Okay, this one is a stretch, I admit it. One of the earliest comics in my chronological read of every Marvel Universe comic is a 1958 short story about a guy who goes to an island with dinosaurs.
And, yes, I know that opening panel is pretty damn prejudiced.
But look at the island above, and then look at Monster Island from Fantastic Four #1…
They’re pretty similar, and both are occupied by prehistoric-looking creatures.
From the 1958-1963 period, I love the “pre-Marvel” monster stories.
Most issues had 3 or 4 stories, usually by Stan Lee, with one story each drawn by Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and Don Heck, in JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, STRANGE TALES, TALES OF SUSPENSE, and TALES TO ASTONISH.
With several other more short-lived similar titles, STRANGE WORLDS (5 issues), WORLD OF FANTASY (19 issues), and AMAZING ADVENTURES (retitled after issue 6 to AMAZING ADULT FANTASY, and with the 15th and final issue introducing some Spider-guy, the title changed to just AMAZING FANTASY.)
The artist line-up varied a lot in the early issues, to include artists like Al Williamson, Matt Baker, Gene Colan, Joe Orlando, and Carl Burgos who created the Human Torch in 1941. But these titles finally settled in to a steady line-up of Kirby, Ditko and Heck. And in that era, I loved Heck as much as Kirby or Ditko.
There was a wonderful parade of wild-looking monsters every month in these books, and you can see the storytelling develop from 1958-1963 with increasingly beautiful art and visuals, and wonderful bits of irony and twists at the end of each story. They were the training ground for what increasingly became the later Marvel Age after 1963.
And many of these stories were early prototype try-outs for characters like Spider-man, Doctor Doom, and the Hulk.
For example, “Dr Droom” in AMAZING ADVENTURES 1, in 1961.
And JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY 73, featuring a character with many many similarities to Spider-man.
And a character in JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY 62 and 66 that could be an early prototype of the Hulk.
I highly recommend these stories in collectedhardcover editions. I have TALES OF SUSPENSE volumes 1, 2 and 3, and TALES TO ASTONISH 1, 2 and 3. And there’s several omnibus hardcover editions of these stories too, that also include Kirby and Ditko stories from JOURNEY and STRANGE TALES.
Gradually characters like Thor, Ant-man, the Human Torch, Iron Man, the Hulk and others were introduced as regular monthly features, in JOURNEY , STRANGE TALES, TTA and TOS. And for a few years the anthology monster stories still remained as backup stories, but then were phased out entirely when other series like Captain America, a revived Hulk series, and Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD were introduced to replace them.
You can also enjoy these stories more in collected hardcover format with offset printing. That’s also true of many of the later Lee/Kirby Marvel superhero series as well.
I purposely bought my Lee/Kirby FANTASTIC FOUR issues in lower grade, so I wouldn’t be afraid to read them. I made the mistake, perhaps, of getting my Kirby JOURNEY/THOR run (I have 102-179) in VF/Mint copies, that I’m afraid to read and risk damaging !
Be warned if buying the original issues, unlike the DC titles from this period, the early Marvel books are for some reason made with a paper that is much more brittle and prone to chipping.
So these are all nice to have in a more solid and decorative Marvel Masterworks hardcover format, on more durable white paper, and with vibrant colors and printing. I’m actually more of a DC guy, but Marvel’s hardcovers are much more nicely done, and often include a lot more for the same price. I also like that with Marvel hardcovers, they are more careful to use colors that are as true to the original as possible.
As contrasted with DC, where the reprint material often looks re-colored and otherwise not the same as the original issues.
I may be in the minority, but I actually enjoy these early pre-Marvel stories more, both as a precursor of what was to come, and also for its stories being more of an untamed wild frontier, when all this stuff was all still fresh and evolving. Every month the stories were single-issue stories, new and different, replaced the next month by other completely new and different stories. Marvel’s later superhero stuff had much more steady conventions that recurred from month to month.
“It’s clobberin’ time !”
“By the hoary hosts of Hoggoth!”
So in some ways, I prefer the earlier pre-Marvel stories, that presented stories and characters completely new from one month to the next.
Likewise the stories Lee and Kirby were doing in RAWHIDE KID, KID COLT, in romance books like LOVE ROMANCES, and war stories in BATTLE. In a very small line of comics Marvel was publishing from 1958-1963, Lee and Kirby were producing a tremendously wide range of material and genres.
My first taste of these earlier monster stories was reprint books in the early 1970’s, such as FEAR, CREATURES ON THE LOOSE, MONSTERS ON THE PROWL, WHERE CREATURES ROAM, and WHERE MONSTERS DWELL. That’s what first made me seek out the original issues. Nowadays, you can find and read them online in scans for free, or in collected trades or hardcovers. They’re so much easier to find and access now.
Another great reprint sampling of these pre-Marvel stories is the 1989 trade titled MONSTER MASTERWORKS.
Compare the reprint stories in that trade with the Walt Simonson/Arthur Adams story in FANTASTIC FOUR 347-349, that clearly draws from and gives wonderful tribute to these earlier stories. Simonson even did the cover on the MONSTER MASTERWORKS reprint collection, and both titles came out about the same time.
Compare the MONSTER MASTERWORKS reprints also to the stories John Byrne did in FANTASTIC FOUR 271-273, that I think is the first tribute to these earlier Lee/Kirby/Ditko monster stories.
Arthur Adams did the introduction to TALES OF SUSPENSE volume 3, expressing his love for these stories, and their formative influence on him.
So, these pre-Marvel stories might not be for everyone, but for those who acquire a taste for them, there’s plenty here to appreciate.