics from the 1950's, or have an interest in the history of comic books, there will be a lot here to see.

Starting in January of 1954, we see that Atlas/Marvel would publish 40 titles released to the newsstand that month, a strong showing under Editor Stan Lee's guidance. Martin Goodman, the publisher (who was married to Stan's cousin), would see his line of comics at their highest point during this time. DC released only 29 titles to the newsstand in January of 1954.

http://www.mikesamazingworld.com/mikes/features/newsstand.php?type=calendar&month=1&year=1954&publisher=marvel&sort=alpha&checklist=null&variantex=null&collectionex=null

The mix of genre's looks like this:

Horror/Suspense - 11

Humor/Romance - 11

Superhero - 5

War - 4

Western - 4

Comedy - 3

Sci-Fi - 1

Crime - 1

A common misconception is that Stan Lee wrote everything in the 1950's for Atlas/Marvel. In actuality, Stan, who by this time was signing everything he worked on, including pin-up pages, worked on complete issues of Millie the Model #53 and My Friend Irma #42 (both with artist Dan DeCarlo, who co-wrote most of the material), and one story in Riot #1 of 4 pages, called 'The Guillotine. (We'll look at each of these.)

The other 37 titles, and the rest of Riot #1 were done by others. Some we know and some we don't.

Stan at this time seemed to have abandoned doing Horror at all, most likely out of concern for the Wertham nonsense that had been building for some time and would lead to Senate hearings in April and June of that year. He seems to now be focusing exclusively on Humor, though as we'll see, he'd still contribute a Western genre story here and there. Still, his writing workload for this time and most of the next few years, would be extremely minimal. 

Another misconception is that Stan and Joe Maeely's work was almost exclusive. This doesn't appear to be the case at all. I've never added it all up, but Comics Historian Michael J. Vassallo estimates it to be only around 10% of their work was together.

For the month of January 1954, Maneely does 2 covers, and 5 stories totaling 26 pages. None of this work is with Stan as the writer. 

Edited June 7, 2022 by Prince Namor

[Prince Namor]

Millie the Model #53 - personal preference, I love this run of Millie - I collect it. The stories grow tiresome as they repeat the same themes over and over and there's only so many puns and one-liners I can take. The art by Dan DeCarlo never gets old for me. 

DeCarlo signs the cover, but inside it's Stan who signs the splash page.... DeCarlo's name not appearing until the 4th panel of the last page. 

You can see the style in Stan's dialogue... he has a very natural way of presenting it. The jokes are funny and the words match perfectly with DeCarlo's art. It's fun and it's humorous. This is what Stan does best. 

[Prince Namor]

Chili gets spotlighted once an issue... it's surprising that it took them almost another 20 years to split her off into her own title. These stories are pretty lightweight, but they're fun, and they rival Archie in my book for entertainment value. Again Stan signs the splash, while DeCarlo is relegated to the last page. 

[Prince Namor]

Katy Keene creator Bill Woggon came up with the idea of readers submitting outfit designs, and Stan was only too happy to mimic the idea. You can see the credit box in the splash of each story. For the male readers I guess it's also a good way to get Millie in and out of her clothes at least once and issue!

[Prince Namor]

At least on the one pagers, DeCarlo got equal billing with Stan:

[Prince Namor]

Meanwhile over at Crestwood Publications' Prize Comics, Jack Kirby and Joe Simon were releasing a new Superhero, strongly resembling the ideas they used in creating Captain America. The pair felt Goodman had stole the character from them, and as Atlas/Marvel was trying to jump start the title again, it looks at though Jack and Joe decided to compete with it.

[Prince Namor]

The first issue of Fighting American wouldn't quite be the same as the rest of the series (they turned it into somewhat of a super hero parody), but the action artwork, and sequential art style of Jack Kirby is clearly there. And they even included a sidekick in Speedboy!

Even in the early stages... when I read Fighting American it reminds me of something out of the early Silver Age. Kirby was doing this SEVEN YEARS before the Silver Age of Marvel began!

[Prince Namor]

Speaking of Atlas/Marvel and superheroes... Captain America as a comic had been cancelled after #75 hit the stands in November of 1949, as Timely phased out the last of their superheroes. But a here he was back, though he'd only last 3 issues...

Stan didn't write these. It was long time Timely writer/editor Don Rico, here with a much younger John Romita on the art. Man, you can really see the Milton Caniff influence here... though you can also see how it evolved into later Romita features, but... yeah this is not his best work. Not horrible by any stretch and very cool to see. 

