Stan, Jack, and Steve - The 1960's (1964) The Slow Build 5 5

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JULY 1964

Tales of Suspense #58 - Lee, Heck, Ayers, and Rosen

So, I'm going affectionately call this issue, 'Iron Man is a Dunce' (i.e. an excuse for poor writing)'.

#2: Iron Man gets clobbered with ONE PUNCH, and instead of thinking, that HAS to be the real Cap, he makes an excuse (to further the convoluted plot) that 'he must have found a way to absorb some of Cap's prowess as well as his memory."

Oh sure... those machines are a dime a dozen - that steal your memories AND your physical strength, because...

Using the word PROWESS is wrong here... 'prowess' is a 'skill or expertise in a particular activity or field'. Cap used a back hand to knock a man in a transistor (lol) powered suit of ARMOR off his feet and to his knees. 

This is bad writing. That's physical strength. 

Edited April 26 by Prince Namor

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JULY 1964

Tales of Suspense #58 - Lee, Heck, Ayers, and Rosen

I need to rethink this and call this issue, 'Iron Man AND Captain America are Dunces' (i.e. an excuse for poor writing)'.

First, the dwindling power source ploy to prolong the story (My favorite show when I was 6 or 7 was Ultra Man. And as goofy as that was, I LOVED Giant Monsters, but boy, did I hate when that chest light warning started to flash and beep...)

#3: Cap gets attacked by his friend, who thinks he's someone else, then lets him walk away... not at all concerned that he's lost his mind? Or been brain washed? Or is having a bad day? Instead Stan uses it as an excuse to make one of his corny jokes.

The great detective Captain America thinks that by Iron Man walking away, it PROVES it must've been a gag.

Duh. 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JULY 1964

Tales of Suspense #58 - Lee, Heck, Ayers, and Rosen

How is he charging himself in an alley? Doesn't he need... lol... a light socket to plug into? That IS how he does it, right? 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JULY 1964

Tales of Suspense #58 - Lee, Heck, Ayers, and Rosen

What??? Why would Tony Stark have a tracer beam in his CAR to track Iron Man when HE is Iron Man? When would he ever have use for that? Another silly creation to further a silly story. 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JULY 1964

Tales of Suspense #58 - Lee, Heck, Ayers, and Rosen

Cap sees Iron Man coming again (who has no problem finding HIM), and instead of confronting him about what's going on (he easily beat him 10 minutes ago), he decides to 'lose him' in a 'Construction Power Station', whatever THAT is...

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JULY 1964

Tales of Suspense #58 - Lee, Heck, Ayers, and Rosen

Cap doesn't seem to know who the Chameleon IS here, though later he'll act like he DOES, but instead of saying, "Why do you keep calling me that/him", he instead, again, rather knuckleheadedly wonders of Iron Man is the real deal! Doh!

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JULY 1964

Tales of Suspense #58 - Lee, Heck, Ayers, and Rosen

 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JULY 1964

Tales of Suspense #58 - Lee, Heck, Ayers, and Rosen

A  'Room with Giant Automatic Cement Mixers!'. Ooookkkk.... and of course that's the same room Happy and Pepper wander into.... 'as luck would have it'. 

This is SO bad...

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JULY 1964

Tales of Suspense #58 - Lee, Heck, Ayers, and Rosen

Especially going to call this issue, 'Iron Man is a Dunce' (i.e. an excuse for poor writing)'.

#4: This Dimwitted Iron Man still doesn't get it. 

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JULY 1964

Tales of Suspense #58 - Lee, Heck, Ayers, and Rosen

'Iron Man is a Dunce' (i.e. an excuse for poor writing)'... #5: Iron Man's man Armor is the hardest iron alloy known to man, but the 'Chameleon' holds his own against him and he can't figure out that maybe it's actually Cap...

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JULY 1964

Tales of Suspense #58 - Lee, Heck, Ayers, and Rosen

'Iron Man AND Captain America are Dunces' (i.e. an excuse for poor writing)'.

#6: Double DUH.

[Prince Namor]

ON NEWSSTANDS JULY 1964

Tales of Suspense #58 - Lee, Heck, Ayers, and Rosen

Oh for God's Sake...

[Dr. Haydn]

On the bright side, Dick Ayers inks over Heck's pencils looks pretty good!

Heck wasn't much of a plotter, though, at least judging from this story. 18 pages of random scenes that don't add up to much. And Stan Lee was unable or unwilling to rescue him. The "heroes fight due to a misunderstanding" plotline is a pretty tired comic book trope by 1964!

Pretty soon, the Captain America feature will debut in Tales of Suspense, cutting the Iron Man stories back to a manageable 12 pages. I guess this story was setting the stage for the "split book" era of ToS, much like the Hulk's guest appearance in Tales to Astonish just before his own 10-page feature debuted?

Edited April 26 by Dr. Haydn
added "heroes fight" discussion

[Mmehdy]

Keep it going....let see. some more Marvel books posted...thanks

[Dr. Haydn]

On 5/4/2024 at 10:21 PM, Mmehdy said:

Keep it going....let see. some more Marvel books posted...thanks

I do wonder if there's nothing more to be said. Still, there are some great Silver Age stories coming up!

[Mmehdy]

On 5/6/2024 at 12:06 PM, Dr. Haydn said:

I do wonder if there's nothing more to be said. Still, there are some great Silver Age stories coming up!

There is a lot more evidence of what really happened.....peak year for Marvel in the 60's .....tough choice between 1963 and 1968.....1968 WINNER...I know, FF ANN 1 possibly the greatest ann of all time which was 63...spidey but 68 with the SS and Nick Fury was the cherry on the top!

[The humble Watcher lurking]

On 5/7/2024 at 3:56 PM, Mmehdy said:

1968 WINNER

I 100 percent agree. Marvel was at its peak, then Martin Goodman sold the company, then later Jack Kirby left. 

1968 was the year, even DC with Carmine Infantino as the new boss did some great things at DC.

Edited May 8 by The humble Watcher lurking
My spell check. ha ha.

[Dr. Haydn]

On 5/8/2024 at 12:20 PM, The humble Watcher lurking said:

I 100 percent agree. Marvel was at its peak, then Martin Goodman sold the company, then later Jack Kirby left. 

1968 was the year, even DC with Carmine Infantino as the new boss did some great things at DC.

When I started reading Marvel Comics around 1974, the reprint titles were doing some of the peak late 60s material. The Tablet Saga from Spider-man, Galactus from FF 74-77...

[bc]

On 5/8/2024 at 4:40 PM, Dr. Haydn said:

When I started reading Marvel Comics around 1974, the reprint titles were doing some of the peak late 60s material. The Tablet Saga from Spider-man, Galactus from FF 74-77...

Agree. Those reprints really inspired my collecting habits once I had some disposable income. 

I was buying several titles a month pretty regularly in the mid '70's like Avengers. Then I'd grab a Marvel Triple Action reprint and see a little blurb about "*As seen WAAAAY back in Avengers #8" and it set a hook.

Lately, been picking these up cheap from the dive boxes just for the fun of it - grabbed the Marvels Greatest Comics FF-Silver Surfer reprints for $5 for the set. Still a nice deal for the entertainment value bang per buck.

-bc

[Mmehdy]

On 5/8/2024 at 10:20 AM, The humble Watcher lurking said:

I 100 percent agree. Marvel was at its peak, then Martin Goodman sold the company, then later Jack Kirby left. 

1968 was the year, even DC with Carmine Infantino as the new boss did some great things at DC.

I lived it....from 61 up and man or man did we get a bargain for 12cents