BHOC: TALES OF SUSPENSE #66

Brevoort History of Comics

I also bought TALES OF SUSPENSE #66 during that trip to the Batcave comic book shop, and I did so for the most obvious reason: the copy I picked up was cheap. I bought it despite the fact that I already owned copies of the two stories that were published in it, in an issue of MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS and the BRING ON THE BAD GUYS volume, respectively. But what I was saying yesterday about age was a motivating factor. In my comic book collecting crowd, reprints were valueless, and there was always a certain amount of emphasis on the value of one’s collection. It was a way of justifying one’s addiction beyond simply a love of the material–this stuff is going to be worth big bucks someday. So the appeal of this as the original rather than a later reprinting was a strong motivator for me–as was the rock-bottom price. (I don’t remember what it was, but it couldn’t have been more than a buck or so.)

The lead-off story was an Iron Man adventure by Stan Lee and Don Heck that matched the armored Avenger against the undersea barbarian Attuma. stan had a strange fondness for Attuma, and after Jack Kirby and he had introduced him in the pages of FANTASTIC FOUR, he quickly had the baddie go up against Iron Man and Giant-Man in rapid succession. According to Steve Ditko, Stan also pushed the idea of Attuma battling Spider-Man at one point, but Ditko was able to convince him otherwise. I don’t know what it was, but something about the character grabbed Stan, at least for a while.

After a rocky start involving multiple assorted writer and artists and a complete redesign of the character, Stan finally had the Iron man strip working well. The secret, it turned out, was soap opera–the same thing that had been driving interest in Spider-Man. Stan and Heck built up a small coterie of personalities around Tony Stark and let their interactions become a driving force in the ongoing narrative. In this tale, Senator Byrd, the firebrand government man who dislikes Tony Stark, demands that Stark test the new submarine prototype he’s been developing for the military. Happy Hogan, who has been mooning over Stark’s secretary Pepper Potts (who only has eyes for Tony, ‘natch) demands that he be the one to test the prototype. But Stark knows it’s too dangerous to send Happy out in it and instead he chooses to do the deed himself in his other identity as Iron man. This causes Happy to quit and storm out.

We’ll make a brief stop here for a house ad showing off four other contemporaneous Marvel titles. for whatever reason, in this issue the covers are run in black and white rather than full color–possibly the coloring hadn’t been completed in time on them. Either way, it was still always cool to see these other books and ponder what wonderous stories might be contained within their pages.

Piloting the submersible, Iron Man stumbles across the undersea forces of Attuma, who are planning to attack the surface world with a colossal weapon they’ve devised. The Golden Avenger throws himself into the fray, despite being on a limited oxygen supply within his armor. In the end, unable to make it to the weapon any other way, Iron Man returns to his sub and sets it on a collision course with the gun. Both are destroyed, though Iron Man himself is able to get out before the blast. But he doesn’t want to tell Senator Byrd about Attuma’s aggression, so he has to let Byrd think that Stark’s sub was a failure. What’s more, Pepper is distraught over the fact that Happy has taken off. So this story reaches its end, but certain subplots are To Be Continued! That was the magic formula that Marvel began to employ more and more heavily, treating each of its series as an almost-unending serial so as to bring readers back for subsequent issues.

Next up is a one-page announcement about the impending Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page, which is couched as a central hub for members of the Merry Marvel Marching Society fan club. What’s more, Stan intends to print the names of all of the members of the club in each issue, 25 at a time. This was a powerful motivator for fans to check out every issue of every title to see if their name had been printed, and it might prompt a fan to pick up a book that he might not ordinarily buy if his name was included in it. This was a pretty canny move on Lee’s part.

The back half of the issue was dedicated to Captain America. At this time, the strip had wound back the clock to World War Ii and was recounting Cap and Bucky’s adventures in that timeframe. In fact, Lee and Kirby were legitimately retelling and updating stories that had appeared in Simon & Kirby’s CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS #1 decades earlier. this strikes me as Lee’s idea–it was easier than coming up with new stories. But having reintroduced the Red Skull last month, either Kirby or Lee recognized that his original origin as an American industrialist committing acts of sabotage and murder for the Nazi powers in exchange for a payday wasn’t conducive to what they imagined the character becoming. So with this issue, the stories became entirely new, though still set in that earlier period, and the team immediately retconned the story they had told the previous month (which might be something of a record.)

