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Marvel Masterworks: Atlas Era Strange Tales #5
Marvel Masterworks: Atlas Era Strange Tales, Vol. 5
From the dark heart of the Atlas Era comes another dose of bizarre and exciting STRANGE TALES! Crafted by a host of the most talented illustrators to ever grace the comic-book page - from early work by Steve Ditko to accomplished efforts by Bill Everett - each story is a page-turning pleasure from the days when comics were as frightful as they were delightful! A heaping helping of bug-eyed aliens, unexplored caves, time machines, mermaids and atomic bombs will prove to you there's a taste of something for everyone with a penchant for the fearsome and the fantastic. And with an in-depth introduction by noted Atlas scholar Dr. Michael J. Vassallo, there's no other place where comics' most contentious era is presented and studied in such detail as here. So reserve your copy today, and march on with the MARVEL MASTERWORKS!
Collecting STRANGE TALES (1951) #40-48.
Collecting STRANGE TALES (1951) #40-48.
233 pages, Hardcover
First published November 2, 2011
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59 people want to read
About the author
Bill Everett
389 books11 followersWilliam Blake Everett, aka Bill Everett, was a comic book writer-artist best known for creating Namor the Sub-Mariner as well as co-creating Zombie and Daredevil with writer Stan Lee for Marvel Comics. He was a descendant of the poet William Blake and of Richard Everett, founder of Dedham, Massachusetts.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 17, 2019
Between the fall of the Golden age of comics and the rise of the Silver Age was a strange no man's land of years ruled by the Comic Code. Romance, Western and an odd type of Horror/supernatural comics reigned. Many of the great artists and writers of the Golden Age turned their hand to these new comics. This is a very nice collection of Marvel comics (Atlas at the time) efforts in this era of comics. Nice reads. Recommended
April 25, 2024
Strange and spooky, just like me
December 2, 2023
Wow! There is a marked improvement across the board from the previous volume. The writers have figured out how to write clever stories within the confines of the Comic Code Authority, and the editors brought in a higher caliber of artists. Bill Everett and Steve Ditko absolutely shine here, especially in glorious “high definition”. While there is only one Ditko penciled story in this book, we get three Bill Everett stories along with a cover. Everett is truly one of the greats.
Issue 42's The Faceless One! is another Everett penciled work of art. Carl Wessler's script is extremely clever if familiar and predictable here in 2013. Everett is a genius. John Forte is another exceptional artist who isn't given much recognition these days. This statement is true of many of these artists. Just replace John Forte with the name of any of these forgotten greats. It is also worth noting that these cats toiled in anonymity and near poverty to create this stuff. Art for the sake of art, and if you could eat and pay the rent, all the better.
The whole UFOs as a metaphor for the fear of Communist infiltration during Cold War-era America is a recurring theme throughout the book. Many of the values held near and dear to the denizens of mid-20th century America are comical to read in the here and now. The Vanishing Brain! is a prime example of this. In it, Professor Hayden is a smug intellectual elitist who frowns upon jocks and those who are physically active, just like the sissies who dominate the world today. He ends up walking through a break in the time flow and wound up in the Paleolithic Age, where he gets captured by Neanderthals and turned into a slave. This physical labor makes him become a musclebound, virile specimen. Once he makes a break for it and returns to our century, he finds that the girl he loves has found a “puny specimen like that” and “doesn't deserve the love of a real man”...while having his arm around his former rival for her affections. I hope that Phil and Hank wound up being happy together.
Issue 48's I've Got To Hide! is brilliant. At only 4 pages long it crams in tons of story, and it seems to get ready to go nuts and then is reeled in in the last two panels. If you removed them and continued the story in a different direction this could be one sick tale. Some of these stories are corny, others dated, and all are lovable relics of their era. This stuff bleeds charm and is worth owning for historical value. Collecting the original issues would be expensive and time consuming.
Issue 42's The Faceless One! is another Everett penciled work of art. Carl Wessler's script is extremely clever if familiar and predictable here in 2013. Everett is a genius. John Forte is another exceptional artist who isn't given much recognition these days. This statement is true of many of these artists. Just replace John Forte with the name of any of these forgotten greats. It is also worth noting that these cats toiled in anonymity and near poverty to create this stuff. Art for the sake of art, and if you could eat and pay the rent, all the better.
The whole UFOs as a metaphor for the fear of Communist infiltration during Cold War-era America is a recurring theme throughout the book. Many of the values held near and dear to the denizens of mid-20th century America are comical to read in the here and now. The Vanishing Brain! is a prime example of this. In it, Professor Hayden is a smug intellectual elitist who frowns upon jocks and those who are physically active, just like the sissies who dominate the world today. He ends up walking through a break in the time flow and wound up in the Paleolithic Age, where he gets captured by Neanderthals and turned into a slave. This physical labor makes him become a musclebound, virile specimen. Once he makes a break for it and returns to our century, he finds that the girl he loves has found a “puny specimen like that” and “doesn't deserve the love of a real man”...while having his arm around his former rival for her affections. I hope that Phil and Hank wound up being happy together.
Issue 48's I've Got To Hide! is brilliant. At only 4 pages long it crams in tons of story, and it seems to get ready to go nuts and then is reeled in in the last two panels. If you removed them and continued the story in a different direction this could be one sick tale. Some of these stories are corny, others dated, and all are lovable relics of their era. This stuff bleeds charm and is worth owning for historical value. Collecting the original issues would be expensive and time consuming.
June 7, 2013
In this first volume of the Strange Tales Masterworks series to include all post-code work, we're given luminous, wonderful artwork by such geniuses as Joe Maneely, Dick Ayers, Joe Sinnott, Bernie Krigstein, and, in his first work for Atlas/Marvel, Steve Ditko.
The writers were definitely struggling to conform to the restrictive limits the code had shackled them with, and many of the stories simply fade away, or even feature endings that will leave you scratching your head, but to me that's part of the charm. On the other hand, the artwork is stellar, and I'd go so far as to say that this period in the mid-fifties was really the true Golden Age of Comic Book Art. The artists had defined themselves, found their voices, and were consistently producing incredibly strong, idiosyncratic work.
The great thing about this series, and its sister series, Journey Into Mystery, is that with each new volume we are witness to the evolution of 1950's comics, from start to finish, which was a wild ride. And now we're only one volume away from the first appearance of Jack Kirby, who laid the groundwork in these titles for the the Marvel Superhero revival of the 1960's. I can't wait!
The writers were definitely struggling to conform to the restrictive limits the code had shackled them with, and many of the stories simply fade away, or even feature endings that will leave you scratching your head, but to me that's part of the charm. On the other hand, the artwork is stellar, and I'd go so far as to say that this period in the mid-fifties was really the true Golden Age of Comic Book Art. The artists had defined themselves, found their voices, and were consistently producing incredibly strong, idiosyncratic work.
The great thing about this series, and its sister series, Journey Into Mystery, is that with each new volume we are witness to the evolution of 1950's comics, from start to finish, which was a wild ride. And now we're only one volume away from the first appearance of Jack Kirby, who laid the groundwork in these titles for the the Marvel Superhero revival of the 1960's. I can't wait!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews