Marvel Ad-Men

FROM THE EARLIEST DAYS OF MARVEL COMICS, in 1939, through the final months of Publisher Martin Goodman's tenure around 1971, the company was trapped at the lower end of the market by Goodman's penny-pinching ways. 

It can't be a coincidence that the most prominent publisher in the Marvel Universe is J. Jonah Jameson, a shameless skinflint who balks at the concept of paying his freelancers.

Marvel publisher Martin Goodman wasn't shy about his copycat tactics nor his contempt for his audiences.

Some of Martin Goodman's cost-cutting ideas ended up backfiring on him. His biggest business error was dissolving his own Atlas Distribution company and signing a contract with the American News Company. When Stan Lee questioned the wisdom of the decision, Goodman replied airily, "Stan, you wouldn't understand, it has to do with finance." Within weeks, ANC, under investigation by Federal Authorities for anti-trust violations, decided to close their doors, and Goodman was left without a distributor for his magazines and comics.

Another of Goodman's tricks was to take previously published stories, change a few details and publish them as originals in his magazines. Twice, Goodman found himself in trouble with the law for such antics ... On 24 January, 1942 The New York Times reported the Federal Trade Commission had ordered Martin Goodman "not to publish reprints of previously published stories without disclosing the fact that they have been published before." Then, on 14 October 1946 the Federal Trade Commission again charged Martin Goodman with misrepresenting the originality of the contents of his publications. It's possible Goodman may have complied with the order, or perhaps he just took greater care not to get caught again.

Classy, eh? These ads were aimed at low-paid manual workers who were far more likely to suffer hernias in the course of their working lives.

In another incident, during 1954, Goodman was trying (again!) to publish a cheap knock-off of the highly successful Esquire magazine, Swank. Editor Bruce Jay Friedman, later a successful novelist and screenwriter, was going for Class on a Budget, optioning stories by Graeme Greene, and William Saroyan. But when Friedman saw the make-readies for the first issue the inside front cover was an ad for men's trusses. Fuming, Friedman "stormed into Goodman's office and said , 'I thought we were competing with Esquire - this sets the tone in the wrong way.' The advertising guys were summoned and they fought me tooth and nail to keep the truss ad, because they'd lose revenue. The truss people always paid. So I put my job on the line and said, 'the truss ad goes or I go' ... the compromise was struck that we'd run an electronics school ad in the front. But gradually they worked the truss ads back in."

Also aimed at unskilled workers, the home tuition ads offered them a promise of elevating their station in life.

Yet, even the electronics school ads, which would show up in the later Marvel Comics as well, were aimed at low-paid unskilled workers. So, same market, really.

This all just goes to show that Goodman believed the readers of his magazine line were blue-collar males and we'll see later that he believed his comics readers were pretty much the same, though some ads targeted little kids.

When it came to the business of advertising in Goodman's comics, the line was divided into two groups.

At the beginning of the 1960s, the Red Unit included the boys' comics:

Gunsmoke Western Journey into Mystery Kid Colt Outlaw Rawhide Kid

Strange Tales Tales of Suspense Tales to Astonish Two-Gun Kid

These had a combined audited monthly circulation of 1,888,804.

The Yellow Unit collected together the titles that were aimed at the girls' market and included:

Date with Millie Kathy Love Romances Millie the Model

My Girl Pearl Patsy and Hedy Patsy Walker Teenage Romances

and had a more modest circulation of 1,103,213.

When an advertiser bought a slot in a Marvel comic of the period, their ad would run across all the titles in the Unit for that month. There would be discounts for repeat ads, and advertisers would expect to pay a premium for prime spots in the comic - back cover, inside front cover and inside back cover, in that order. The distribution of ads throughout the comics of the period would be fixed, month to month, each title using the same pagination template. This meant that Stan often had ads in the middle of stories, as you'll see from the pagination sheets I've included below.

By contrast, DC's comics had a slightly better class of advertiser, though the ads were squarely aimed at little kids, primarily promoting toys and sweets. And DC used a similar method to Marvel, dividing their titles into two units, though they had sub-units based on frequency of publication (Marvel was stuck with bi-monthly in most cases until 1962 or so). In the early 1960s, DC's Red Unit was made up of:

MONTHLIES

Adventure Comics Detective Comics House of Secrets

Our Army at War Strange Adventures

BI-MONTHLIES

Adventures of Bob Hope Adventures of Jerry Lewis All American Men of War Brave and the Bold Challengers of the Unknown Fox and Crow

G. I. Combat Green Lantern Many Loves of Dobie Gillis Rip Hunter Sea Devils

8 TIMES A YEAR

Jimmy Olsen Superman World's Finest

The combined circulation of these titles was audited at 2,993,892 a year.

DC's Blue Unit comprised of:

MONTHLIES

Action Comics Blackhawk House of Mystery

My Greatest Adventure Unexpected

BI-MONTHLIES

Justice League of America Our Fighting Forces Showcase

Star-Spangled War Stories Sugar and Spike Tomahawk

8 TIMES A YEAR

Batman Lois Lane Mystery in Space

Superboy The Flash Wonder Woman

and had an annual audited circulation of 3,055,710. Unlike Marvel, you could advertise in DCs comics by the group, by the unit or by selected titles. Also unlike Marvel, distribution of the ad pages throughout DC comics would vary from month to month which meant that ads would rarely, if ever, interrupt the stories. So unlike Marvel, DC never lost sight of why their readers were buying the comics.

