Lesser Villains of the early 1960s

by

A trio of Kirby-on-the-outside books from the early Marvel Universe, showing not everyone was a Doctor Doom, Magneto or Modok.

STRANGE TALES #112, 1963. Inker unknown, possibly Ayers? Nicely drawn figure, but the Eel has one of the dullest costumes ever. Which I guess is fine for his profession, but doesn’t make for splashy comics.

TALES OF SUSPENSE #45, 1963. Don Heck inks. I dunno, I just find it amusing that Happy and Pepper got such a big build-up on their first appearance. Well, they probably did deserve it more than Jack Frost.

TALES TO ASTONISH #47, 1963. Dick Ayers inks. Ah, menaced by a giant piano playing hand. Is it any wonder that they added growing powers just a few issues later?



4 thoughts on “Lesser Villains of the early 1960s

  1. Anonymous

    bob,

    I believe that is Ayers inking on the Strange Tales cover, but the Suspense cover is Ditko, inked by Heck not Kirby. What throws most people off is the figure of Iron-Man, a Kirby figure taken from the splash page of Suspense # 43.

    Those Ant-Man covers were pretty low key for the most part, weren’t they? (with the exception of a favorite of mine, the Scarlet Beatle)

    Reply
  2. bob

    Hm, never noticed that the Iron Man pose on that cover was lifted from a previous issue. Are you sure about the Ditko pencils on the other figures? I don’t see that at all, looks more like pure Heck. And it would be doubly odd if it was Ditko given that he didn’t even draw any IM stories for another few months.

    Reply
  3. Anonymous

    Bob,

    I can’t prove that Ditko pencilled those figures, but I’m a good art id-er, and the figures of Jack Frost, Pepper and Happy look like Ditko poses to me, different from the figures in the splash page. Covers were also done last, so it would have been only a month gap between this cover and Ditko’s I-M debut.

    Nick Caputo

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *