Stan, Jack, and Steve - The 1960's (1963) Butting Heads, Unexpected Success and Not Expected Failures! 3 3

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS NOVEMBER 1963

Tales of Suspense #50 - 'Written' By: Stan Lee  Illustrated by: Don Heck  Lettered by: Ray Holloway

Cover by Jack Kirby with inks by George Roussos

 

 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS NOVEMBER 1963

Tales of Suspense #50 - Besides the art of Don Heck, who I'm not real fond of, and the goofy, exaggerated, over-used portrayal of 'communists', this story is boring and kinda dumb. I guess Stan or Don or whoever thought this up, got tired of using the tired cliche of 'past employee, wronged by the hero, who returns as a villain' schtick and just gave the Mandarin no motivation or reason behind what he does at all. 

But then you get all of this nonsense... Iron Man's suit is of no help against the Mandarin's karate chop? The Mandarin tinkered with his transistors while he was paralyzed? Iron Man uses a slide rule calculator during battle???? And uses it while waiting for the longest karate chop in history, so that he can 'turn' just right, causing the Mandarin to strike him at a 'bad' angle - thus immobilizing the bad guy... who he then LEAVES behind...???? 

Poor, poor writing...

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS NOVEMBER 1963

Tales of Suspense #50 - Story Plot: Stan Lee  -script and Art: Larry Lieber  Lettered by: S. Rosen

 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS NOVEMBER 1963

Tales of Suspense #50 - Story Plot: Stan Lee  -script and Art: Larry Lieber  Inking: Sol Brodsky  Lettered by: S. Rosen

Was there supposed to be a lesson here?

[Dr. Haydn]

On 5/30/2023 at 5:27 AM, Prince Namor said:

 

ON NEWSSTANDS NOVEMBER 1963

Tales of Suspense #50 - Besides the art of Don Heck, who I'm not real fond of, and the goofy, exaggerated, over-used portrayal of 'communists', this story is boring and kinda dumb. I guess Stan or Don or whoever thought this up, got tired of using the tired cliche of 'past employee, wronged by the hero, who returns as a villain' schtick and just gave the Mandarin no motivation or reason behind what he does at all. 

But then you get all of this nonsense... Iron Man's suit is of no help against the Mandarin's karate chop? The Mandarin tinkered with his transistors while he was paralyzed? Iron Man uses a slide rule calculator during battle???? And uses it while waiting for the longest karate chop in history, so that he can 'turn' just right, causing the Mandarin to strike him at a 'bad' angle - thus immobilizing the bad guy... who he then LEAVES behind...???? 

Poor, poor writing...

I kinda liked the "two-way wrist calculator"--reminded me of Dick Tracy!

 

[Dr. Haydn]

Oh look! A Larry Lieber -script in the 7th panel! So, at least we know ONE of the Liebers wrote one...

[Dr. Haydn]

"Tales of Suspense #50 - Story Plot: Stan Lee  --script and Art: Larry Lieber  Inking: Sol Brodsky  Lettered by: S. Rosen

Was there supposed to be a lesson here?"

 

The meek shall inherit the earth, perhaps?

[Math Teacher]

On 5/29/2023 at 4:54 AM, Prince Namor said:

 

ON NEWSSTANDS NOVEMBER 1963

Strange Tales #117 - 'Written' By: Stan Lee  Illustrated by: Dick Ayers  Lettered by: Art Simek

Cover by Jack Kirby with inks by George Roussos

A lot of these lame Strange Tales villains make Johnny Storm look like an idiot. The Human Torch has the power of flight and flame, and non-powered earth bound bad guys like this shouldn't have been so difficult for him to deal with. 

I thought that this was done to show that the Human Torch worked better as part of a team rather than by himself. Remember, he was still a teenager, and most teens are not known for their cognitive thinking abilities.

[Steven Valdez]

On 5/31/2023 at 4:38 AM, Math Teacher said:

I thought that this was done to show that the Human Torch worked better as part of a team rather than by himself. Remember, he was still a teenager, and most teens are not known for their cognitive thinking abilities.

Having the power to burn things never really made sense in a code approved comic. All he can really do is burn his opponents alive or seriously maim them. Otherwise, what was he doing with his powers? Making it uncomfortably hot for them?

A Human Torch character works better in a violent wartime situation, as the original version did.

[Steven Valdez]

On 5/30/2023 at 10:49 PM, Dr. Haydn said:

Oh look! A Larry Lieber --script in the 7th panel! So, at least we know ONE of the Liebers wrote one...

 A Larry Lieber story gets thrown in the trash... good call.

[Steven Valdez]

It's a shame Larry Lieber didn't "write" a few issues of Kirby's FF or Ditko's ASM, so we could compare the "differences" to the ones S. Lee "wrote".