GOODMAN'S LOW-RENT ADVERTISERS

It's not hard to see why Martin Goodman's publications catered for the low-end of the advertising market. Coming from a pulp tradition, the way Goodman saw it was that any advertising was a bonus and as long at the client paid, who cares what they wanted to advertise. As a businessman, Goodman had no love for his own product. He constantly undervalued what he produced. Captain America co-creator Joe Simon called him a "cloak-and-suiter", old-school slang for the kind of businessman who only thinks short-term, penny-wise and pound foolish, often costing themselves money in the longer term. An example of that was when Goodman gave away the film rights to Captain America for free, thinking the 1944 serial would boost sales of the Captain America comic. There was never any evidence to show that it had. 

Martin Goodman had a history of undervaluing his company and its intellectual property assets, often selling to the first, and usually lowest, bidder.

It was the same with the Marvel Super-Heroes cartoon series of the mid-1960s. "We wrote an unbelievable contract with the Goodmans," series producer Robert Lawrence told The Jack Kirby Collector, "because they didn't know what they had and where to go. Believe it or not, in this contract I was able to obtain participation in the merchandising rights and continuing interest in it." Again, Martin was happy to chisel a few bucks at the front end, but give away the store in the long-term. And don't even get me started on him selling Magazine Management to Perfect Film and Chemical for $7 million. In 2009, Disney bought Marvel for $4 billion, commenting that the publishing house was actually worth $10 billion more than that to them.

So it comes as no surprise that Goodman served the bottom feeders of the advertising world, selling his ad space cheaper than DC, because at the beginning of the 1960s, Marvel books didn't reach as many kids as DC's mags.

Let's start with the late 1950s, right after Goodman's disastrous dissolution of his Atlas distribution network and having to cut his comics line from 53 titles to 16 to get Independent News Distributors (DC) to put his books on the newsstands.

1958 - MARVEL

There weren't any Marvel superhero comics in 1958, but Goodman did have his westerns and mystery titles (the boys' comics or Red Unit) and the romance and teenage titles (the girls' comics or Yellow Unit).

While the editorial pages - comic strips and the regulatory two pages of editorial text - the ads remained in fixed positions across the range. Here's the page plan (pagination) for Two-Gun Kid 43 (Aug 1958):

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And here's what the non-comic-strip pages looked like in the same issue:

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I've included the text story pages to give you a sense of how much, or how little, comic material you were getting for your 10 cents back then. Twenty-three pages, to save you the mental arithmetic. And you can see from the pagination that Stan often had to have his stories interrupted by a page of advertising.

Of the twelve advertisements in Two-Gun Kid 43, just four could be said to be aimed squarely at children. The body-building ads would be directed at slightly older wimp-y kids that read comics. The other stuff - ads for selling opportunities, and low-cost items like "20 Dresses for $3.50" would find an audience with readers from low-income families. And there's a page of classified ads, for low-income companies, something that would last well into the 1980s. Interestingly, the Stephens Credit Sales ads would also show up regularly in the DC comics of the period, a rare instance of the same ads showing up in both companies' pages.

Meanwhile, around the same time in the Yellow Unit, Love Romances 77 (Sep 1958) slavishly followed the same pagination template:

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However, because of the different audience, the ads featured were slightly different, though as you can see, they don't always follow the obvious gender division.

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There's the Stephens Mottoes ad along with the female equivalent of the body building ads, the weight-reducing ads. And if you don't want to take dietary supplements to reduce weight, you can wear a girdle (while applying your pimple cream). Though I do wonder what sort of ten-year-old kid would be interested in ads like this. Could it be that Goodman was working with the just one ad agency for his Magazine Management publications and his Atlas/Marvel comics?

1958 - DC

DC also divided their titles into two groups, the Blue Unit and the Red Unit, though these weren't as clearly defined as the Marvel Units. For example, two natural companion titles, House of Secrets and House of Mystery were in different units, so I struggle to see an obvious logic here.

However, DC did carry a slightly better class of ad, though definitely aimed at a younger demographic. They also seemed less concerned with including two pages of text to qualify for second-class subscription mailing rights. Their page plans were flexible, allowing DC's editors to place their ads between stories.

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DC also carried house ads, both for other DC comics and for DC-related promotions, like the Superman-themed rides at the New Jersey Palisades Park. To accommodate some odd-sized ads, DC would include Henry Boltinoff cartoon strips (often reprints) to fill the rogue spaces. They also had more comic strip than Marvel. Twenty four pages ... twenty six and a half, if you want to count the Boltinoff cartoon pages.

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You'll see a couple of ads for toys - roller skates and Daisy BB guns. They avoided the low-cost classified ads, but still carried the same sales opportunities ads as Marvel. This would begin to change of the next year or two to expand the toy ads and add the iconic Tootsie Roll ads.

Strange Adventures 95 (Aug 1958) used a different page plan to that month's Action Comics.

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But you can see that DC's Red Unit carried pretty much the same ads as the Blue Unit, with the exception of the Charles Atlas ad on the inside front cover. More story pages (twenty six) in this issue means fewer ads.

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I always found the idea of those "community" ads strange. I couldn't have known it at the time, but I now wonder if they were included to try to appease the anti-comics brigade of the 1950s.

1960 - MARVEL

I had originally prepared a set of these for every year from 1958 to 1963, but I don't want to test your patience, so I'm skipping over the odd-numbered years to get through this faster. Here's the page plan for 1960's Red Unit title, Two-Gun Kid again. Identical to the pagination for 1958, with all the ads in the same places.

