Hey. It really IS a Rosco.

Where do you get these ideas...?

We haven't done a detailed annotation of a Silver Age comic in a long time. These are fun for me because it brings back all sorts of esoteric trivia from decades ago. Let's dig through the stacks of musty yellowing old comics and see what we have.... the Blue Beetle... Mandrake the Magician.. Pogo.. ah! Here we go.

"Captain America Joins the Avengers!"

This is from THE AVENGERS# 4, back in March 1964. It was a big deal back then in the comic fan community and its still a pivotal issue. Things were so different back then. There was an assumed turnover of readers every few years as they were thought to move on to other interests. And comics in general were targeted at youngsters, anywhere within a few years of ten on either side. So Stan figured very few of the current Marvel readers had actually seen a Captain America comic from WW II. That had been twenty years earlier, after all. Even the brief and unspectacular revival in 1954 was old history by this point. And in those days, trading and collecting of old comics was a hobby for a few diehards. Fanzines were limited in circulation. There were no hardcover archives, no trade paperbacks, no internet message boards. Feh. For the most part, comic fans only knew what they had read themselves in their own brief lifetimes.

A few months earlier, Stan and Jack had sneakily showcased Captain America in a STRANGE TALES story starring the Human Torch. But that guy had turned out to be a villain impersonating the WW II hero, and Stan admitted in the final caption that the whole deal had been to see if readers would be interested in seeing the real thing come back. I guess the response was enthusiastic.

Here he was.

Page 1. The credits fail to list George Roussos as the inker. He was a veteran artist who had drawn his own stuff back in the Golden Age but Stan offered him work inking. I am not fond of his style, it's just too harsh and clunky, but I have come to appreciate it more over the years. It brings out the power in Kirby`s pencils, which is probably more important than glossiness.

A good place to mention a few things about the costumes. Thor didn't change much during the Silver Age. This early version of the Iron Man armor is a favorite for its simplicity. I like the helmet with the faceplate that rises to two points. It looks sharp and almost sinister. (Kirby gave two vertical points to a lot of his characters... Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, AntMan and the Wasp, later Orion.) The Wasp is decent, maybe I would trim that skirt down smoother but she looks good otherwise. Giant-Man here has three thin parallel lines running vertically up the side of his chest like suspenders. I don't know what the heck Kirby was thinking, it looks dumb. Two issues earlier, he had a chest emblem of a round black emblem set in a Y shape, carried over from the antlike outline, and this was a lot more pleasing.

Captain America has only changed in that the red and white stripes now go all the way around his torso, where in the Golden Age they stopped below his armpits. Kirby drew the armor on Cap's upper torso as mail, with little round links, and I see it currently seems to have been replaced by scale armor. Looks awful to me, but what do I know?

Page 2

We start with a little recap of the previous issue. Sub-Mariner was a rarity in 1964 comics, a genuine anti-hero with a grudge against the human race yet not just wholly evil. This was not something entirely new with Lee and Kirby. Sub-Mariner at this point was the sole Marvel character who had not been created within the previous few years. He had debuted way back in 1939, the creation of Bill Everett, and he had been a big star back in the Golden Age with his own bestselling comic and many appearances in other titles. From the start, Prince Namor had been as much a villain as a hero. His undersea race had been the victims of accidentally attacks by air-breathing men and young Namor set out to rampage all over the surface world, killing hundreds if not thousands. It was only when the greater threat of the Axis convinced him to join the Allies that Sub-Mariner became a reluctant good guy (and even then, you had to watch him.)

When he was reintroduced in FANTASTIC FOUR# 4, Namor got a fresh grievance. Recovering from a long bout of amnesia, he found the city of his undersea folk was deserted and the radioactive glow told him it was the result of atomic testing. Yep, he was mad as hell at the surface world again and the cycle started all over again. It didnt matter that both times, the air-breathers hadn't even suspected there was a civilization down there.

Page 3

Hah, the irony just burns as Namor unknowingly frees Captain America. Sub-Mariner's little tantrum here is quite in keeping with his personality. Ever since the days of Bill Everett, Namor has had a bad temper and arrogant outbursts; well, he was a spoiled prince and superstrong, not a combination leading to a lamblike personality.

Page 4

We're about to witness comic book history now. I guess that Giant-Man stepped into an airlock and let it fill up before opening the outer hatch, or else everyone else would be yelling about the ocean pouring in ("Are you crazy? Close that hatch, you big galoot!"). I like the way Thor knows about Captain America. The Avengers must have chatted about earlier superheroes on long trips like this, in between taking naps on the bunks or playing cards.




