Tales To Astonish #81-83 and Tales of Suspense #79-80 (1966): 1st series crossover

According to Stan Lee–and I’m pretty sure he’s right–this is the first time Marvel had a multi-issue story that crossed over different series. It’s certainly the first time they had a multi-issue story in two split books that only crossed over to half of each books’ split. Very hard to organize for humble DIY bloggers like me. As Namor says, this has indeed humbled me like no other story before.

We know now that using one title to sell another became a Marvel mainstay, so this is a very important story–if only for that reason. But there’s lots of other reasons as well.

The action starts in Tales of Suspense. In Tales to Astonish, Krang kidnapped Dorma and forced her to agree to marry him. She’s by his side (and strangely not blue-skinned) when Krang attacks the surface world, just because he’s always doing that.

Iron Man gets into it with Krang. But by attacking the ship where Dorma is held captive, he puts Namor’s gal in danger. So, rather than discuss, Sub-Mariner punches.

The fight goes across both series before it concludes.

Namor finally catches up with Krang, but during the battle, The Secret Empire shows up and shoots Sub-Mariner with a “lobotomizer ray,” and then they take him captive.

There’s the cliffhanger.

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