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The ads are similar, too, but we're seeing more ads for training programmes, like this issue's Commercial Trades Institute one, offering tuition in refrigeration engineering, along with an ad touting work in foreign countries. Again, not for ten-year-olds.

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Over in the Yellow Unit, the placement of the ads remains the same, though Stan's moved the text story pages around a little.

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Stan could have avoided having his comic stories interrupted if he'd deployed more five-page strips, but it's that killer two-page spread at 16-17 that would give any editor a headache. We'll lay this one at Goodman's door, because he clearly hadn't thought this through terribly well.

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The tuition ads are for two different art training offerings. A lot more half page ads than in the Red Unit, and some oddly out-of-place promotions for wrist radios and play tanks, which would suit a boys' comic better.

1960 - DC

Interestingly, DC's Blue Unit has another shared ad with its Marvel counterpart this month. But this time, the Tommy Tomorrow and Congo Bill backup stories have been replaced by a 13-page Supergirl tale. Again, the stories - 26 pages in total - run uninterrupted.

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The ad for presidential signet rings we saw in Two-Gun Kid 55 also appears here. I'm genuinely at a loss to understand who would want to buy one of those. A green Lantern ring, maybe. Or a Flash ring with the costume inside, certainly. Also, there's a full-page house ad for the first Superman Annual, featuring the always-welcome lettering stylings of the great Ira Schapp.

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Meanwhile, in DC's Red Unit, there's twenty-four-and-a-third pages of comic strip. Say what? It's because it was around this time that DC started make the final page of their comic strips two-thirds of a page. Why did they do this? Who knows. Maybe to accommodate third-page ads that never materialised. Maybe to save a bit of money on artwork. In this issue, the slots are filled with one-third page Schapp-lettered house ads, something I always loved as a kid, even though I rarely saw the advertised comics in the wild.

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Just five pages of paid advertising in Strange Adventures 119, compared with ten pages in Marvel's titles around the same time. It's another demonstration of how Goodman would find ways to chisel his audience to the tune of a fraction of a cent here and there.

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Another point of interest is an early appearance of the "150 Civil War Soldiers for $1.49" ad. These would grow and diversify over the next couple of years until you could get pretty much any army you wanted for about a penny per soldier.

This is what you got for your $1.49. Swiz, right? That's the equivalent of £15.99 in today's money. Quite a lot of cash for a kid to find.

The reality is that these were a pretty sorry bargain. Far from being actual toy soldiers 5-6cm tall, they were tiny, FLAT, excuses for soldiers. There's an entertaining blog on this very subject you can check out ... but not till you've finished reading my blog.

1962 - MARVEL

A couple of years passed and Marvel hadn't changed at all, still using the same page plan, still giving us 23 pages of story and ten pages of paid advertising. Two-Gun Kid was on hiatus during 1962, so I had to choose another Red Unit title to represent Marvel's advertising content for the month of August, Strange Tales 99.

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Likewise, the advertisers hadn't changed a lot either. Honor House was still peddling the same old low quality novelties - a full page of them in the Treasure Chest of Fun ad and a couple of half pages touting Wrist Radios and Insect Collecting kits. And a Be An Auto Mechanic ad ... not sure how many ten-year-olds would sign up for that.

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Likewise, the Yellow Unit titles continued doggedly to plough the same furrow. Though the page plan was identical to the Red Unit titles, the advertisers did vary a little from previous years. Love Romances 101 had this page plan:

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The ad pages featured many of the usual suspects, Weight Gain ("Don't let them call you skinny!") and Weight Loss ads ("Don't be fat!"), a School of Nursing ad (I'm fairly sure you can't get licensed to be a nurse after ten weeks of home study) and some out-of-place offerings from Honor House.

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That Honor House luggage ad looks especially tacky. What's the betting that those "suitcases" are made of cardboard? And what's with all the photo ads? Photos of you, photos of stars ... I think I'll just stick with eight Latest Twist Hits for a dollar (love "Peppermint Twist" ... my mum had the original by Joey Dee and the Starliters, Part 1 on side one and Part 2 on the flip side. I don't think the advertised version is the original).

Marvel wouldn't really start with their own house ads till the following year, and I'll be leaving their superhero years for next time.

1962 - DC

Finally, we get to the last batch for this blog entry. I'm looking at Action Comics 291 as the DC Blue Unit example for 1962. The page count for new comics strip has come down a little. Both the Superman and Supergirl stories weigh in at eleven and two-thirds pages, with the extra third-page occupied by ads. There's a half-page Henry Boltinoff cartoon, Varsity Vic, and a letters page.

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By this time we're starting to see a big increase in the number of house ads - three half pages and a third-page, mostly focussed on the Superman Family titles but squeezing in a plug for the Batman Annual. The rest is seven pages of paid ads, and whatever you count that Community one-page strip as.

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So far, DC are still avoiding interrupting their main comic strips with ads. There's two full-page ads for toy soldier sets, Convoy Terror and Revolutionary War. I always wanted one of those Magic Art Reproducer gadgets. Even as a ten-year-old I was dead keen on drawing and aspired to be an actual artist one day.

This is what you got ... you point the front of the little black box at the art you want to copy, then peer down the little hole to see the art superimposed on your paper. Bit of a faff, really, and from all accounts, not very good.

Over in the Red Unit (we're using Strange Adventures 143), we get an extra comic strip page - a lead strip at eight and two-thirds pages and two backup strips at seven and two-thirds pages each. The extra third-pages are taken up with house ads. I especially like the ad for DC Comicpac ... I wonder if any of those survived intact.

