The Amazing Neighborhood Spider-Pillow!

I'd imagine most comic book fans of any era not only have burned into their memories the artwork and stories of their golden era but the ads of that time as well. I know that for me comics were such treasures, discovered and acquired at great cost of money, time and energy that these glorious four-color pamphlets were sucked dry of their entertainment content almost completely, and that included the wonky ads they might contain.

One of the weirdest in my time was the ad above for inflatable plastic pillows starring some of Marvel's mightiest.  What struck me at the time and still does is the absolute randomness of the images used in this merchandising effort. I'd imagine when the Stan and the others at Marvel realized the success they'd tapped into with their new comics, they were eager to cash in. Certainly riding trends until they bust, had long been the working model for Martin Goodman.  Now Marvel seemed to be ladling out merchandising rights all around and some of it was profoundly strange.

These pillows for instance.

We have a dynamic Thor portrait by Jack Kirby and Vince Colletta. I don't recognize the exact source for this one but I'm sure someone can tell me.

Likewise this Ditko image for Spider-Man, which is a bit more subtle in how it integrates the artwork onto the total pillow for a clever effect. 

Here's a look at another version of this ad, this time with newcomer Captain Marvel thrown in for no discernible reason save to jazz up the image.

Weirdly I found this product starring Sub-Mariner as rendered by Gene Colan and Vince Colletta. It looks like it ought to be part of the same merchandising push, it certainly has that random art quality.

These are two handsome plastic pillows with proper Jack Kirby imagery and seem a bit more classically composed. I doubt they are part of the same push, but are delightful in their own way.

I think I've seen the Thor pillow in real life somewhere, but I forget now where that would've been. I don't remember ever really wanting these items, but I sure remember seeing that delicious ad.

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Marvel Tales Gallery - Part Two!

Beginning with the eleventh issue Marvel Tales began to more greatly feature Spider-Man as the lead in this robust reprint package which also featured the Human Torch, Thor and the Wasp. This was my first look at Steve Ditko's Spider-Man and I was most impressed. Below are more covers in this epic run. 

Most of the covers for Marvel Tales were revised versions of Ditko's originals, but the last three in this run were by Marie Severin who had become something of a cover machine for Marvel at this time. 

This issue featuring a Johnny Romita cover also has Ditko's next to last Spidey tale. 

Spider-Man's sixth annual reprinted his first one featuring the Sinister Six. This is nifty Romita cover. 

The seventh annual featured one of Spider-Man's earliest stories where he battles the Chameleon and the last Ditko issue in which he fights a guy named Joe. 

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More reprints tomorrow. 

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Marvel Tales Gallery - Part One!

I am a second-generation Marvel fanboy. That means I wasn't there when the Fab 4, Spidey, and the rest of the assembled Marvel heroes first arrived. I jumped at the end of the split books. Steve Ditko had already left Marvel by the time I got there, and "King" Kirby was to leave in a few years as well. So, I soaked up that early Marvel magic in the reprint magazines such as Marvel Tales, Marvel Collectors' Item Classic, and the sundry annuals that began to become a key part of the summer. Here is a gallery of Spider-Man's earliest reprints. The first story was reprinted in the first 1964 annual edition of Marvel Tales. 

More Spidey tales appeared in the back of Ditko's last bow with the character in an annual when he teamed up with Dr. Strange, Ditko's other co-creation. 

1965 saw another annual with the debut of the aforementioned Marvel Collectors' Item Classics. 

In 1966 the second annual edition of MCIC saw print with more Spider-Man among many other things. 

With its third issue Marvel Tales became a bi-monthly offering with Spider-Man as the lead with Thor, Ant-Man and the Human Torch helping out. The early volumes of the series offered up rather complicated covers which featured thumbnail images of the original comics. Below are the other issues with this type of cover. 

Marvel Tales would adopt a new cover style with its eleventh issue. That's due up tomorrow. 

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Tales Of Asgard!

(The dates for 1975 and 2025 are identical.)

One of the earliest Marvel Comics I ever bought was the bodacious Tales of Asgard special which landed on the stands in 1968 under a singularly compelling Jack Kirby cover. I was already a fan of reading collections of myths from Greece and Rome among others. But the Norse myths appealed to me especially. 

When I read Kirby's Tales of Asgard later, it was with a keen eye to the notion that these stories are a direct precursor to the Fourth World material he'd generate at DC after his famous migration in the early 70's. For there to be "New Gods" there must have been "Old Gods" and these are them.

Thor started as a somewhat peculiar superhero feature with secret identities, offbeat romances, super-villains, and all the trappings. But slowly it became something else as more and more aspects of Thor's Asgardian roots appeared in the story. It became less and less about his timid romance with Jane Foster and more and more about his relationship with Odin and the other denizens across the Brifrost.

Eventually the drive to give the series a mythic thrust gives us small vignettes which dramatized Norse myths. We get the origin of the universe, the world, the gods and man. We meet Odin, his allies, his enemies, and eventually his sons Thor and Loki. We see Thor as a boy and Loki too, as their eternal enmity begins to express itself. We meet Heimdall, the guardian of the Rainbow Bridge and others such as Balder the Brave. More myth is adapted as the series slowly begins to slow its pace and offer up extended stories.

A real shift came when Odin sends Thor on a quest to investigate the advent of Ragnarok and along with him are a crew which includes Hogun the Grim, Fandrall the Dashing, and Volstagg the Voluminous. These "Warriors Three" begin in the the Tales of Asgard feature and then become a reliable part of the main modern story up front in the comic.

It is in this tale of Ragnarok that these warriors find their own end and the hints of a new world to come. It is in the pages of these short back up yarns that the seeds of the Fourth World are planted.  We even meet one of Kirby's first passes as a Hive community, an idea he develops in the Fourth World with Forager and his ilk. Later we'll meet the Lightning Lady and her minions in the pages of Captain Victory.

Following the discovery the end of the world and the hint of a new, the heroes go on other quests. They seek out Harokin, a brave warrior who ends up being embraced by the goddess of the death Hela. They find and confront the dragon Fafnir who offers up a terrible tempation.

They even end up visiting a distant territory which evokes the magic and wonder of The Arabian Knights. All along the way the stories grow more and more baroque with Kirby's art getting increasingly abstract as he develops into his mature stage. Vince Colletta supplies the inks to nearly all of these tales save for a few in the early days inked by Don Heck and  George Bell and a later tale inked by Bill Everett of all people.

The Tales of Asgard feature ends and is replaced by The Inhumans (and odd place for them, but the one comic which seemed to be largely controlled by Kirby). It offered up a delightful brew of heady adventures and it offered up a glimpse of what was to come.

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