Page 5

And there it is. Captain America comes back to life in as dramatic a way as anyone could want, jumping up off the table, still thinking he's back in the war. I like the way he tramples Giant-Man and hauls Thor and Iron Man around on each arm. Those are massive guys, not exactly flyweights. The final three panels show Stan Lee and Jack Kirby at their best together. They give the moment and the character a gravitas that is still impressive. I don't think either man quite matched with other partners what they created together in those years at early Marvel.

Page 6

Marvel superheroes were a bunch of brawling fools. They threw punches at each other as often as they did at the villains. The surreal aspect was that there was seldom any lasting hard feelings. Say, Daredevil meets Spider-man and for ten pages they beat the hell out of each other because of a misunderstanding. When they find out the mistake, they act like nothing hapened. There are no sullen grudges that last for years, no reluctance to ever work together. They treat these bludgeoning slugfests the way you would treat bumping into someone in a crowded bar ("Oops, excuse me." "Quite all right.") Take this case. Thor throws his hammer at Captain America hard enough that it ricochets after missing him. Kind of reckless flinging of a deadlly weapon, eh?

Page 7

Boy, I doubt Stan and Jack gave any thought to how many complications would come from this single page. CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS continued on after WW II ended, the final issue was in 1949. Then in 1954, Cap and Bucky were brought back for a brief revival. Here, though, we are told that while the war was still going on (as the reference to the ETO indicates) Bucky was killed and Cap thrown into freezing water as an explosive goes off on a drone plane. In 1964, Stan and Jack figured almost no one would remember those postwar comics or care much if they did remember them. Nor was this any sort of Earth-2 such as DC used. No, they were just interested in telling a dramatic story. Later writers spun whole sagas over the substitute Captain Americas and Buckys, and what happened to them.

Yes, I know Bucky has recently been brought back, revealed to have never been dead after all. He was a Soviet assassin and now plays Captain America himself. Welllll, Marvel owns the character and can do whatever they like. They can reveal Bucky was an illegitimate son of Al Capone and Josephine Baker, who was raised as a girl in Samoa and trained to be a fan dancer, if the thought sounds good to them. (Not trying to give them any ideas.) But these original stories still exist, untouched by later revisions and tampering, beyond all harm. I'll keep my copy, thank you.

Page 8

The idea that someone could be frozen solid and then thaw out prerfectly fine, with no harmful effects, was a common idea in Silver Age comics. It was sometimes described as a freak accident that the person went into a state of suspended animation and was still alive but just in an extremely reduced metabolic condition. I suppose in Captain America's case, his survival could be explained by the super-soldier serum in his body, which gave him greater resistance and healing factors than a normal person. Ted White first mentioned this in his 1968 novel THE GREAT GOLD STEAL and I believe the comics have since incorporated the idea.

Page 9

The great advantage to Captain America being frozen is that you can just keep him there longer as time goes by, so he still stays a young man who fought in WW II. In the recent movies, he was on ice for sixty years rather than twenty.

I love the panel of the thoughtful Cap as he sees the United Nations building and wonders what it is. Then the gruff NYC cop brings him back down to earth.

Page 10

What a great moment. The pensive Cap and the cop overcome with emotion. Sure it's corny but so what? Sometimes corny is good. How Steve paid for the hotel room is open to debate. Maybe he still had some Army pay tucked in his belt all these years, maybe the hotel manager had been saved by Cap at the Battle of the Bulge or something, and was only too glad to help him.

For such a shrewd veteran of WW II and a native New Yorker, Steve is sure dumb not to lock his hotel door. Sheesh. Now we meet Rick Jones. He was the Marvel general purpose teenage surrogate. Rick was the fool who got Bruce Banner exposed to that gamma bomb in the first place. To give him credit, he stuck by Banner (and the Hulk) even when it meant he was in constant danger. But at this point, the Hulk is just a loose cannon wandering around causing trouble. Rick does not have any official standing with the Avengers. He's just a superhero groupie (in a nonsexual way.)

Page 11
Stan's dialogue adds so much. Rick is insolent and wise, then immediately snaps to respect as Cap takes charge and gives orders. At his best, Stan was one of the best writers in comics at providing dialogue that sounds funny, heartfelt or menacing, yet still has the ring of something a person might actually say.