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The same house ads for Superman Family titles also appear here, along with two different toy soldiers ads - Convoy Terror and the iconic 100 Toy Soldiers (Packed in this Footlocker).

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I'd imagine that the difference in the types of ads that ran in the Marvel titles and in the DC titles would have been that Marvel's lower circulations meant their ads rates were lower, so more small fry companies could afford to advertise. In my reasearches, I found some indications that Martin Goodman had connections to companies that manufactured and sold cheap novelties, so this might explain the preponderence of Honor House advertisements in his publications.

But over the next couple of years Marvel's audited circulation would begin to rise, at a staggering 1 million extra copies a year, until they drew level with DC and overtook them around mid-1967. Yes, I'm aware of the apocryphal tale of Martin Goodman switching up his pages count in 1971 and wrong-footing DC, but Marvel were outselling DC long before that. And remember, I'm going by the audited figures that appeared in the advertising trade publication N. W. Ayres and Sons Directory, so let's not have any quibbling in the comments.

Next time, I'll take a look at how Marvel's advertising changed as its circulations began to climb from 1963 onwards.

Next: More tales from Madison Avenue

Shadow of the Bat

BEFORE I DISCOVERED MARVEL COMICS IN THE MID-1960S, I was something of a Batman fan, specifically the stories of the 1950s (which I enjoyed in the Batman Annuals of the period and last years of the Jack Schiff era in the early 1960s. Back then, the go-to artist for Batman was Shelley Moldoff, who had jettisoned his Golden Age, Alex Raymond influenced style and aped the rather limited and cartoony abilities of Bob Kane.

As a direct literary descendant of the pulp hero The Shadow, Batman did quite a bit of shadow-casting himself, being that he was a "creature of the night, dark, terrible" and all.

Moldoff didn't start as Bob Kane's ghost-artist until the late 1950s, but while I was researching Batman covers for an earlier post, I noticed another strange trope that would crop up again and again in Moldoff's cover art - a weird, Bat-Signal style shadow, cast by Batman.

Forged in simpler times, The Shadow spent quite a bit of his time casting weird shadows, something often referred to in the text as well as being depicted frequently on the covers.

Now, because Batman was largely inspired by the long-running pulp and radio star The Shadow, Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger appropriated quite a lot of the tricks and gimmicks from The Shadow stories. Blending with the darkness, impenetrable disguises and of course, casting weird shadows.

Some examples of Batman shadows on covers of the 1940s. Curiously the cover for Batman 16 is essentially the same as that of Batman 9, just flopped.
Click the image to enlarge.

So it seemed only natural that Batman should do a lot of the same. And indeed, he cast many a shadow on the Batman and Detective Comics covers of his 1940s heyday.

Pencilled by Jim Mooney, this cover to Detective Comics 132 (Feb 1948), does kind of foreshadow the odd, Bat-signal inspired shadows Shelly Moldoff would start drawing on Batman covers almost a decade later.

Then, around the middle of 1956, Curt Swan, who'd been pencilling the Detective Comics covers, and Win Mortimer, who'd been providing pencils for the Batman covers, were both replaced by Sheldon Moldoff. I couldn't find any reason for this in any interviews given by Moldoff, but he does mention that Kane had told him the gig didn't pay much, but would be steady work. My suspicion is that Kane was trying to save himself some money.

Batman 102 was the first to use the stylised shadow trope. It's not immediately obvious, because the colourist used a pastel shade, but it's there. Batman 108 (Jun 1957) and Batman 129 (Feb 1960) would follow.

It wasn't long afterwards that Moldoff started slipping these stylised shadows of Batman into the covers he was knocking out for the Bob Kane studio. The earliest one I found was for Batman 102 (Feb 1956). Then there was a short break until Batman 108, then a longer one until the next example on Batman 129.

As these covers were a little later, the Bat-Shadow is a little more pronounced, solid black instead of an outline filled with colour. Along with Detective 242, there was Detective 246 (Aug 1957) and Detective 286 (Dec 1958).

Over on Detective Comics, the same gimmick was showing up. Detective 242 (Apr 1957) was the first to use the stylise shadow on the cover art, then in the months that followed, the trope would show up several more times.

These early 1960s covers are Batman137 (Feb 1961), Batman 139 (April 1961) and Batman 154 (Mar 1963) - all still rocking the Bat-Signal shadow motif.

As we moved into the early 1960s, Moldoff was using the trick even more frequently, especially on the Detective Comics covers. Though it might just have seemed that way because Detective was a monthly and Batman came out eight times a year.

Detective Comics 298 (Dec 19161), 302 (Apr 1962), 304 (Jun 1962), 306 (Aug 1962), 315 (May 1963) and 320 (Oct 1963).

Then a curious thing happened. Faced with declining sales, DC were considering cancelling the Batman title. It has been reported elsewhere that DC had been thinking about cancelling Batman, but it seems unlikely that anyone would think discontinuing the flagship title - the very comic that gave DC its name, Detective Comics - could ever be a good idea. Whether the story is true or not, it does seem like DC used it to get Bob Kane to loosen his grip on the character, allowing incoming editor Julius Schwartz (replacing Jack Kirby's old nemesis Jack Schiff) to give the character a sleek makeover, getting rid of the aliens and mutations and placing Batman in a more realistic environment. Carmine Infantino was drafted in to redesign the look, and although Sheldon Moldoff would survive the cull, he'd start drawing more like Infantino and less like Bob Kane.

But that's not all. The strange Bat-Signal shadow would continue to show up ... even on covers pencilled by Infantino. The idea was like chewing gum - impossible to shake off. The earliest instances were on the Detective Comics covers ...

