If any of you want to know what TALES OF SUSPENSE was like before the debut of Iron Man here's your chance. But don't expect that much, for these comics suffer a whole bunch from the Comics Code dinge that dampened a good portion of the industry to the point where the tension impact was reduced to the level of a Hello Kitty cartoon. At least until DC got into full gear with their Silver Age line of heroes and Atlas oozed into Marvel mode and did a whole load of remake/remodel on the entire shebang which did 'em just swell.
Gotta admit that the tales presented here really ain't up to the ol' Marvel snuff, but since this was '59 at least you can see 'em beginning to get some good bearings on the situation. Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Don Heck are already on board drawing stories that are just beginning to point ain the direction of the Marvel Age of Comics even if it is oh so slightly, just like them gigundo monster and alien creepazoid ones which seemed to herald the upcoming age when introduced a year or so later. EC legend Al Williamson is here although his art is sure slapdash next to his WEIRD SCIENCE-FANTASY efforts --- I guess the Comics Code really affected him spiritually or was it the fact that Al Feldstein wasn't constantly looking over his shoulder to make sure his art was better'n the usual crankout. Even some future Bullpen regulars like John Buscema and Joe Sinnott show up and hey, if you liked those Marvel reprint titles of the seventies with the updated covers that fooled Brad Kohler into thinking they were brand new efforts you'll get a swift kick outta these tales which did make for fine toilet reading as all good comics do, getting your mind offa some of the more disgusting things we all have to go through in life.
Also included in this book's a pre-Code title entitled SPACE WORLDS, a one-ish Atlas effort that shoulda never left the drawing board given the utter banality of the stories at hand. You can tell this 'un's gonna be a turdburger when not just one, but three Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers ripoffs pop up in tales that are about as stimulating as a maple syrup enema. Somehow I think it woulda been all for the better had Wertham gone after dudsters like this and left the good 'un's alone! (I mean, when I was young and saw that Comics Code stamp on the covers I thought that meant that each and every story was read by a group of experts who made sure that the mags up for sale contained quality stories guaranteed to get the depression-era waged kids reading these things more bang for their buck! REALLY!!! That's probably why I never went near any Dell or Gold Key books but eh, I was having enough fun as it was.)
Oh, and to pad out the thing Gwandanalad stuck on a Golden Age Blue Beetle story that ain't whatcha'd call one of them superhero efforts that sticks in your mind like an early Batman saga. Pretty snoozeville in fact and, after giving the Beetle's costume a once-over I wonder just why Lee Falk didn't sue!
Dell didn't heed to the Code, and they did just fine, ya creep!
ReplyDeleteDell Comics are good comics!