Page 12

Eh, just advancing the plot here. Not much to annotate. I did sometimes wonder if the members of Rick Jones' Teen Brigade are still out there. By now they might be paunchy middle-aged guys with homes on Long Island or Jersey. But maybe once a year, they meet at a favorite restaurant to eat and get drunk and reminisce. ("Remember when the Wasp gave Jim a hug? He turned red as a tomato!" "She was hot!I wanted to grab her butt but her boyfriend was twelve feet tall.")

Page 13

Captain America is in action for the first time in over a decade, and as drawn by the one and only Jack Kirby. At this point, the Comics Code restrictions on violence and DC's preference for gimmicks had given fans years of lukewarm half-herted action. Heroes used beams of colored light or trick arrows or obedient fish or boomerangs shaped like a bat; rather than punching the bad guys, Superman built a prison cell around them at superspeed or trapped them by melting the sidewalk under their feet with his heat vision. Even Batman seldom threw more than a single sedate uppercut to capture a bad guy at the end of the story. Marvel changed all that. Jack Kirby drew fight scenes that were real no-fooling brawls. Characters slugged away at each other full blast for a few pages. And Captain America was the perfect choice for this sort of two-fisted justice. In this one page, he gets in more kinetic energy than Green Arrow did in a year.

Page 14

ACK! It's a stalk of talking asparagus. This is a typical Silver Age bit, explaining an ancient legend with a bit of science fiction, in this case Medusa. Even assuming Aspara Gus has an extended lifespan to be active since the ancient Greeks, I have to say I admire the craftsmanship of his raygun to still be in working order as long. Wish my laptops lasted that well!

Page 15

Cap certainly should remember Sub-Mariner. Back in the original Timely Comics, he had teamed up with Namor in two issues of ALL-WINNERS COMICS, in a fizzled attempt at a sort of Justice Society. Aside from that and from many covers (which could be seen as symbolic fabulations), though, I don't remember him ever crossing paths with Sub-Mariner. The Human Torch certainly did, they had a lot of battles and uneasy partnerships and generally interacted. But not Cap. Here, it seems plausible that being frozen solid for twenty years might have caused some memory loss. ("Is that... is that a chair?")

A dozen years after this story, Roy Thomas created the Invaders and began a long series of adventures teaming up all the 1940s Timely heroes. Once that became canon, Captain America and SubMariner suddenly had a history of comradeship that they both respected.

Sub-Mariner's phrasing in the third panel is interesting. "The one who calls himself Captain America" implies that Namor might think this guy is an imposter and not the same hero he knew back in WWII. That's an early reference by Namor to himself as a mutant. He's primarily a hybrid, a cross between surface human and aquatic human (seacreature?) but those winged feet didn't come from either side of his ancestry, and neither did his strength.

Page 16

Cap phrases that rather oddly. "The one you call Thor..." does that mean he thinks that the big blonde guy with the hammer is really just a powerful super-hero taking on a costumed identity based on the real Thor? (Wait, the "real" Thor? Aw, you know what I mean.) Meeting guys with unusual abilities, even awesome abilities, is one thing.But to stand next to a figure out of mythology, one who thousands of people worshipped,and to let it sink in that this is Thor... well, that's something that would shake anyone up. Especially if Steve Rogers was a sincere Christian who regarded pagan gods as mere lies or demons posing as gods.

Page 17

If you are reading Silver Age Marvels for the first time, you may with good reason to blurt out, What is it with this Laughing Boy stuff? Well, LAUGHING BOY was a 1934 movie about a young Navajo of that name and his ill-starred love life. It was based on a 1929 novel, both were fairly popular back in the day but long forgotten by now. It seemed to stick with Stan Lee for some reason. He often had the heroes mock the bad guys as "What are you going to do now, Laughing Boy?" or "Here's something to help you get to sleep, Laughing Boy." I can assure you that little kids in 1964 had never heard of the movie and were puzzled by the frequent use of the phrase. Stan used a good deal of 1940s slang and references that were well out of date by the early 1960s but thats an occupational hazard of writers. All I can say is, it didn't bother me, Laughing Boy.

Page 18

Iron Man is a lot weaker here than he soon would become. Not long after, he had a return spat with Namor where they were much more evenly matched and where he got the upper hand once the Sub-Mariner had been out of water too long. I suppose it's too long by fifty years to mention this but transistors don't power anything. Did Tony really mean his batteries? The Wasp is certainly brave to distract Namor like that. He doesn't know what that bug flying around his face is and he might just snatch it out of the air and well, you know, squash her before he realized she wasn't a mosquito. That would lead to an awkward silence.