Detective Comics 328 (Infantino art, Jun 1964), 344 (Infantino art, Oct 1965), 349 (Kubert art, Mar 1966), 351 (Infantino art, May 1966), 354 (Infantino art, Aug 1966), 358 (Infantino art, Dec 1966).

But later, it started showing up on the Batman covers, too, albeit a little bit later and on covers pencilled by a variety of artists.

Batman 195 (Infantino art, Sep 1967), 203 (Infantino/Adams art, Jul 19168), 204 (Novick art, Aug 1968), 214 (Novick art, Aug 1969), 216 (Novick/Giordano art, Nov 1969), 217 (Adams art, Dec 1969).

And finally, even Batgirl started getting in on the Bat-Signal shadow action, though curiously Robin never rated a special shadow of his own.

Detective Comics 358 (Infantino art, Jan 1967), 369 (Gil Kane art, Nov 1967).

The weird Shadow of the Batman device continued up until about 1970 or so, then pretty much died out as new artists came in and regard for the character's history naturally waned away.

Even so, there are a few examples of this phenomenon during the 1970s as well, but as this blog has the phrase "Silver Age" in its title, I don't like to wander too far into the Bronze Age.

If you want to see more, you can always go to the Grand Comicbook Database and have a browse through the covers stored there ... I'm not going to do all the work for you.

Next: Ads in the comics

Thor - The Legend Years: Part 3

FOR MOST OF 1965, Journey into Mystery, Marvel's vehicle for the adventures of Thor, had increasingly come to focus on Thor the Thunder God rather than on Thor the Superhero. Starting with "The Trial of the Gods" in Journey into Mystery 116 (May 1965) we would see a lot more of Odin, Balder and the ever-machinating machinations of Thor's half-brother and arch enemy Loki, God of Mischief.

Though mostly reprints, the first Marvel Annual to feature Thor gave us an all-new 15-page battle between the Asgardian God of Thunder and Hercules, son of Zeus.

Around the same time, Stan and Jack threw us another curve-ball and, in the first Journey into Mystery Annual (Aug 1965), introduced Hercules and the pantheon of Greek Gods.

There are some odd plotting decisions in this story, which lead me to think this was largely Kirby's work. To begin with, if I had an adopted brother who'd already tried to kill me several times, I doubt I'd be socialising with him, especially unaccompanied by witnesses. And even if this were a good idea, I'd have picked somewhere other than Jotunheim, shown to be home of the diabolical Snake Men in JiM 113.

The story title, "When Titans Clash" is pretty much the whole thing. Out for a pony trek with his evil kid brother, Thor comes across a couple of Storm giants up to no good. Thor casually mentions that they're trying to dig their way back to Olympus home of the Greek Gods, from whence they were banished centuries before. After a bit of argy-bargy, Thor falls down a hole and emerges in Olympus.

The first meeting of Thor and Hercules is straight out of the Sherwood Forest playbook, when Robin and Little John both refuse to give way on a narrow bridge. The ensuing eight pages of carnage all seem a bit pointless ... like a WWF wrestling match.

Pretty much the first person he meets is Hercules, son of Zeus. For no reason that makes any sense, the pair start fighting an escalating battle of godly super-strength, until Zeus shows up and boxes their ears for them. Thor is sent back to Asgard, but decides to keep the existence of Olympus to himself, for fear Loki will attempt to make mischief with the knowledge - though doesn't Loki already know that was the entrance to Olympus because Thor told him so at the start of the story? That's it.

Astonishingly, Zeus finds the Thor-Hercules battle to be "honorable", when he should actually be paddling the pair of them for being arrogant, thick-headed idiots ...

As Marvel Annuals go, this one isn't in the league of those of the previous year. Of the 15-page new story, eight pages are just panel after panel of punching, without a whiff of motivation. And with just a two-page panorama of Asgard as the bonus feature and reprints of some key earlier Thor stories, the thrill factor is a bit lacking.

What is important - and probably accounts for the very high prices being asked for even tatty reading copies of this book - is that it introduces Hercules and Olympus to the Thor canon. And, as you'll see, Stan and Jack would be quick to capitalise on that, and starting to downplay the mortal persona of Don Blake (not even mentioned in the Annual story) and to minimise the use of Earth as a backdrop for the next round of Thor's adventures.

I'm doubtful that a regular Earth steel furnace would be strong enough to repair Thor's broken Mjolnir ... shouldn't he have taken it to Asgard to have it serviced by trolls or something?

After the sidebar of the JiM Annual, the main storyline continued in Journey into Mystery 120 (Sep 1965) without missing a beat. While repairing his hammer damaged in the battle against The Destroyer, Thor enjoys a macho male-bonding moment with some steel workers before heading out into the country side to commune with nature and check that he has all the magic pebbles he confiscated from sneaky Loki.

To show what a mensch Thor is, Stan has him plead with his father to go easy on Loki. After all, he can't help being a douche.

But, unnoticed by the Thunder God, he drops one of the Norn Stones, important because this will come back to bite him later. Meanwhile, Loki is in a bit of a huff, after being demoted by Odin to assistant to Asgardian mage Ularic and is already plotting his revenge.

So, Thor nips back to Earth to check up on his love interest Nurse Jane Foster but finds Don Blake's surgery all closed up and the landlord knocking on the door demanding rent. Where has Jane disappeared to? In a bit of a panic, Thor starts combing the city, even considering enlisting the newly-formed Avengers v2.0 in his quest. I guess Thor can be forgiven for not recognising Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver as he has been a bit busy since the lineup changed in Avengers 16 (May 1965).

