Why bother? For the same reason I read any fiction: to explore the real world.

There are two ways (at least) to approach fiction: escaping and exploring. it seems to me that most people view comics as escapism, and that's fine. But for me they are about exploring the real world.

Take the movie "Captain America: the Winter Soldier" for example. I watched that last night, and it's all about extreme versions of the NSA and Homeland Security. It was about exchanging freedom for "safety". These are real world issues. They matter. They are far more important than flying suits or thumb drives that work first time. Fiction matters. It presents important real world issues in a heightened way.

FF issue 7 is not about robots and flying saucers. It's about dictatorship and whether we can trust the military and our governments. it's about how easily we hate people, and how (in the last frame) even the good guys can lie. These things matter. The macguffin of how we get there is trivial.

Having said that, I love the FF because even the science fiction make sense. Carl Sagan and Arthur C Clarke wrote books about the possibility of meeting a more advanced race. Sagan and Clarke were not idiots: what they suggested is a realistic possibility, so it's worth exploring. The Fantastic Four simply takes the realistic implications of that. I can show how every single sci-fi concept in the FF is a logical result of that simple premise. 

Now I agree that most comics are very hard to believe. Secret identities for example are absurd IMO. But the FF was different. I have examined the early issues in great detail, and up to issue 321 everything could take place in the real world. Every huge event is covered by plausible deniability, and every piece of superhero science follows logically from the single alien premise. But most important, it is not about the super powers. It's about the real world: about relationships, about how governments behave, about different approaches to power (Reed's technological fixes versus Sue's intuition for example). it's about self belief (or lack of it in Ben's case), how we treat others (see Reed and Ben), how we treat outsiders (see Sue and everyone), things that matter. 

The King summed it up best:

Journey Into Mystery #85 (Thor story)

Plot by Stan Lee
Script by Larry Lieber
Pencils by Jack Kirby
Inks by Dick Ayers

Cover:

Our first glimpse of Loki shows him all horny (his hat) on top of a rather phallic building looking down on Thor. Lot of copy on this one and it's not terribly dynamic. Add to that a passel of grey and you don't have the best cover to trumpet the first appearance of one of Marvel's most important villains.

The Story:

We open with a splash that has Thor and Loki facing off atop a billboard. Loki has fog coming from his hand and surrounding Thor while our hero plays with his hammer. This is not a dynamic splash, following from a kind of boring cover. Jack isn't setting the world on fire with this one.

We turn the page and get our first look at Asgard and Bifrost. Loki has been trapped in a tree by the “Gods” ages ago. Using his mystic powers he “tricks” Heimdall into unwittingly setting him free. We find that Thor is responsible for Loki's captivity, that he's been missing for ages (how Loki knows this when he's been stuck in a tree is a mystery) and that Loki has a mental link with Thor's hammer. Loki locates Thor and skips down the Bifrost to gain his revenge. Upon reaching Midgard, Loki turns into Leonard Nimoy and goes to where Thor was. Finding Thor gone, Loki turns some people into “negatives” to attract Thor's attention. He does get the attention of Don Blake and Jane Foster. Blake ditches Foster and changes to Thor. He then uses his hammer to throw out “anti-matter particles” to change the negatives back to positives. Deus ex Mjolnir.

Having been temporarily thwarted, Loki reveals himself. Jane Foster, who had just been mooning over Thor moons over Loki. Thor thinks of him in terms of ancient legends, but recognizes him as Loki...maybe it's the horns. Loki challenges Thor to a battle which he must accept because...reasons. Loki goes off on a flying carpet while Thor uses Mjolnir as a helicopter. Loki uses his power and the sun shining off the twirling hammer to hypnotize Thor. He then tricks Thor into leaving his hammer and orders him to let the beasts loose from the zoo. Thor, of course, turns back to Blake and that breaks the hypnosis. He then regains his hammer and changes to Thor in public, as he is want to do. Loki rides a flock of pigeons to a theater and attacks Thor with a curtain (really) which is defeated by Thor breath (really). We then go into the subway, where Loki throws innocents onto the tracks. Thor saves them by lifting the tracks and the train passes over.

Loki makes a winged advertising horse come to life and rides him away, before being subdued when Thor throws a section of pipe that covers Loki and sends him into the water. Apparently Loki is powerless in water. Thor takes a wet Loki to the top of the (poorly rendered) Empire State Building and attaches him to his hammer to throw him back to Asgard. It's not really clear how he knows about Asgard. Loki is deposited in front of Odin, Balder and Tyr before Mjolnir returns to Thor in the nick of time.

Thoughts…

Not a lot of Don Blake in this one. Jane is a mercurial little minx. She suffers from the falling in love with every man she sees that was so prevalent in the Silver Age.

It's pretty clear that Stan and Jack are just making up powers as they go along and need something. Thor at this point isn't much more than a Marvel version of the Silver-Age Superman power-wise. If the plot requires it...he can do it.

It's equally unclear as to what Thor/Blake knows or doesn't know about Asgard, the Norse God or his own identity. I suspect it has a lot to do with the creators not actually knowing either.

Asgard and Heimdall appear. Odin, Balder and Tyr make one-panel cameos.

Loki seems to be able to make all kinds of stuff fly. Why can't he fly himself. Seems like that should work. He does have some great dialogue though...”Begone Pigeons!”

Loki is powerless underwater. However, he and Thor can both speak underwater. Odd. Which leads to the question that if Loki is powerless when wet, why doesn't Thor just whip up a rainstorm every time they fight. Methinks this won't last.

The Story. While far from a classic that befits the introduction of Loki, this is miles beyond the last issue and by far the strongest Thor story so far. Lot of fairly hokey stuff, but it's mostly magic based so it's easier to give it a pass than the comic book “science.” Mediocre is better than actively bad.

The Art: Another nice outing. Still waiting for Kirby to really cut loose, but there wasn't much here that was bad. Still a couple cuts above what we're getting in Fantastic Four.

The toll: Subway tracks. A theater curtain. A billboard or two. A big section of metal pipe.

Grade for historic importance: A- First Loki and Asgard. Cameos by the Asgardian Gods.
Story – C +
Art – B

It would be interesting to find out who it was that really came up with the idea for Tales of Asgard. I love Kirby but, man, so many people just totally dismiss Stan Lee from the story elements. 

Didn't know that, but it gets tiring to see everyone give the artist working with Lee all the credit. They do the same with Spider-man and Ditko.  Kirby and Ditko were very important but without Stan Lee the Marvel line would have disappeared.

It was both of them that built the Marvel universe that we all know.  I Love Kirby but he was saying ,at the end, that he created ALL the characters. As for the Spider-man, when John Romita became the artist, the book became more popular.

From what I've read, my impression is that once Stan was convinced that you knew what you were doing and would produce professional-quality output, he pretty much left you alone. He had enough to do, he didn't feel the need to micromanage.

Strange Tales 101 (Human Torch story)

Plot by Stan Lee
Script by Larry Lieber
Pencils by Jack Kirby
Inks by Dick Ayers

Cover:

The Torch flies around a collapsing carnival ride as a mysterious dude with a gun looks on. The excess cover copy and the large gray attraction against a white background make this one less appealing than it might otherwise have been.

The Story:

We open with a 3 / 4 splash of the Torch outracing an atomic powered guided missile, because...well just because. But his flame is going to run out so he has to land and change in to his “secret identity.” Yeah...that's what I said. I'll get into this in the “thoughts” section...because there is a LOT wrong with this first couple pages. We get a nice diagram of Johnny's room...complete with a LOT of asbestos. Poor Johnny is destined to die of mesothelioma. We then get a page and half recap of the FF's origin. So three pages in to the thirteen page story...nothing has happened.

We see the Destroyer preparing to strike at the amusement park that is under construction. Simultaneously, the local newspaper publisher receives a letter from The Destroyer stating that construction on the park must stop or he'll strike. The Publisher promptly throws it away as a crank, apparently without showing it to anyone. And again, at the same time, Johnny and his friends are passing the amusement park when “an expert” is riding the roller coaster and trouble strikes. Johnny must change into the Torch without revealing his secret identity, so he causes a nearby cigarette to give off an enormous amount of smoke to cover his change. He saves the “expert rider” and people are sure it's an accident.