Page 19

Interesting that Thor calls Namor a mutant. I can't find this word in my copy of the ELDER EDDA. Most likely it was Henry Pym, who is a biochemist after all, who explained this to the Thunder God after they had tangled with Sub-Mariner in the previous issue.



Page 20

And now Giant-Man gets the spotlight briefly. I've mentioned this before, but Henry Pym was never too successful as a character, either in popularity or artistically. His powers are interesting enough, and in the real world, being able to shrink to a half inch tall or being able to communicate with ants would be discoveries that would knock the scientific world on its butt. The uses would revolutionize everything from surgery to agriculture to military purposes. But in a world with the colorful likes of Iron Man or Thor or the Fantastic Four, these powers don't seem as dramatic or useful as they would be otherwise.

Pym evidently regards the cube-square law as a mere suggestion and has found a way around it. That crummy physics just gets in the way of superheroes going about their business.

Page 21

I have to say Giant-Man doesn't come across as the most caring guy. Cap was thrown into the ocean and hasn't come up; Henry Pym just dismisses this with the thought he can take care of himself and then adds he hopes Cap didn't run out on them. But maybe Giant-Man was a little suspicious because he had read in the paper about the fake Cap that fought the Human Torch a few months earlier. Then we see Captain America still doesn't remember SubMariner. A little freezer burn in the old brain cells there, Steve?

And Namor gets set back a little when he can't lift Thors hammer. Good. Take him down a peg. To be honest, I don't care for the way any number of characters have been shown as worthy to haul that thing up off the ground. It kind of cheapens the awesomeness of Mjolnir. In my opinion, Odin only meant for Thor to wield the old nutcracker and that inscription on the head ("Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worth, shall possess the power of Thor"") was just intended to give Don Blake a clue he badly needed. But what do I know?

It was simpler in the myths. The hammer was too heavy for anyone except Thor to lift, much less throw, and that was all there was to it. Well, it doesn't explain the time the Giants got hold of th hammer and one of them casually walked around with it and placed it in Thor's lap (he was disguised as a bride at the time, don't ask). I think the bit about possessing the power etc was because originally Don Blake was supposed to be a mortal man who turned into a semblance of Thor, not the actual Norse god himself but that's a long story itself.

Page 22
Hah! Giant-Man cracks me up. He has seen Namor punch it out toe to toe with the Hulk and with Thor, yet he thinks he can tangle with the guy without getting killed. Especially when he's not a particularly good fighter. Pym had an overconfidence that was hilarious; being twelve feet tall went to his head. Then we have a classic insight into a character. Cap is seized and lifted overhead (with one hand, no less) by Sub-Mariner. His reaction? "He's stronger than me but I'll find a way to outmaneuver him!" The difference between him and Henry Pym is that Captain America is a highly skilled and experienced fighter who keeps his head and uses strategy.

Page 23

So, still another inconclusive clash. This happened an awful lot with early Marvels, characters would smack the tar out of each other for an issue with no real results. Iron Man has a point there, it's in keeping with his personality that he notices Cap held back until Rick was in danger. I haven't started hearing Robert Downey Jr's voice when I read Iron Man dialogue but it's just a matter of time.

And then the Avengers get a new member. Gosh, that was easy. I imagine all the paperwork and insurance forms and details of reimbursement came when they got back to headquarters. There's a little bit of the Golden Age cliche lingering, the idea that a superhero would need or want a young sidekick. At least Rick Jones is about sixteen or seventeen, not twelve as Bucky seemed to be. That bit with the Hulk returning was funny. He DID quit the team after all. He stormed off in a snit, he wasn't dishonorably discharged from the Avengers. And yet, when he found out about Captain America joining the team (this was shown in FANTASTIC FOUR# 25), his feelings were unreasonably hurt about being replaced. But then, the Hulk is not exactly the most rational mind on the planet. As Warren Zevon might say, he's just an excitable boy.

I believe this is from late 1963.

We used to have one of those.



Order some here. I would go for a one-eyed Cyclops skull myself.
http://www.skullis.com/

I dunno, maybe I should save this for Father's Day? From a 1979 issue of THE NATIONAL LAMPOON, by George Perez and Terry Austin.

Who is this guy? Like, what is his problem?

I don't think antibiotics are going to be much help at this point.

Both of these are from 1973, "The Brigade's Ducks" and "The Commune's Fishpond." As I recall, these were part of a group of paintings supposedly done by Huxian peasants without training (but who were actually assisted by professional artists). In any case, they are charming and worth spending some time studying at the larger magnifications.