Mighty Marvel Firsts - The Split Cover

WHEN I WAS TEN, nothing could beat the excitement of finding a "split cover" Marvel on the newsagent spinner rack. Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four were all well and good, but ... y'know, split covers. I mean, two great heroes in one comic. That's a proper bargain.

We think of Marvel split covers as being a trademark style of the entire Silver Age but, incredibly, this little Marvel foible lasted just around a year (with a bit of overlap at either end).

The phenomenon was pretty much confined to Marvel's former fantasy titles, Strange Tales, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish, but Journey into Mystery 97 (Oct 1963) somehow managed to be the first of Marvel's split covers, although it was also the last for that title.

It falls way outside the classic period of Marvel split covers, but weirdly this sole example from Journey into Mystery was the very first.

What is also surprising is that Strange Tales racked up the greatest number of split title covers during that 1964-65 run. Starting with the March 1964 issue, The Human Torch had part of his space - usually a small part - given over to trailing the Doctor Strange story in the issue. Occasionally, it was hardly more than an insert, but Editor Stan Lee kept doggedly at it until Strange Tales 139 (Dec 1965), the most split covers of any of the anthology titles.

With the first two Strange Tales - 118 and 119 - to sport split covers, the Doctor Strange images were pretty much of an after-thought ... but it's the after-thought that counts, right?

The cover of Strange Tales 120 gave the Doctor Strange feature just a panel blurb, but the split covers were back in effect with Strange Tales 121 to 123 (Jun - Aug 1964) ... with Kirby drawing the Human Torch parts and Steve Ditko drawing the Doctor Strange images. Yet, interestingly, we got a chance to see Kirby drawing Doctor Strange on the cover of Strange Tales 123.

Now that's what I call a split cover ... no lip-service here, Stan went full-throttle for the idea, resulting in this run of beauties that typify what we would come to think of as a proper split cover.

By this time, Stan must have been seeing some benefit to the idea, because this was when he began to extend the approach to other titles in the Marvel line-up. With the September and October 1964 issues, Stan put split covers on Tales to Astonish as well, with Kirby still doing the majority of the cover art, though Strange Tales 124 had Dick Ayers pencilling the main image.

It's true that the Doctor Strange part of Strange Tales 124's cover is little more than an insert panel, but a pattern is definitely beginning to emerge.

The following month, November 1964, Stan was already preparing the ground for Tales of Suspense to follow, after doing the by-now obligatory battle issue, where he could feature the two future co-stars punching the daylights out of each other before the title would feature Captain America as a co-star with a shared, if not literally split, Kirby cover. Strange Tales 126 and Tales to Astonish 61 were also all-Kirby affairs.

So, Tales of Suspense edges towards its run of regular split covers with this strange montage scene. Is Cap busting through a screen in the background, or through the actual paper of the cover. I can't make my mind up ...

After that, with Captain America becoming a regular co-feature in Tales of Suspense, Stan could consolidate the look of his anthology titles and bring the split cover to that title as well. From here on, for the next nine months or so, Marvel Comics' anthology titles would all sport split covers. I'll bet that's less time than you thought, right? Probably something to do with the idea that when you're a kid, nine months seems like decades.

Once again, the slightly weaker Human Torch story gets the lion's share of the cover space on Strange Tales 127, while Suspense and Astonish sort of divide the real estate evenly. And check out the iconic Iron Man pose on Tales of Suspense 60 ...

The December Marvel anthology titles had the split cover machine firing on all cylinders, featuring all Kirby artwork - with the exception of the tiny Doctor Strange insert on Strange Tales 127. I've always had a real soft-spot for Tales of Suspense 60. Poorly distributed in the UK at the time, it took me a few years to track down a copy, so it was always a bit of a holy grail for me, as a kid. It remains one of my favourite split-covers.

The January 1965 issues continued in the same vein, with Kirby providing cover scene for the Ditko-drawn interior stories. It wasn't something I noticed at the time, though these days I'm not so keen on Kirby's attempts at Ditko's characters. It seems as though Kirby just doesn't "get" Ditko ... though Kirby fans may disagree.

A Kirby bonanza of cover art. The Astonish is the best of the batch, with the Strange Tales sporting an especially jumbled design.

The February Strange Tales, issue 129, didn't sport a split cover, but the other titles made up for it with two of the best split covers of the run ... It may have been because Kirby was now designing the covers to accommodate two distinct pieces of art that the covers started to look less like they were cobbled together in the production department.

I particularly like the powerful Giant-Man image on the front of Tales to Astonish 64, though Attuma was never one of my favourite villains. Love that Captain America vignette, as well.

This was carried even further with the March issues. Strange Tales 130 was an absolute corker, with its effective Kirby rendering of Doctor Strange versus Baron Mordo. The magical bolts aren't depicted correctly, but everything else makes up for it. I'm sure others have a view on the goofy pics of The Torch and the Thing in Beatles' wigs, but let's leave that for the comments section. I loved the makeover of Giant-Man - the new uniform was a huge improvement over the slightly drab version we saw in Tales to Astonish 49 - 64. But the king of this group for me was the terrific Tales of Suspense 63 cover with its iconic image of Captain America and the origin story inside - one of my favourite comics of the period ... and I have a vfn copy in my current collection!