Meanwhile, the publisher gets another note from The Destroyer, one he finally decides to show to the owner of the amusement park. But the owner is sure it's a crank...because there's already been one accident. Serendipitously, Johnny and his friends are passing the park a few days later when more “expert” riders are trying out the parachute ride. And the tower begins to crumble. Johnny uses is powers to distract the crowd, so he can change into the Torch, weld the tower together, save the day, and then use his powers to change back.

A couple days later the newspaper prints a challenge from The Destroyer to the Torch for a showdown. The Thing cameos to try to help Johnny out...but he has to deal with this himself...because...I don't know. Johnny goes to the site of the showdown and stumbles into a trap where he's doused with liquid foam. The Destroyer is preparing to “finish him off” when he's inexplicably frightened off by a couple of teenage friends of Johnny's. It's one thing to face a flaming super-hero. It's quite another to stand up to two scary teen-agers. Johnny has to think fast to keep his friends from discovering his secret identity. Back at his house Johnny has an epiphany. It's only the tall rides that are being sabotaged. From the top of the roller coaster he can see a Commie sub near the coast. He couldn't have seen that when he was flying around saving the “expert roller coaster rider.” The sub dives, but Johnny boils the water around it causing it to surface...and killing a LOT of fish...and I don't know why the couldn't just go deeper and out to sea. The Coast Guard (or some quasi-military outfit) capture the Commies an then The Destroyer, who turns out to be Old Man Jenkins! Oh wait. That was Scooby Doo. It's actually Charles Staunton, the publisher, who was feeding info to the Commies. He even sent the notes to himself so he wouldn't be a suspect...including the one he couldn't be bothered to tell anyone about. But the Commies were parking at his private beach and could be seen from the tall rides. And they couldn't possibly move to a different location...or come ashore after hours. So they had to have a wacky scheme. The end.

Thoughts…

Let's address the elephant in the room. Johnny Storm clearly did NOT have a secret identity to protect. I have no idea what Lieber as scripter and Lee as editor were thinking...but he didn't. Master Man pointed him out as the Torch in public in FF 3 and he appeared at the Congressional dinner in issue 7 of the FF. The dude is constantly flaming on in public. Beyond that, the story tries to shoe-horn in that Sue Storm lives in Long Island with him and is known to be Invisible Girl. And her blonde younger brother isn't going to obviously be The Human Torch. I'm not a continuity wonk. But this is just freakin' sloppy.

The Commies are back. They really haven't plagued the FF...but they have plagued the Hulk and Ant-Man. Now we have some that are so stupid they can't figure out to change info drop points or to not stop at their drop point while an amusement park is open.

And what's up with Staunton sending himself a letter that he doesn't reveal to anyone as a cover. And how come the Scooby Doo gang aren't there for the reveal of Old Man Jenkins. And why the Hell is he willing to face The Human freakin' Torch, but runs like a rabbit when two random teenagers show up.

I guess I get the Torch turning down help from the Thing. And I guess I get Ben being upset given his personality at the time. But the whole thing seems overwrought.

The cover and the splash talk about The Torch appearing courtesy of Fantastic Four Magazine. Like Martin Goodman didn't publish both books.

The Story. And...we've reached a new gold standard in bad for the Marvel Age. Seriously. This one has NO redeeming value. And it is just bad and hackneyed from every standpoint.

The Art: Is Kirby/Ayers. Not at their best. Not at their worst. The figure work and faces are better than FF 7. But there's really nothing remotely dynamic or interesting here, either.

The toll: One cigarette. Nobody knows how many boiled fish. The wall of The Destroyers home.

Grade for historic importance: C. First solo Torch story. Which isn't that big a deal. But it is the first Marvel Age spin-off...which kind of is.

Story – D- The only thing saving it from an F is that I know there has to be worse to come.
Art – C-.