This is what you get for taking your eye off the ball. While you're trying to find your girlfriend (could she have ditched you for someone else, like she did once before?) your brother has teamed up with your worst enemy to mess you up for good.

Even as a kid, I found the whole "romantic" sub-plot of Thor-pining-for-Jane-Foster a bit tiresome. I'm sure Stan was going for Shakespearian tragedy here, but to my ten-year old sensibilities, it just seemed that Thor was being a whiney little wimp. Anyhow, while the Thunder God's acting like a lovesick teenager, Loki is getting his game on and planning the mother of all comebacks for the foe that nearly defeated Thor last time ... ladies and gentlemen, Crusher Creel, The Absorbing Man.

A rare instance in Marvel Comics where the stature of the villain on the cover is literal instead of symbolic. Yes, Crusher Creel really is thirty feet tall in the story.

Journey into Mystery 121 (Oct 1965) is where Stuff Gets Real. Essentially a 13-page slugfest between Thor and Crusher Creel, the Kirby action barely pauses to take a breath. Yet the 13 pages pivot on Creel's ability to absorb the properties of his surroundings: bricks, Thor's uru hammer, Thor himself, concrete and steel of buildings, glass(!), and the iron of a bank vault.

The Absorbing Man is a great villain to pit against Thor (despite the daft name). As an antagonist he was less effective against other heroes, like his later appearance in Avengers 183-184 (May-Jun 1979).

The only three non-battle pages in the entire episode reveal a little of the sly plottings of Loki behind the whole drama and a glimpse of Jane Foster's captivity at the hands of a mysterious hooded figure. As with the recent Journey into Mystery Annual story, the persona of Don Blake isn't mentioned, though he would be back in Journey into Mystery 122, as the mystery of the hooded man is resolved.

Only three of the pages in JiM 121 carry the plot forward, and one of those doesn't do much except remind us that Thor has dropped one of the Norn Stones in the middle of a forest somewhere, where it still lies.

It's an enjoyable episode, though there's little in the way of bones to hang an actual story on. Kirby always excels at this kind of action-oriented tale and it does kind of feel that Stan Lee was already starting to leave Jack a bit to his own devices. I don't really mind that here, but page 12 does feel like it was tossed in for a bit of padding at the last minute.

Great cover, interestingly not inked by the hackmanlike Vince Colletta, but by former EC superstar and Marvel newcomer Wally Wood. Wood was also contributing art to Daredevil around this period and inks on Avengers 22 (Nov 1965).

As the story continues in Journey into Mystery 122 (Nov 1965), we get to see Loki's masterplan unfold. Where in the past - for example in the battle he'd engineered between The Destroyer and Thor - he'd been a little wary of incurring the wrath of Odin, this time he's about to challenge his adoptive father head-on.

Even as Crusher Creel thinks he has Thor beaten, the Thunder God's fighting spirit causes him to redouble his efforts and suddenly the Absorbing Man sees his fortunes take a downward turn. But Loki, monitoring all this from Asgard, snatches his pawn away from the battle just as Creel's defeat looks inevitable, transporting the thug to Asgard itself. This is a pretty risky move by Loki ... if his plan to wrest control of Odin's throne doesn't pan out, he's going to get a lot worse than a spell of indentured servitude to Ularic.

Isn't it lucky that Asgardian sorcerer Ularic has this handy Attractor Beam in his workshop so that Loki can rescue his proxy warrior Crusher Creel from near-defeat by Thor and haul his thuggish carcass to Asgard?

Thor, being nobody's fool, recognises that Creel's vanishment can only mean that Loki has transported his henchperson to Asgard. But before he can set out in pursuit, a disturbance from above attracts his attention. In the mother of all coincidences, it's the captured Jane Foster. Thor smashes his way into the apartment then, despite not knowing just who Jan's captor is, transforms into his mortal identity of Don Blake. Astonishingly, the abductor simply takes a picture of Don Blake, then reveals his identity as reporter Harris Hobbs, whom Thor had befriended in an earlier battle against Crusher Creel.

Now, I have more than a few problems with this plot twist.

1. Why would Hobbs ever suspect Thor had a mortal identity?
2. Even if he did suspect such a thing, why would he - from past experience a decent and honest journalist - put his friend Thor on the spot by threatening to expose his dual identity? Especially when Thor saved his life (JiM114)
   
   
   
   
   
3. Why would Hobbs terrorise an innocent young woman just to get a story - especially when kidnapping and false imprisonment is a pretty serious crime, regardless of the intention.

It's the worst kind of plot-driven storytelling, so I strongly suspect we can lay this one at Jack Kirby's door, though I couldn't say why Editor Stan didn't get this "reveal" redrawn into something more plausible. Deadline problems?

Faced with either saving Asgard from Loki and Creel or saving Jane Foster, Thor goes with Jane ... I think Stan and Jack missed a trick here by not making it more of an agonising decision.

Even as Loki and his attack dog Creel are invading Asgard, Thor is still on Earth, playing patty fingers with Jane Foster. He doesn't seem in much of a hurry to tear himself away to deal with Loki's threat to Asgard, but drops everything when he gets a call from reporter Hobbs. By the time Thor agrees to return to Asgard - taking Hobbs along for the story of the century - Loki and Creel have already reached Odin's throne room ... and things aren't looking too great for the monarch of the gods.

Even more surprising, Don Blake hangs around on Earth to minister to Jane, as Asgard is being systematically demolished by Creel and his wrecking ball.