The story opens with Cap and Bucky having been captured by the Red Skull, who confirms that the Skull they had fought last issue was no more than a stand-in. Having Cap a prisoner, the Skull entertains him by telling his own origin: how he had been a nameless nobody whom Adolf Hitler had personally selected to be transformed into the embodiment of the evil ideals of Naziism. You can see a case where Lee diverges from Kirby’s intent on the page above: Jack’s art clearly shows the Skull coolly gunning down the Fuhrer’s chastised aide. But perhaps concerned about the Comics Code’s reaction, Lee scripts the scene as though the Skull merely shoots all of the buttons off the man’s uniform.

But it turns out that there’s a reason for the Skull’s storytelling. He’s buying time, because his scientists have subjected Cap to a drug that will deaden his will and turn him into a soldier fighting on behalf of the third Reich. And that’s where this installment is To Be Continued: with Cap giving a Nazi salute and the Skull announcing that he’s going to use his brainwashed super-soldier to assassinate the commanding general of the Allied armies.

And the issue wraps up with a single page letters page, Mails to Astonish, which also includes the month’s Mighty Marvel checklist. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for commentary, but Lee makes the most of what he’s got to work with.

Published

23 thoughts on “BHOC: TALES OF SUSPENSE #66”

  1. What the Heck. When I see Iron-Man under the sea & especially fighting a tuna, sorry, Attuma, I start lookin out for Namor, the avenging son. I think they fought each other back then, almost as much as they fought anyone else. Don did OK here. I’m unsure if the inker was a hell or not.

    Kirby’s still in his drawing prime on this Cap story. He doesn’t need all the cosmic sci-fi effects & costume designs to prove he’s great. Cap look built tough, and the lack of if later “Kirby squiggle lines” doesn’t diminish that. Crazy to think WW2 was little more than 20 before this was published. Still looming larger than life.

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    2. I thought Heck’s art was ok considering that Mickey Demeo’s inks did him no favors. BTW, Mickey Demeo is actually Mike Esposito using another name so that DC wouldn’t know he was working for their rival.

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      1. Ah. Mike was Mickey! Double-dipping. Thanks for that! Is anyone aware that I use multiple names to post on here?

        Just kidding!

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    3. Don Heck’s inker on the Iron Man feature is Mike Esposito, using his Mickey Demeo alias, as he was moonlighting from his main gig at DC Comics, and at the time they frowned on their artists working for more than one company. Esposito is not my favorite inker. I don’t know if he does the best work over Heck here. Heck inking his own pencils might have been better.

      It is a bit odd that the Captain America story treats World War II as if it is some bygone era, when, as you say, the war had only ended 20 years earlier (this issue came out in 1965). But I imagine that most of the readers were Baby Boomers born after the Big One ended, and as I’ve observed in the past, anything that happened before you were alive feels like it happened a long time ago. Still, it would sort of be like someone nowadays treating September 11th as if it was ancient history.

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      1. Crazy perspective . But I agree. If the readers were early 20’s and much younger, WW2 was “a long time ago”.

        Similar for the Vietnam War for me, born right around it’s end. I was aware that it’s surviving veterans were younger than the WW2 vets, who were my granparents’ generation.

        Doesn’t feel so ancient, the older I get. Even WW1, knowing how those events, and what led to the war, still impact the present and future.

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      2. From what I’m reading, the parallels to what the world experienced prior to WWI are eerily similar to the events we’re contending with today. I truly hope history does not repeat itself.

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      3. @Rick Moore unfortunately history “repeats” because people keep making similar mistakes. Only the names seem to change. Motivations and misperceptions don’t.

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  2. I never found Senator Byrd anything but a third-rate JJJ knockoff. And Attuma — with Namor becoming more of a hero I can understand Stan seeing potential in a substitute underwater villain but the dude has zero screen presence.

    That Cap story, though, is terrific. And it makes the Skull to some extent Cap’s mirror image, a nobody turned into the embodiment of his nation’s ideals.

    Huh, I thought the Golden Age retconned out the George Maxon Red Skull almost immediately but internet research says I was wrong.

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  3. This is the first in-story appearance of Ironman’s helmet where the rivets were replaced with a black line which allowed the red and yellow to trap to the line instead of murkily following the path of the rivets. This improvement pretty much completes Ironman’s classic look that would last until the mid-80’s.

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    1. And do you have any idea how time to took for me to confirm that fact? I’m doing a future post for my Iron Man blog on his armors and trust me, it was not easy tracking all that down. 😀

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      1. Well… check again because I was off by a month… he was wearing this updated helmet one month earlier in Avengers 16 which was laid out by Kirby and finished by Ayers. Tales of Suspense 66 is the first time he solos in it though.

