Best and Worst of the Complete Marvel Reading Order #1

The first post in what may (if it keeps my attention) continue into the future.  I'm going to post about the 5 star stories I've found in the Order, and also 1 star stories that are roughly contemporaneous to them.  I'm not going to talk about ALL the 1 star stories because, good grief, there are so many of them.  

The Best - #72: Strange Tales (1951) #110 [C Story]

The very first Doctor Strange story!

I admit that on its own merits its maybe 4 stars.  Ditko is great in it, but he clearly is treating the character mostly as a standard "man of mystery" character, not the Sorcerer Supreme.  Also, as you can see in that panel above, for some reason Doctor Strange never has his eyes open.  Of course he doesn't need his eyes...

So it gets 5 stars mostly from giddy excitement about what is to come.

As an aside, you will find if this series continues that I truly love the Trapster, aka "Don't Call Me Paste-Pot Pete".  That's why the Human Torch story in this particular Strange Tales got more than 1 star.  But, one issue later...

The Worst - 77: Strange Tales (1951) #111 [A Story]

This is a stand-in for all the Human Torch stories in Strange Tales, although this one is particularly egregious.  That dialogue you see on the cover is pretty typical of the inanity one finds within.  Here is another example...

"You are blazing like an inferno, but it affects me not at all!"  Sure, whatever Asbestos Man, weird sentence structure dude.  Also, Sue Storm is awesome, and I love a beehive as much as the next person, but, really...

...that's just not the best look for her.

There is also this attempt to make it suburban by locating it in Glenville, Long Island.  I think maybe Stan Lee was hoping Johnny Storm could be a kind of suburban teen icon, sort of Archie with super-powers?  Except Johnny Storm is just a jerk, much more Reggie than Archie.

All these Human Torch stories in Strange Tales were awful, there is just no sugar-sugar-coating it. 

The Best - 115: Strange Tales (1951) #115 [B Story]

The Origin of Doctor Strange...

Was there really "an avalanche of requests"? Who knows?  But I'm glad anyway.  This story shows off many of Ditko's strengths.  For example, they way he depicts Strange's journey from arrogance to desperation in his face...

Like the very first Strange story in the last post, this one is really 4 stars on its own merits, it gets a +1 star boost from it being such an iconic and historic story.  

Its not as Orientalist as it could be but, yeah, its got some Orientalism in it. 

The Worst - 102: Tales to Astonish (1958) #48

There is so much bad, sexist writing of woman characters in Marvel comics, we might as well get started with it.

Eventually Janet Van Dyne aka the Wasp gets cool.   But back here in 1963, oh boy...  "I'd rather think about all the glamourous males working there!"  That's typical of how she is portrayed, ditzy, vain, man-crazy, whose sole purpose is to allow Hank Pym to show how rational and manly he is.  Its awful.  So many woman characters are treated in this fashion, it really only goes away in the late '80s, at which point it is replaced by the "powerful woman" who is "sexy" and has legs twice as long as her torso plus head and who always looks as if she is posing for some kind of avant garde Vogue magazine photo shoot.  But we'll get there, plenty of time for this sexist trope to settle in and get comfortable before we switch to a different sexist trope.

In and of itself that's 2 star stuff, it so common its easy to get used to it.  To get to 1 star we also need the Porcupine...

In the long history of goofy Marvel super-villains, this first version of the Porcupine has to be one of the goofiest.  That suit!  It looks like someone has made a coat from the fur of one of those Hungarian sheep dogs that have dreadlocks...

The suit has a random collection of capabilities, like liquid cement and smoke clouds and tear gas, but seems to be devoid of the one trait that porcupines actually have; sharp points.  Its nonsensical, and not in any good way.

  

Sexist writing plus stupid super-villain is a consistent recipe for 1 star stories in Marvel in the '60s and '70s.