Yet, as bad as things may seem right now, they're about to get even worse when, in the next issue, we get to learn the fate of the missing Norn Stone.

As mentioned in my May 2021 blog entry, this cover shows signs of art department tampering. The original drawing by Jack Kirby had no floating heads. The added vignettes were lifted from interior art panels from this and the previous issue.

Journey into Mystery 123 (Dec 1965) ties up the "Absorbing Man in Asgard" storyline and introduces a new menace ... the Norn Stone powered Demon. Interestingly, until now, I'd forgotten that Kirby had drawn this earlier version of The Demon seven years before his DC Comics character of the same name.

This whole sequence - with Thor surprised by Loki and Creel's attack on Asgard - indicates that Stan hadn't re-read JiM 122 before embarking on the script for this issue.

When Thor arrives in Asgard with his unwelcome companion reporter Harris Hobbs, he seems a little surprised that Crusher Creel is already there. Yet, in the previous issue, Thor recognised the beam that transported the Absorbing Man away from almost certain defeat to be the Attractor Beam of Asgardian court magician Ularic. Judging from Stan's recap of the story so far on the first page of JiM 123, I'd say that Editor Stan just forgot that Thor did in fact suspect that Loki has transported Creel to Asgard.

In setting up the next menace to threaten Thor, some ramshackle plotting is manfully papered over by Stan, asking us to accept that the dropped Norn Stone (see issue 120) is flitting about the planet under its own power.

But just as The Absorbing Man begins his attack on Odin himself, we cut away to the jungles of Mongolia, where the Norn Stone has mysteriously dropped within the grasp of an un-named village shaman. Thor had examined the Stones shortly after leaving Pittsburg (JiM 120), inadvertently dropping a stone in some woodland just outside the city. Stan deftly scripts over this creaking plot-hole by telling us that the Norn Stone cannot remain in one place for very long and randomly transports itself to new locations.

The stone charges the shaman with Asgardian power and he sets about beating the tar out of his communist oppressors, then returns to his panic-stricken village congregation.

Loki and Crusher Creel are so busy bickering over who will wield Odin's sceptre of power that they fail to recognise its status is merely ceremonial. And for all his scheming, Hobbs discovers that fate has a way of punishing the deserving.

Back in Asgard, Loki and his attack dog appear to be on a roll. Every force Odin hurls at them, Crusher Creel simply hurls back. Though Thor pleads with his father to be allowed to deal with the evil pair, Odin seems unruffled and calmly hands over his sceptre of power when Loki demands it. Of course, simply holding the Supreme Sceptre isn't enough to rule Asgard, as Loki finds out when Odin propels him - and his thuggish ally - into the endless depths of space.

But this doesn't mean that Thor's troubles are over. There's still the Demon to deal with ... and Stan and Jack will bring back Hercules to further complicate things.

Hercules must have been a hit with readers in Journey into Mystery Annual 1 (1965), as Stan and Jack waste no time in bringing him back, making him the main focus of the cover and adding Thor's battle with the Demon almost as an afterthought.

The first Journey into Mystery of the new year is 124 (Jan 1966) and starts with a few pages of Thor on Earth and some unnecessary comedy shtick - a policeman orders Thor now to swing his hammer on a crowded street as he doesn't have a permit. But there's a telling scene in which a little girl tells Thor her daddy is fighting in Viet Nam and Thor delivers a speech about "brave patriots" like her daddy "holding aloft the torch of liberty".

This sequence of Thor interacting with the public still has glimmers of Marvel's strong anti-communist position that ran through their comics from the mid 1950s to the mid-1960s.

I think Stan and Jack can be forgiven for this 1965 viewpoint. Both had served in the US Army during World War II, when the enemy was far more clearly identifiable. But Viet Nam was a murkier situation and with no direct threat to the United States, public opinion was turning against America's involvement in South-East Asia. Just a few short years later Stan, along with the rest of the country, was taking a less hawkish stance regarding the Viet Nam war. In an unaired 1968 television talk show, Stan declared, “I would never defend the war in Viet Nam. I think it’s an utterly indefensible war. I think it’s a ridiculous war.”

But on with the story ...

Thor's next stop is to check up on the wellbeing of Jane Foster who - mysteriously - does not seem to be responding to medical treatment. The problem appears to be to strange and frequent disappearances of Don Blake ... so Thor does the only sensible thing. He reveals his double identity to Jane. And as you might imagine, Odin is not best pleased at this development. Now, I think that's a pretty big plot development and I'm kind of surprised that Stan didn't trumpet it on the cover. But for whatever reason, the return of Hercules seemed more important.

Thor's decision to reveal his secret to Jane Foster does seem a little abrupt and unheralded. I would have thought Stan and Jack might have strung it out a little more to milk the drama, perhaps making it the cliff-hanger of the issue ...

While all this is going on, The Demon is gathering an army in Asia and increasing his grip in the region. So despite his promise to not leave Jane Foster again, Thor decides duty comes first and sets off to stop the unstoppable Demon ... and at the same time Zeus despatches Hercules to look into these strange, unprecedented occurrences on Earth.

I'm still not sure why it's such a big issue for Odin that Thor reveals his mortal identity. As with Superman, it's the civilian person that's the false construct, so what's the harm? Regardless, there will be consequences.

The scene is set for a monumental three-handed confrontation ... but surprisingly, that's not what happens.

It's a strangely cryptic cover ... no mention of the villain of the piece The Demon, and just the barest hint of Hercules' presence is depicted, even though he'd been the main part of the previous issue's cover.