[Prince Namor]

There's also a Carl Burgos Human Torch story (written by Joe Gill). Kind of silly, but a whole lot of fun - it makes me think this is exactly the kind of stuff that influenced Don Simpson. And for whatever reason (fun?), I was always a fan of his work. Anyway, if you're not that familiar with Burgos' work, he did much better stuff in the horror and crime comics of Atlas (pre-code).

[Prince Namor]

Meanwhile over at Charlton, a young Steve Ditko did the cover for 'This Magazine is Haunted' #16:

[theCapraAegagrus]

Quote

A common misconception is that Stan Lee wrote everything in the 1950's for Atlas/Marvel.

What's the "rare" misconception?

[Prince Namor]

as well as this story (and the cover) for Space Adventures #10. Signed by Ditko on the splash page. It's speculated that either Ditko wrote this or long time collaborated Joe Gill did. 

[Prince Namor]

Here's a story, that some believe Stan wrote that he DIDN'T sign, in Riot #1, one of 3 'zany' humor comics that Atlas would publish for the month. The other two, 'Crazy' on issue #5 and 'Wild' on issue #3, were all in response to William Gaines' hugely successful 'Mad'. 

Gaines had been ganged up on by the publishers and nearly put out of business all together, but Mad was in the process of saving him and even in it's still comic book form (issue #10 for Jan. 1954), it was having a huge impact on the market already. It would switch to the magazine format the following year and simply dwarf the publication numbers of any comic for the next 30 years. 

Now THAT is revenge.

Anyway, I'll print it here for examination. 

[Prince Namor]

Simon and Kirby had such a huge success with Young Romance #1 in 1947 that they put together a studio of artists to crank out this, and other titles related to the genre. By this time Kirby was doing maybe one story an issue for each title. I'm a huge fan of this genre, and even though I don't necessarily collect the Kirby stuff all that much within it, the work he did with Joe Simon here was always top notch.

[Prince Namor]

My Friend Irma, was essentially the same set up as Millie the Model at this point. All put together by Stan and Dan. In fact, give Kay some full Red Hair and it'd be hard to tell which was which... it was nice to have a radio program to cull ideas from though, I'm sure...

Dan DeCarlo was at his peak...

[Prince Namor]

Jack also had a story in Young Love #55. This reads like Kirby wrote it for sure. Girl gangs in the city!

[Ken Aldred]

On 6/1/2022 at 5:40 PM, Prince Namor said:

Speaking of Atlas/Marvel and superheroes... Captain America as a comic had been cancelled after #75 hit the stands in November of 1949, as Timely phased out the last of their superheroes. But a here he was back, though he'd only last 3 issues...

Stan didn't write these. It was long time Timely writer/editor Don Rico, here with a much younger John Romita on the art. Man, you can really see the Milton Caniff influence here... though you can also see how it evolved into later Romita features, but... yeah this is not his best work. Not horrible by any stretch and very cool to see. 

Two Caniff-influenced artists, Romita and Robbins, but interesting that 50s period Romita surpasses anything done by Robbins at Marvel in the 70s. Similar, but Romita reined in the exaggeration a bit more. Very interesting, though, in that it shows how stylistically outdated Robbins was in the Bronze Age.

Edited June 1, 2022 by Ken Aldred

[Prince Namor]

Also back for another try was the Human Torch (and Toro), with a cover by the characters' creator, Carl Burgos. The interior art was all done by Ayers (signed) with stories by Joe Gill. Stan Lee didn't write any of these stories. 

Why wasn't Burgos put on the book? Why was a new, young talent used, instead of the original creator on this 'superhero revival? Well... we KNOW why it wasn't with Captain America, but even there... why not use... well, Al Avison (who'd done a fantastic job on the book after Simon and Kirby) had left to go Harvey Comics (where he'd been after WW2 service for the last 7 years), but... Goodman just believed it was the characters who sold the books and not the talent....

Neither book would last past 3 more issues....

 

[Prince Namor]

One book that DID last past three issues was the Sub-Mariner, who was... still being drawn and written by its original creator Bill Everett. He'd actually keep in going for 10 more issues! 

I'm not sure how well it sold... obviously more than Cap and the Human Torch, because it stuck around for almost a year longer, but I can't figure out why they didn't let Everett do all of the covers. Now I'm a fan of Burgos' cover work during this era, and Syd Shores (obviously), Maneely, and even Brodsky... but none of these covers they did over the next 9 issues compare to this one!

Bill Everett, especially his pre-code cover work, was awesome.

[Prince Namor]

A few Bill Everett pre-code covers...