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  4. After reading Tom’s review, I immediately went to Marvel.com to check out the entire Iron Man story. I liked that my favorite hero faced and fared well matched up against someone I consider a good villain – love that visual of that serpent skull helmet! Certainly a few steps above the Melter, Dream Maker, Scarecrow and Mr. Doll.

    The soap opera elements mirror that of the other Marvel comics at that time – as noted in last week’s Thor review. And why not? Love triangles, a bum ticker and a disgruntled senator work as well as love triangles, an elderly aunt and a disgruntled publisher work on Spider-Man.

    What stood out in reading the full story and particularly in comparing it to both what follows in Captain America and last week’s Thor was the art. I fully realize there was only one Jack Kirby at that time. I also agree with Tim’s comment that Don Heck’s art was okay. (As I also commented, the inks did not help.). It’s wrong to compare Heck to Kirby, but I do believe it’s fair to say that this serves as a good example that he was not put on this Earth to draw superheroes. Not when you see how stiff Attuma appears in that splash page. Or that rather unimaginative design of that weapon. On the other hand, the “normal” people look fine. Heck’s Tony Stark and Pepper Potts look great. It is a shame there was not a series that could make better use of Don Heck’s strengths.

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    1. Don might’ve drawn the Heck out of Nick Fury. I’d think he likely got the chance during his lengthy association with Marvel.

      I think a dream job for his talents could’ve been a Slam Bradley revival at DC, as maybe a back-up feature in “Detective Comic ms”, but it never existed.

      .

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  5. As far as I know Happy Hogan was an ex-boxer turned body guard, was he also ex-Navy? Was he a test pilot for Navy craft? Cause otherwise why would he be upset that he could test pilot a craft he had no knowledge and skill of piloting. I guess neither the experimental mini-sub or his armour had the ability to record or take underwater pictures ( He could have removed the film from the sub and placed it in his armour ). The Original Human Torch, Toro and the Sub-Mariner destroyed a Nazi Big Gun ( as high as a 50-story building ) [ The Human Torch#5a(Summer 1941 ) 2 page text story “The Human Torch and Sub-Mariner Battle the Nazi Super Shell of Death! –Stan Lee & Carl Burgos ], Captain America and Bucky had to destroy the “Mikado’s Super-Shell”( a massive cannon ) [ Captain America Comics#18 ( September 1942 ) 3rd story –“The Mikado’s Super Shell! –the Paw ] and the Hulk destroyed a WW! German military’s “Gigantic Cannon” during WW1 ( Sent back by Kang ) [ The Incredible Hulk#135 ( January 1971 ) ]. I think there were 1 or 2 more Timely Comics Big Gun stories.

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  6. Odd that Stan appeared to think Attuma had the potential to be a top tier villain to use in multiple mags. At this point in Marvel history, I think Dr. Doom had only appeared in the FF (multiple times) and in ASM #5 and so far only the Sandman had appeared prominently in 3 different mags – ASM, Strange Tales and the FF, at least until Attuma turned up in this mag. Looking at the mags on the checklist, this is the month of the biggest lineup change yet in the Avengers (and Attuma would be on hand yet again when Hank & Jan re-join, bringing his appearance count up to 4 mags!). Also, Kirby retakes Hulk from Ditko — never heard if there was any particular reason for that change; I presume it was Ditko’s decision, maybe because he doing other work for Charlton? And he left on a cliffhanger, something Kirby also did on FF & Thor when he left Marvel altogether in 1970 and Lee did on ASM when Conway took over after Lee was promoted to publisher).

    Also of note, the X-Men and Avengers both made their debuts on the same month in late 1963 but obviously the Avengers went monthly well before the Avengers as less than two years later, Avengers is up to issue 16 while the X-Men are only up to #11, and both issues mark the finale of their recurring battles against their primary “Evil” counterparts – the Masters of Evil and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, respectively, and it would be well over two years before either shows up again, under new writers. And the issue number of Strange Tales was a typo – should have been 133 rather than 155. Johnny & Ben and Hank & Jan had only one more chapter to go in their respective slots in Strange Tales & Tales to Astonish before Nick Fury and Namor would take over. Several big changes happening at Marvel during this period.

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  7. Holy cow, proof those Secret Empire complaints were straw man arguments. If Lee and Kirby could do it, Nick Spencer shouldn’t have caught all that flack. (Not that he should have anyway…)

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