In Journey into Mystery 125 (Feb 1966) - the last of the title before it officially changed to The Mighty Thor - Hercules is finally given something to do. But it's not related to the ongoing villain of the last couple of issues, The Demon. In fact, Thor's dispatch of the holder of the Norn Stone is a little underwhelming, in that it happens so quickly and easily ...

It's a bit like Bugs Bunny in a Warner Bros cartoon. Thor plugs the end of the bad guy's cannon which backfires, leaving The Demon with a sooty face.

The Demon's power is no match for Thor's, so the former village shaman tries to use heavy artillery instead. Thor jams the muzzle of the cannon, which explodes, taking out The Demon and a few of his henchmen. The Norn Stone is recovered and that's the end of that plot-thread.

For daring to reveal his true self to Don Blake's nurse Jane Foster, Thor is sentenced to undergo the Ritual of Steel, which he may or may not survive. Boy, that Odin's strict.

However, back in Asgard, Thor must now face the anger of Odin for revealing his true identity to the love of his life Jane Foster. Thor is forced to fight the elite of Asgard's warriors ... but rather than battle to the inevitable outcome, Thor chooses to flee to Earth, where more drama awaits.

If you just substituted Superman for Thor and Lois Lane for Jane Foster, this scene would play like a Weisinger-era DC comic.

While Thor is trying to avoid the rather over-the-top punishment meted out by Odin, Hercules has arrived in New York and has wasted no time in attracting the attention of Jane Foster ... there follows some clunky plotting, driven by jealousy and misunderstanding, leading to another battle between the two evenly-matched heroes ... though we'd be made to wait till the following issue to see any actual scrapping between Thor and Herc.

As you can see, my copy is a little tanned around the edges. Removing the "Journey into Mystery" part of the logo does have the added benefit of giving us a bit more space for Kirby's art.

With issue 126 (Apr 1966), Journey into Mystery became The Mighty Thor, or just Thor for short. But the story carried on as if nothing had happened.

Once again, most of the issue is taken up with endless pages of typical Kirby action. It's great stuff, but I kind of wonder why Kirby was squabbling over plotting credits when there isn't a great deal of plotting going on.

Essentially, the two gods bash the living heck out of each other for ten of the sixteen pages of this episode. And while that's happening, Odin is stroking his beard, wondering how he can punish his wayward son for wanting to date a girl he doesn't approve of. 

While Odin is removing half of Thor's power, Hercules drops an apartment building on the Thunder God ... which does seem like the definition of excessive force.

In the end, he decides to remove half of Thor's power ... but unable to do it himself, he relinquishes his "Odin power" to a dodgy-looking advisor called Seidring (and you just know that's not going to end well).

With half his strength gone, Thor is no match for the son of Zeus, who wins by a knock-out in the final round. Then, in a surprising turnaround, Odin admits to Jane that he may have over-reacted, and sends her after Thor.

Seidring obliges and half Thor's strength is removed ... whereupon Hercules pounds him into the dust. Yet Odin surprises us by showing a little sympathy, and tells Jane that Thor needs her support right now.

That's a pretty powerful cover - one of the best of the era. It certainly made me pick up that issue in 1966 when it hit the spinner racks.

The second issue of The Mighty Thor, 127 (May 1966), polishes off the Seidring story arc and foreshadows the next adventure by introducing us to Pluto, Greek God of the Underworld. I'll save my recounting to the Pluto saga for another time and stick with Seidring for the moment.

We start off with Thor feeling a bit sorry for himself, after his defeat at the hands of Hercules. He even rails against Jane, saying that in defeat he now feels unworthy of her love. Nothing Jane says can convince Thor that he has no reason to be ashamed, but Thor won't take a telling and hurtles off into the sky.

The story starts off with Thor being a bit churlish about having his head handed to him by Hercules - not through cowardice or stupidity, but because his father removed half his strength.

Meanwhile, in Asgard, Odin is also feeling a bit ashamed - as well he might. So much so that he seems to forget that he's given over his godly power to sneaky advisor Seidring, who grabs the opportunity to defy Odin with both hands.

A few mystic bolts later, Odin is on the floor with his former advisor gloating over him. Not even Balder and the other Asgardian warriors are much help. However, Thor has chosen the right time to return to Asgard.

So, of course Seidring - who we'd never seen before this story arc - turns on his king and uses Odin's own power against him. Yet even as that is happening Thor is rushing to his father's aid, the recent punishment all but forgotten.

Though Thor possesses just half his normal power, he not only faces off against Seidring, but through sheer willpower and indomitable spirit, claws his way to the legendary Odin-Sword and threatens to draw it - thereby precipitating Ragnarok - unless Seidring relinquishes the Odin-Power.

Realising that Thor is not bluffing, Odin's senior counsellor doesn't have the stomach to call Thor's bluff, and Odin's power is restored to him ... but at great cost. Thor collapses over the Odin Sword, his strength spent.

Heedless for his own safety, and ignoring the fact that he possesses only half his strength, Thor hurls himself at Odin's attacker, using cunning and willpower to force Seidring to surrender the Odin-Power.

The final scene has Odin gather up his son, remorseful over judging him so harshly.

From here on in, the Thor title would move the God of Thunder away from Earth-bound adventures and focus on other worlds and realities. After this Asgard-set story, the next arc would take place in Olympus and related realms (Thor 128-131). Then Stan and Jack would turn their attention to other galaxies and have Thor thwart an invasion of Earth by Coloniser Tana Nile and her felow Rigellians (Thor 132-133).

But this can wait till another time ...

Next: The Shadow of the Bat