Marvel Masterworks: Atlas Era Tales to Astonish, Vol. 4

Marvel Masterworks: Atlas Era Tales to Astonish #4

by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber (Illustrator), Steve Ditko (Illustrator)

The final volume in your complete TALES TO ASTONiSH library! From headlining horrors to the frightful backup features that supported TTA's fi rst Ant-Man epics, they're all here to shock your socks off.

COLLECTING: TALES TO ASTONISH (1959) 31-51, 54

Genres: Comics, Short Stories, Anthologies, Marvel

274 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2012

About the author

Stan Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber) was an American writer, editor, creator of comic book superheroes, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics.

With several artist co-creators, most notably Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, he co-created Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Thor as a superhero, the X-Men, Iron Man, the Hulk, Daredevil, the Silver Surfer, Dr. Strange, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Scarlet Witch, The Inhumans, and many other characters, introducing complex, naturalistic characters and a thoroughly shared universe into superhero comic books. He subsequently led the expansion of Marvel Comics from a small division of a publishing house to a large multimedia corporation.

Reviews

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

It never ceases to amaze me the wide range of comics that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby produced before the Silver age Marvel explosion of super heroes. The huge amount of stories that just seemed to flow out of their minds and hands is incredible. This volume showcases some of their best monster/supernatural/weird tales back when Marvel was still Atlas comics. Recommended

[John Peel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The final volume of short fantasy stories in "Tales To Astonish" before Ant-Man and then Giant-Man took over, the first half are the usual wonderfully silly Kirby/Ditko/Heck tales. Then, towards the end, we're left with Larry Leiber's inferior artwork that brings the overall rating down. Still, it's nice that they completed the entire run, which they didn't with any of the other Atlas Era tales.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely perfect collection of Lee/Kirby and Lee/Ditko stories! Horror, science fiction, supernatural, mystery are the genres featured here. These are the very last of the "monster" stories that preceded the Marvel Age of Super-Heroes. What you have here are three great comic book geniuses working in top form in their peak years. Earlier volumes of this book series aren't as good as this one. And it's interesting to see how quickly Lee/Kirby/Ditko's formulas go from solid to sublime. But this book is cream of the crop only. There's not a loser in the book.

Highly recommended.