Pretty much wall-to-wall Jack Kirby art on these covers, with the exception of the Don Heck insert of Iron Man on the Tales of Suspense. Heck holds up well alongside the Kirby art, but it's a shame Iron Man wasn't drawn a little bigger.

The April issues were a bit of a mixed bunch. Strangely, I quite liked the Strange Tales cover, even though it was drawn by Bob Powell instead of Kirby. The story inside was pretty goofy, though, and didn't really deserve such a good cover. The cover for Tales to Astonish is a bit of a car crash. Looks like it was assembled in the basement by Sol Brodsky's elves. I've talked about it before, but I could never quite figure out what was going on with the figure of Giant-Man. Is he falling down a well? Through an inter-dimensional portal? Lift-shaft? Thank goodness we had the classic Tales of Suspense cover to save the day - coincidently, the very first issue of Suspense I ever bought and one of my very first Marvels, too.

Strange Tales: Ball's up. Tales to Astonish: Paste-up. Tales of Suspense: Bang up ...

The May Marvels were much more magnificent. Jack was back on Strange Tales cover duty. The Thing image was pretty striking and would turn up again here and there as a cut-up, but notably in the Marvel corner box for Fantastic Four 63, 67, 69, 75, 78, 81, 83, 89, 91, 95, 97, 103, 110, 112, 114.

While the Strange Tales issue for May barely qualifies as a split cover, the Astonish and the Suspense absolutely nail it ... great action, iconic drawing, wall-to-wall Kirby.

I also really like the Giant-Man half of the Astonish cover, one of the few instances in which Giant-Man seemed to be in any kind of danger. And the Suspense cover was another I saw first in house ads back in the day, and really, really wanted. Though the Captain America vs The Red Skull half is pretty compelling, it was the idea of the old Golden Iron Man battling the newer red-and-yellow version that was so captivating. In fact, I think that was the first time I even realised there was an earlier version of the Iron Man armour, and that was what prompted me to try to track down the earlier issues of Suspense.

That Thing pose in the corner box looks awful familiar. Could it have been based on the Thing on the cover of Strange Tales 132? Possibly ... click on the image for a closer look.

Speaking of iconic images, how about the Hulk section of the Tales to Astonish 67 cover? Marvel would later blow that artwork up and sell it as a poster, part of an MMMS set.

This is sort of interesting ... On the left, the poster as printed. On the right, the "original" art for the poster, actually a stat, blown up and heavily re-inked. It sold, back in 2016, for a bit under $600. Heritage didn't offer any more information, but I would add that, out of context, The Hulk's pose doesn't make any sense.

The cover of Strange Tales 133 (June 1965) is pretty disappointing. It's pencilled by Jack Kirby, though you'd never know it. Probably one of his weakest. The Astonish cover for the same month isn't a much better showcase for Kirby, with the Giant-Man image taken from an interior Bob Powell panel. The Tales of Suspense 66 cover sort of makes up for it, but I can only conclude that Kirby was a bit busy during February (when these covers would have been drawn), though on what, I couldn't say. He'd given up pencilling Avengers around the same time and the Fantastic Four and Journey into Mystery Annuals weren't due for months ... Perhaps taking over The Hulk from Ditko that month was just ten pages too far for Jack.

The Strange Tales 133 cover is credited to Jack Kirby and Mike Esposito (as "Micky Demeo"). It doesn't look like there's a whole lot of Kirby going on there. The Astonish cover is a combination of Powell paste-up and Kirby pencils, all inked by Colletta. Frank Giacoia brings some much needed class to the Kirby-pencilled Suspense cover.

For the August and September issues of Strange Tales and Tales to Astonish, publisher Martin Goodman and editor Stan Lee had decreed some changes. Marvel was finally closing down the solo Torch stories in Strange Tales, a move long-overdue. And with Giant-Man just not clicking with readers, either in Astonish or in The Avengers, the decision was taken to "rest" the character for a while.

Neither Strange Tales 134 nor 135 had split covers, as The Human Torch was retired from the title and Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD made its debut. Astonish was also revamped, but retained The Hulk on the cover, presumably as the character was seen as a selling point. Only Suspense soldiered on as usual.

The fact that Doctor Strange is nowhere to be seen on either Strange Tales cover gives us an idea of how important Stan thought the character was in the grand scheme of things - that is, not very.

I sort of lost interest in Tales to Astonish at this point. I never really took to the Sub-Mariner solo adventures, despite the gorgeous Gene Colan artwork. I have a complete run of Astonish, so I really should make the effort to read them properly, and give Subby and the Hulk another chance. Maybe I should do a blog entry on Astonish 70 to 101, some time.

Suspense 67 cover art looks a little flat, probably because of the Carl Hubbel inking, but Suspense 68 is another classy Giacoia-inked affair, with the Iron Man armour rendered especially well. I also noticed how over the last several issues, Stan had been emphasising Captain America one month and Iron Man the next.

The September issues marked the beginning of the end for the split cover at Marvel. With Tales of Suspense being the last to divide the cover art between Iron Man and Captain America, it wouldn't be long before the other titles went down the same route.

