Ozzy Came Later ...

You got two (halves) for the price of one ...

(Read more ...)


And it was called Tales of Suspense. As I've mentioned before, Marvel Comics had to limit its titles (thanks to a distribution deal with DC), and ended up publishing several "twofer" comics in the early 60's.

The Wertham scare the '50s and the Comics Code Authority that followed it left Marvel publishing a lot of "monster" comics, as they were known. Mainly sci-fi morality tales, they foreshadowed the kinds of stories we view weekly on TV now (especially the old X-files -- in movie houses near you soon, I hear). They also may have influenced early TV, like The Twilight Zone, but I'm not sure about that.

Marvel decided to re-enter the super-hero market in the early 60s. That's why the Fantastic Four origin story had its roots in the kind of sci-fi Marvel was publishing already. Spider-Man's origin also had a sci-fi angle, as did the Hulk. You may recall that it's The Amazing Spiderman, taken from the Amazing Fantasy title Spidey first appeared in, and then replaced with his second appearance.

What made Marvel so different was that all its super-heroes had their own Achilles' heels to deal with. What made Marvel so doubly different was that sometimes an Achilles' heel was psychological, rather than physical. In fact, that was the rule, rather than the exception.

There was one exception to that exceptional rule: Iron Man.

My offhand research (ain't tabbed browsing wonderful!) tells me that Iron Man took over Tales of Suspense in the early 60s, but was joined by Captain America (a Marvel property held over from the 1940s) in 1964. The two were in a story together, then they appeared in their own story lines after that. Half the comic was Iron Man, the other Cap. (Also true of Nick Fury/Doc Strange and Hulk/Sub-Mariner.)

It was pretty much my favorite comic when I was that age, (as posted before) by default. Gene Colan's colorful Iron Man was nonetheless dark and dramatic, and nothing could match the way Jack Kirby illustrated the adventures of Captain America. Sometimes, these heroes actually lost battles, as did other Marvel heroes, but Iron Man and Cap somehow overcame heavier obstacles than their heroic counterparts to win the day.

While Cap's Achilles heel was time-based (a resurrected super-soldier from WW 2), Iron Man's was physical. His real-life persona, Tony Stark, had a bad heart -- so bad that he couldn't live long without donning the Iron Man suit at least once a day. Though Stark was a multi-millionaire, his mortality was ever before him. While being Iron Man hurt his social life, always knowing he was a heartbeat away from Forever destroyed it. And he felt conflicted over that -- so Stan Lee and Co. got the psychological Achilles' heel in there, anyway.

I really looked forward to seeing Tales of Suspense every month back then, when summer vacation had meaning. I still remember the walks back home, comic in a slim paper bag, from the only bookstore in town those days, and I recall them with immense nostalgia (just about the only nostalgia I have for my adolescence).

I set comics aside as I grew older (again, as posted earlier), but when I heard the opening lines to Black Sabbath's first great hit song, the high I felt was immediate.



LJ orig.: April 29, 2008