One of the things that I was very obsessed with as a young comic book reader was age. Specifically, how old the comics that I was purchasing were. As much as anything, that’s what led me to pick up this copy of STRANGE TALES #87 on my trip to the Batcave comic book store that weekend–it was old enough that it predated the Marvel Age, and was originally priced at a solitary dime. This was like catnip for me, despite the fact that I wasn’t especially interested in giant monster stories. These pre-hero Marvel books weren’t in any great demand at the time, seen as having scant value to the modern audience. But I really loved them, particularly in their original form (a lot of this material got reprinted in the 1970s, but I didn’t liked the manner in which it was diced up. And, also, that element of age was also missing.) They followed a formula, and they were simplistic, but there was a lot of good artwork to be found in these books.
By this point in 1961, editor Stan Lee, artist Jack Kirby and writer Larry Lieber had been producing a number of big monster stories every month for a variety of titles. At a certain point, they began to realize that rather than inventing a new monster every time, it might be advantageous to bring back some of the creatures that they’d already done stories about. Such was the case with this issue’s opener, “The Return of Grogg”. Grogg had been featured in STRANGE TALES a few issues earlier, but like a film sequel, his return was designed to get kids who had read that earlier yarn to pick up this issue as well. These were the nascent beginnings of the Marvel approach to serialized continuity. The thick inking of Dick Ayers maintained Kirby’s dynamic compositions but gave the stories a bit of texture. This too would follow over to the early issues of FANTASTIC FOUR in just a couple more months.
The story helpfully opens with a recap of the prior Grogg adventure. It concerned a captured Freedom Fighter, Miklos Kozlov, caught behind the Iron Curtain who is able to escape his captors thanks to the appearance of Grogg, an ancient fire-breathing dragon who emerges from deep within the Earth, awakened by an atomic test. In this follow-up story, Kozlov is recruited by the CIA to sneak back into Communist territory to discover what is going on in an area where they’ve imposed a complete news blackout. Upon entering the enemy nation, Kozlov is helped by a local farmer to evade the patrols looking for him. When questioned, the farmer tells Kozlov stories of how Grogg is rumored to still be active and preying on cities in the area Kozlov is interested in. But Kozlov thinks there must be something more going on there.
Accompanied by the farmer, Kozlov heads north–right into the path of one of Grogg’s attacks. This helps to give the story the necessary amount of giant monster destructive action that the audience craves. Fortunately, Kozlov and the famer are able to shield themselves from Grogg’s attack and emerge unscathed. Eventually, they come upon a military base where a colossal space rocket has been created. The Communists are planning to send an expeditionary force to Mars, to claim it for their homeland and set up a military base there. Kozlov and his partner can’t allow that to happen, and the spy hits upon a daring plan.
Making a target to himself, Kozlov is able to lure Grogg to the launch site and trick him into entering the rocket. He’s then able to launch the rocket prematurely–fortunately, the controls amount to a single launch button, He and the famer then escape, but the famer is still concerned: if his countrymen could make one such rocket, surely the can manufacture another. But Kozlov tells him that if they ever do manage to make it to Mars, they’ll now be greeted by an angry and vengeance-seeking Grogg. (Or course, the same would be true for any American expedition–Grogg doesn’t differentiate by political affiliation, after all. But why ruin a good, triumphant ending with facts?) The entire story is typical of the sort of propaganda that these pre-Marvel books were often full of in these days (which continued on into the early super hero years), but the story is executed decently enough. The real draw here is Kirby’s artwork.
Speaking of great artwork, the next story in the issue is the best-looking one in the magazine. It’s another short 5-page twist ending story illustrated by Steve Ditko–he and Stan Lee mad a minor movement out of doing these sorts of tales together, and one could be found in every issue of the monster books past a certain point, typically in the final story position. Here, though, it’s the middle yarn, a tale about a mysterious lighthouse that appears in a quaint Scottish seaside village. The local schoolteacher destroys the lighthouse, however, not wanting the town to accept something for nothing–and it’s a good thing that he did. Because aliens had set up that lighthouse to be a beacon to their invasion fleet, and without it, they fear their plans have been discovered and withdraw, leaving earth unmolested. The story isn’t much, but Ditko’s beautiful and well-designed images carry the day. And nobody was better during this period at symbolic splash pages, such as the one you see above.
The final story in the issue was illustrated by Don Heck, a very fine artist whose talents didn’t naturally lend themselves towards drawing super heroes. As a result, his work was often met with scorn from fans over the years, particularly later in his life. But a weird suspense story such as this one was much more in his wheelhouse, and while he’s not quite as adept at striking an eerie mood as Ditko is, his work here is still quite nice. The story? It’s about a cruel Duke who attempts to take an enchanted mirror from a Gypsy woman who owes back taxes, and how he winds up inevitably trapped inside the mirror himself. There’s not a whole lot of surprise here, but it’s a competent if forgettable tale. But there’s a reason why Heck’s stories typically occupied the center slot; it’s the weakest thing in the issue, and so leaves a reader feeling a bit underwhelmed when closing the cover.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 