Strange Tales 136 has a curiously dull cover. It doesn't look like Kirby put a lot of thought into that one. Probably something he had to hack out overnight. The Astonish cover is gorgeous, but where's The Hulk? He's not mentioned, other than in the logo. The Suspense Iron Man image is terrific, and would be a fitting swansong for divided covers on the title.

As October rolled round, it was only Strange Tales and Tales to Astonish holding the line. And at that, only barely. We'd be hard-pressed to say that either title actually split its space between the two features in the book.

I really like the John Severin art for the SHIELD portion of the Strange Tales cover - beautifully drawn, even if it does lack the punch of Kirby pencils. The Astonish cover is also nicely rendered, but again, lacking in drama.

Blink and you'd miss the Doctor Strange art at the foot of Strange Tales 137, and The Hulk is very much an afterthought on the Astonish 72 cover, looking like it was added by the production department at the eleventh hour.

The November issues weren't hugely different. The Strange Tales had no sharing whatsoever and the Astonish included a small insert, but with the cropping and the colouring, it's very difficult to see what's going on in the Sub-Mariner part of the cover.

So, just the one split cover in November 1965. No big surprise that Doctor Strange doesn't even rate a mention. The Astonish cover looks like another rush-job from Kirby, inked by Esposito - not my favourite inker on Kirby ... or anyone else, really.

Then, with the two December 1965 issues it was all but over. It doesn't really look like either was designed as a split cover. The Strange Tales cover is almost definitely a production department job, with a Marie Severin drawing of Doctor Strange used to frame a stat of the Nick Fury splash page from the interior art.

The final split cover anthology titles were sort of damp squibs. The Strange Tales is so murky, you hardly even notice the Doctor Strange figure on the left, and nice though the Gene Colan artwork on the Astonish cover is, the artist had yet to hit his Marvel stride ...

The cover for Tales to Astonish 74 was likely designed to be a solo Sub-Mariner illustration, but it looks like Stan had the production department add the Hulk inset panel just before press time. And that was that. Just one more Astonish cover shared the real estate between The Hulk and Sub-Mariner, with the star-billing going to The Hulk.

Here it is ... the final split cover Marvel of the 1960s. The Sub-Mariner insert is pleasant but inconsequential and most of the attention has gone on the Hulk image, heralding some sort of change in direction that I wasn't much interested in at the time.

Later on, I would wonder why Stan had stopped using that cover style. Did he get bored with it? Or did Martin Goodman - who always had an opinion about the covers on his magazines - just decide that it wasn't helping sales? The answers are lost in the mists of time. One thing's sure, though ... as a kid, I loved 'em. Still do.

It's hard to pin down the appeal of this period of Marvel cover. Aside from the blaring news that you were getting "Two Great Features Inside!", there was also the fact that they were action-packed to the point of hysteria. Compare to a typical DC cover of the same period, with the heroes standing around and having l-o-n-g conversations, the Marvel covers were all about doing. The heroes leapt and punched and flew and blasted. And that, more than anything else, is how within a couple of years, Marvel would overtake DC in sales.

Meanwhile, just as Marvel were abandoning the split cover format, others - possibly thinking this was the key to Marvel's success - began imitating them, notably the Mighty Comics line published by Archie. I covered Marvel imitators in an earlier blogpost.

THE SECOND WAVE

Several years later, Stan would revive the split cover concept on two 1970 titles, Amazing Adventures and Astonishing Tales. By that time, Martin Goodman had one foot out the door, looking forward to a long retirement of golf games. So it's likely that Stan thought divided covers would be a good way to sell his first foray into anthology titles in a couple of years.

As busy and action-packed as these covers were, it's doubtful that they were very successful in translating into hard sales. Maybe they were just too "shouty" and in-your-face for a changing comic book marketplace ...

Does this indicate that Stan loved split covers and it was Goodman who put a stop to them at the end of 1965? Possibly.

Both of these new anthologies had their roots in the idea of giving The Inhumans their own title. That was the plan back in 1966, but for whatever reason - the Independent News cap on Marvel titles, or Martin Goodman being a little risk averse (accounts vary) - it never happened. Stan tried a couple of times to launch an Inhumans solo comic and indeed that was once again the plan in 1970. But someone - probably Goodman - reneged.

With Kirby gone, Neal Adams took over the art on The Inhumans, but it didn't seem to help. Both titles were struggling and Stan began to instigate changes to try to save the books. And giving all twenty pages to one character seemed to be the way to go.

Thus, Amazing Adventures co-starred The Black Widow - an odd choice - and Astonishing Tales, intended as a vehicle for Doctor Doom, was forced to co-star Ka-Zar. Given that the Tarzan knock-off was always a favourite of Goodman's, my suspicion is that this was also a publisher intervention.

But by the ninth issue of both titles, the split cover format was once again abandoned and Amazing Adventures became an Inhumans vehicle, even after Kirby had departed for DC. And Doctor Doom was dropped from Astonishing Tales, leaving Ka-Zar to go it alone for a couple of issues before being replaced by the X-Men's Beast.

Next: More Thor