Hi anons, let try out a new type of storytime. As most probably know, the Marvel Universe proper debuted in August 1961 with the release of Fantastic Four #1... but that was of course not the only comic book Marvel was publishing at the time.
During the 1950s, Marvel, then known as "Timely" or "Atlas" (they didn't really market their books under a specific label and had a ton of different publishing labels) was publishing an absolute ton of titles, but in 1957 Martin Goodman in his infinite wisdom decided it would be a good idea to shut down his distribution company and have his books distributed by American News Distribution instead. American News Distribution went bankrupt very soon after signing their deal with Marvel, and a scrambling Goodman had to settle for having his books distributed by the DC Comics-owned Independent News instead. Independent News limited Marvel to only 8 comics a month, so Goodman ended up canceling pretty much his entire line of comics and change the few titles he had left to bimonthly books so he'd at least get 16 different titles on the shelves. This is known as the Atlas Implosion and was a pretty significant milestone in Marvel history.
In 1960, Goodman eventually managed to talk his way into getting 10 books a months, and in 1961 he had just managed to argue forth an increase to 11, which in actuality ended up being alternating months of 10 and 12 books each. August 1961 was the first of these 12-book months, and one of the new bimonthly books he added to his lineup was of course Fantastic Four.
But why don't we take a look at EVERYTHING he was publishing at the time? These 10 and 12 book months are pretty easy to split up into 5 and 6 books per thread, so this time we'll check out the remaining 6 books from December 1962.
Previous threads August 1961, part 1 August 1961, part 2 September 1961, part 1 September 1961, part 2 October 1961, part 1 October 1961, part 2 November 1961, part 1 November 1961, part 2 December 1961, part 1 December 1961, part 2 January 1962, part 1 January 1962, part 2 February 1962, part 1 February 1962, part 2 March 1962, part 1 March 1962, part 2 April 1962, part 1 April 1962, part 2 May 1962, part 1 May 1962, part 2 June 1962, part 1 June 1962, part 2 July 1962, part 1 July 1962, part 2 August 1962, part 1 August 1962, part 2 September 1962, part 1 September 1962, part 2 October 1962, part 1 October 1962, part 2 November 1962, part 1 November 1962, part 2 December 1962, part 1
Carson Hughes
The final 6 books published in 1962 were all published December 10th... and we get a big change to the lineup that Stan promised us back in October:
Josiah Campbell
Amazing Spider-Man #1
Back in October, Stan promised we'd be getting "a new series of Spiderman tales which will go on sale the beginning of December" in the Fantatic Four letter page. "More details next ish" he said, but that did not happen. Why December and not November? Was Goodman considering putting Spider-Man in Tales of Suspense, but needed the November issue for the 13 page Jack Davis genie story already in the works that couldn't really go anywhere else? It's possible. What DID end up happening, however, was that the Linda Carter book got canceled to make room for a new bimonthly solo Spider-Man title, which also necessitated a December launch since Linda Carter was an even-numbered-months book. We've seen Al Hartley do a couple genre stories in November and December after losing that book, so its cancellation can't have been a last second desicion either. No big loss, Linda Carter was by far Marvel's weakest title at this point and had a severe issue with establishing a consistent tone. We never saw any numbers for it, but it probably wasn't selling all that well.
Spider-Man by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, lettering by Jon D'Agostino
The job number shown here reveals what was already rather obvious from the message from the editor in Amazing Fantasy #15 - that book was never intended to be canceled, and a Spider-Man story for issue #16 had already been prepared. This is that story, it was made around the same time as the material published in June and has been sitting around in Stan's drawer for half a year.
Jonah is actually completely right. If a wrestler in real life went out and beat the shit out of a wanted man, he'd been in serious shit and could easily get a TV show of his canceled over it.
Luis Cooper
I bought a bunch of copies the first ASM epic collection a few years ago for a deep discount on black Friday, to give away. I gave the last one away to my Doctor’s kid last week. He loved it. So this stuff still has some appeal, I guess. End cool story, bros.
"Spider-Man VS The Chameleon" by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, lettering by John Duffy
No visible job number on this one, but it's very likely it was produced for this issue, both to fill up the remaining pages and to give us a Fantastic Four cameo that could be promoted on the cover to attract readers to this new title.
I think Duffy started working for Marvel this month too.
Stan misremembering Peter's last name also makes more sense if this is the first time he's written about him in half a year. Also note the matter-of-factly way the elevator is described to work. That electronic eye beam first appeared in Fantastic Four #6, a story that was written AFTER the first story in this book.
Pffffffft. You’re not even a superhero in marvel until you break into a government facility and hijack some kind of vehicle. Has Richards taught us nothing?
The recent movies could well have used some of that last panel attitude from Pete.
Nathan Baker
In the first Hulk issue, Stan promised a letter page in issue 2, which just turned into a note that they had received too many letters to have read them all in time. This note that issue 2 will already be at the presses when this issue goes on sales so it won't be possible to prep a letter page in time seems a lot more truthful. This makes Amazing Spider-Man only the third currently published book, and the fourth 60s Marvel book overall, to have a letter page.
This is such a good story, I think even better than Amazing Fantasy 15. It's a shame this hyper realistic deconstruction of the genre kinda stopped after this one.
...you'd think there's be plenty of public footage of the Hulk considering how many dangerous rampages he's been on.
Nicholas Powell
We saw one of those "bathtub" comments in a letter published in issue #7. Stan is listening. And also making sure to fill the nerdiest of readers in on all kinds of needless trivia.
One of the great moments of early Marvel. How long will it be before he just cracks and robs a bank? There had been antiheroes before, parodies too, but nothing like this in a full-on superhero book.
I really like how they slowly build up to the appearance of The Hulk here. While this story was obviously done for fans, it's also fun to go in reading this pretending you never heard of him before.
>literal card carrying commie That's so Stan taking the piss.
Leo Gonzalez
I was thinking that, but then no one had cell phones back then. People did have inexpensive cameras, though maybe the few shots a nervous bystander snapped may have been too blurred to be useful.,
Come to think of it, back in 1962, weren't even the cameras used by TV news crews big and clunky?
Hudson Gonzalez
Love the reactions Rick has to Johnny. Just a few months ago Rick was a delinquent who probably wouldn't have played so nice with a non-powered Johnny if they went drag racing or something, but here he has to play the role of tie-wearing lab assistant.
The army had seen him enough times to get footage to release as a warning. There's no reason they couldn't have a camera going by that iceberg cannon they used last issue, for instance.