[Mmehdy]

On 5/30/2023 at 3:16 AM, Prince Namor said:

 

ON NEWSSTANDS NOVEMBER 1963

Tales of Suspense #50 - 'Written' By: Stan Lee  Illustrated by: Don Heck  Lettered by: Ray Holloway

Cover by Jack Kirby with inks by George Roussos

 

 

Great cover....and when you open it up...acceptable art....I like the Don Heck early monster stuff..it was a great contrast to Kirby/Ditko in those  early books, but for some reason solo just does not add up to the "marvel standard"  after creating great expectations and story has a lot to do with it.

[Prince Namor]

 

ON NEWSSTANDS DECEMBER 1963

 

For December, Marvel would release 12 titles to the newsstand. That's 143 titles for 1963, or 11.91 a month. That's FAR from the 8 per month fairytale that was told for decades.

6 superhero books - 2 Western - 4 comedy/romance 

 

Number of titles released to the Newsstand this month by each publisher. No change in the order:

DC - 30 (0), Charlton - 23 (-1), Harvey - 18 (+2), Gold Key - 15 (-1), Marvel - 12 (+1), Archie - 7 (-1), Dell - 2 (-7), ACG - 4 (+4)

 

December 2nd, 1963

Journey Into Mystery #101

Kathy #27

Modeling with Millie #29

Patsy Walker #113

Tales to Astonish #53

Two Gun Kid #68

 

December 9th, 1963

Amazing Spider-man #10

Fantastic Four #24

Kid Colt Outlaw #115

Millie the Model #119

Strange Tales #118

Tales of Suspense #51

[The humble Watcher lurking]

The more I read this thread and hear some podcasts it's looking like Stan "The Man" Lee was not the man. The evidence is Kirby, Ditko and other artists did most of the work.

I am kind of disappointed in Stan Lee now. 

[Mmehdy]

On 6/2/2023 at 9:11 AM, The humble Watcher lurking said:

The more I read this thread and hear some podcasts it's looking like Stan "The Man" Lee was not the man. The evidence is Kirby, Ditko and other artists did most of the work.

I am kind of disappointed in Stan Lee now. 

He took the credit ....but the real creation was on the shoulders of Jack and Steve

[mrc]

On 6/2/2023 at 5:11 PM, The humble Watcher lurking said:

The more I read this thread and hear some podcasts it's looking like Stan "The Man" Lee was not the man. The evidence is Kirby, Ditko and other artists did most of the work.

I am kind of disappointed in Stan Lee now. 

Of course they did most of the work. That was their job. Stan promoted the brand and he did it very well. A successful team effort, just like in any successful organisation in history. Don't believe everything you read............'nuff said.

[Mmehdy]

On 6/4/2023 at 6:09 AM, mrc said:

Of course they did most of the work. That was their job. Stan promoted the brand and he did it very well. A successful team effort, just like in any successful organisation in history. Don't believe everything you read............'nuff said.

It took awhile for the co-creator spin to come out of the media...this after the release phoney baloney FF 1 -script seems out of place on the outline.....my gut is was done after the book was released and a hit....your thoughts?

[Steven Valdez]

On 6/5/2023 at 3:56 AM, Mmehdy said:

It took awhile for the co-creator spin to come out of the media...this after the release phoney baloney FF 1 --script seems out of place on the outline.....my gut is was done after the book was released and a hit....your thoughts?

Yeah, the FF #1 -script only emerged about 5 years after the book came out. On the other hand, Kirby wasn't a liar and he's on record as saying he went into Marvel with a bunch of proposals of what would soon become their early superhero line. 

[Prince Namor]

On 6/4/2023 at 11:06 PM, Steven Valdez said:

Yeah, the FF #1 --script only emerged about 5 years after the book came out. On the other hand, Kirby wasn't a liar and he's on record as saying he went into Marvel with a bunch of proposals of what would soon become their early superhero line. 

Well... it wasn't a 'script', it was a 'sort of' synopsis, that other than a claim by Roy Thomas, no one ever saw it until 1991. 

In the 1974 ORIGINS book even Lee wrote the synopsis was written after speaking to Goodman and Kirby.

[Prince Namor]

On 6/3/2023 at 5:08 PM, Mmehdy said:

He took the credit ....but the real creation was on the shoulders of Jack and Steve

Yeah, it's pretty clear. For Stan to say in a court of law that he thought up all the ideas and simply assigned an artist to it, and that any 'credit' he gave them was to make them feel better about themselves... that's just sad and pathetic.

If Bob Kane had said that, people would've lost their minds.

But Bob Kane at least paid his people for the credit of it that he stole. Stan Lee took the credit for the writing and plotting AND the pay.