- Amazing Spider-Man #8: Peter Parker and Flash Thompson face of the in gym ring while a robot runs amok in the halls. In a back-up, Spider-Man crashes Johnny Storm's party and tussles again with the Fantastic Four. Probably the weakest issue of Spider-Man's first year. The introduction of the Tinker is a worse story than the Living Brain story, but that issues was buoyed up by the first appearance of the Vulture. Still, weak Lee and Ditko still makes for a pretty good comic, and I get a cathartic charge every time I read Peter pasting Flash, even if it was accidental. I miss Flash. I know he's currently in space in Guardians of the Galaxy, but I've just realized...in the current series Peter doesn't really have friends any more.
-Avengers #3: The team is challenged by Sub-Mariner and Hulk to a fight to the finish. Until Avengers #4, and the introduction of Captain America, and almost as importantly in #6, Baron Zemo, Avengers was a little aimless after its first issue. This issue has some decent moments, Hulk being unable to pry Thor's hammer from him for one, but you can tell that Stan was at a bit of a loss. Any foe strong enough to be a threat to the whole team would outclass Giant-Man and Wasp, but anyone less than that is a push-over for Iron Man and Thor. It's why I think they had the Hulk quit and become an antagonist for a while: alone he was a threat for the entire team. Really what hurts this issue is its a team that's not quite gelled. Everyone tries to act on their own, and while no one get owned, that means Giant-Man backstops Iron Man and Thor while the Wasp....flies around? It makes to a certain extent, these four not being a cohesive team, but I think its more Stan and Jack really didn't have a sense for how they could measure up and work together yet.
- Fantastic Four #22: An experiment by Reed, increases Sue's powers just in time, as the Mole Man launches a scheme to heat-up the Cold War. The best of the lot. This is the spot in there run where Stan and Jack are not so much flying from the seat of their pants, but honing their craft. Jack has some rather eventful traps that the Mole Man devises, particularly the cotton trap for Ben, and Stan has Sue make leaps forward in terms of being an asset to the team and silencing the naysayers who pointed out she only existed as the team's damsel in distress. Their are still plot holes to be sure (how did the Mole Man arrange all of those complaints?) and Stan still doesn't know how to pace a story so it doesn't just abruptly end (Well...let's go home).
- Journey Into Mystery #100: The second part of the first two-parter I think we've had in the Thor strip. Mr. Hyde kidnaps Dr. Blake and Nurse Foster while trying to steal a Polaris sub-marine. If the synopsis sounds a bit ridiculous, it is. The first part in #99 was much stronger with Thor finding a loop-hole to court Jane Foster, and Calvin Zabo using his new-found power to avenge himself against Don Blake for a career slight earlier in their lives and Thor for interfering. Nothing that you've seen of Mr. Hyde last issue makes you think that stealing a nuclear sub would be in his wheelhouse. It's like Lee and Heck are so used to industrial sabotage stories in Iron Man that they forgot they were writing Thor. Actually Thor was pretty adrift in this period. It wouldn't be until Kirby returned to the book that it would dig deep into the cosmic and Asgardian roots that its more known for. There is a Leiber drawn sci-fi morality tale in the "who is the real monster" vein titled 'Unreal', and in the Tales of Asgard by Lee and Kirby, a young Thor and Loki mix it up with a couple of Storm Giants.
Need a couple of edits. A couple of typos.... "and in a nuclear sub:...
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