TFMSR 036: December 1965, Part 3 …

All art in this post TM & © MARVEL; all art is scanned from the original comics in my collection.

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Here are the final five December 1965 cover-dated comics from Marvel. They were released in a different month and one of the easiest ways to tell this is to look at the back cover ads, which we’ll do at the very end of this post. But first, let’s look at the books themselves.

These issues debuted the second Bullpen Bulletins page, hitting the newsstands in the first two weeks of October, but all five are still cover-dated for December. It features Stan’s “WE GOOFED!” Item about the Marvel Pop Art Productions name-change that we covered in our first installment of December 1965 (click here to read it). Amongst the “MORE NUTTY NEWS AND NOTES FROM ONE MARVEL MADMAN TO ANOTHER!”, Flo Steinberg’s college campus popularity and Martin Goodman was one of the nation’s top amateur golfers. (Hey, Stan … you got the job, okay?) Also, this second page revealed the secret of the mailing tube from the first Bullpen page: a giant Spider-Man wall poster! I think we actually had this one, if I remember correctly. It was the first Marvel poster, although more would follow later in the decade and into the early 1970s from Marvelmania (if you were lucky enough to actually get what you ordered) and from outside vendor Third Eye Press, who did the black light posters utilizing Marvel art. Abrams Marvel Arts have been reprinting the Third Eye stuff, in beautiful full-size poster sets, replicating the look and feel of the original—and exceedingly rare in good shape!—posters and notecard set.

Modeling with Millie #44 by Roy Thomas and Stan Goldberg.
Our friend Millie was so popular, she warranted two Marvel books, and this very issue may just be the first writing assignment Roy Thomas had at Marvel. He joined the staff in July of 1965 after just a few days working for notorious grouch/Superman editor Mort Weisinger at DC. Thomas met Stan Lee for lunch, went up to Marvel and passed their writing test. He gave Weisinger his notice, and was promptly told to leave. Back at Marvel less than an hour after he left his first meeting there, Thomas was given a “Millie the Model assignment to do over the weekend.” This story, “Whom Can I Turn To?”, a three-parter that has Millie on a modeling gig in Paris and accused of being a thief, is most likely yet another in a series of firsts for the December 1965 cover-dated Marvel publications. The story is 18 pages long, with five pages devoted to the usual Millie fashions and hairdos sent in by readers.

Patsy Walker #124 by Al Hartley and Sol Brodsky.
Patsy Walker #124 is a “Super Special Sensation” featuring “The 3 Faces of Patsy!” The “Surfing Sweeties” splash page reveals an important announcement, telling readers they were getting three Patsy and Hedy six-page stories this issue, one with romance, one with glamour, and one with action, plus the prerequisite fashion and hairdo pages, including one for Hunk of the Month, Buzz Baxter. Patsy urged readers at the end of the book to write in and tell her what her assignments should be as the new editor of the women’s page in the newspaper. J. Jonah Jamison eat your heart out!

The X-Men #15 by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Jay Gavin (Werner Roth), and Dick Ayers.
The X-Men #15 is the second issue of a two-parter that introduced the Sentinels to the Marvel Universe, a group of sentient robots/androids/whatever Stan was calling them this issue, that were mutant hunters. This issue has Jack Kirby credited as “designer,” with “Jay Gavin” as penciller and Dick Ayers as inker. I’m guessing that was a clever way for Stan to say Kirby did the layouts, yet again, as another penciller was being broken in to the Marvel style of storytelling. This issue also features a small origin of the Beast, basically two pages or so, told while Hank McCoy is a prisoner of the Sentinels. Because of that, this particular book commands a steeper price. X-Men had just gone monthly with #14 and still felt kind of lost, a feeling even ten-year-old me could sense almost 60 years ago. Like the “Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.” series, which I mentioned last time (click here to read it), X-Men wouldn’t become the series it was meant to be until the right writer/artist team came along. In their case, it was—for a very brief time—Roy Thomas and Neal Adams, but the series really had to wait another decade or so for the coming of Chris Claremont and John Byrne to become the legendary book it was meant to be.

Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #25 by Stan Lee, Dick Ayers, and John Tartaglione.
“Every Man My Enemy!” screams this Jack Kirby cover featuring a beleaguered looking Sgt. Nick Fury. This issue is once again by Stan with long-time penciller Dick Ayers and inks by John Tartaglione. It’s a convoluted story about a Nazi spy who masquerades as both Nick Fury and Captain Sam Sawyer, placing blame on Fury who is hunted by all. We bought Sgt. Fury religiously each month (as opposed to the Marvel Westerns, which we only bought once in a while, probably when there was nothing else to pick up and no visit to the newsstand went home empty-handed), even though I don’t really remember enjoying it much until issue #44, when John Severin came onboard to pencil for a bit, but ended up staying to ink Dick Ayers, whose run on the title lasted almost as long as Jack Kirby’s on Fantastic Four: 95 issues including four annuals. Gary Friedrich’s scripts were also a major plus. Fury seemed much more like a part of Marvel than the Western and romance books did, at least to me.

The Avengers #23 by Stan Lee, Don Heck, and John Romita.
And here’s our last—as Stan himself may have put it—“Mighty Marvel Milestone” with these December 1965 cover dated books. Avengers #23 marks John Romita’s return to Marvel after eight years. He inked the amazing Jack Kirby Kang cover on this issue and the Don Heck story pages. Heck had been pencilling Avengers since issue #9, following the first eight issues by Kirby; he would continue to be the penciller until issue #41, when John Buscema, another returnee to Marvel, took over. Romita’s inks on Heck gave a much greater heft to the artist’s sometimes wispy pencils and Heck’s usual attractive women became even more alluring with the Romita romance touch. Romita’s return to Marvel was a very welcome homecoming and he would go on to become an integral part of the company; his return is an interesting story in and of itself …

There came a time in the late 1950s when Marvel (then Atlas) publisher Martin Goodman found Stan Lee’s inventory closet and shut down any new art production. Romita, who relied on the company for most of his freelance work, was let go in the middle of doing a story for one of the Western titles. “If Stan Lee calls, tell him to go to hell,” Romita told his wife, Virginia. But Stan eventually did call, catching Romita just before he went to work in advertising, after an eight-year run on DC’s romance books, which paid a much better page rate than Stan did. The DC romance line was closing up, so Romita decided to go into advertising. Stan—being Stan—persuaded the artist to come back to Marvel. At first Romita just wanted to ink, feeling burned out on pencilling the romance comics, but Stan had him take over Daredevil with issue #12, after Wally Wood left, just one short month after Romita returned. And a few issues into that, he had Spider-Man guest-star in Daredevil. Little did Romita know it was a try-out for him to take over the Amazing Spider-Man series if—or rather when—Steve Ditko left. Romita would take Spidey to new heights of popularity with his slick lines and beautiful people, eventually becoming Marvel’s art director. His Spider-Man run is legendary. And when Jack Kirby left, Romita was the first new artist on Fantastic Four in over 100 issues, but he wasn’t as good a fit with that as he was with Spidey. John Buscema soon took over on that title.

Our final observation about these December 1965 cover-dated comics concerns their back covers. On the superhero and Western books released in September, the back cover featured one of the quintessential ads to appear on Marvel Comics in the 1960s: The Famous Artists School. “He’s looking for people who like to draw,” headlined the ad next to a drawing of illustrator Albert Dorne. I can tell you that I was almost an alumni of the Famous Artists School, having taken the test and having a representative of the school show up at my front door for an actual interview. It was not to be, however. In October, the OTHER quintessential ad appeared, featuring muscle man Mike Marvel, extolling his new “Dynaflex Method” to build muscles. I had a friend who was convinced that Mike Marvel owned Marvel Comics, and that’s why his ad was on the back covers of so many Marvel books. I couldn’t convince him otherwise.

The romance line had their own ads inside and outside their books. The December cover-dated books that appeared in September had an ad for a “Lovely 48-Piece Hostess Party Ensemble,” that will make you the “envy of neighbors” (they evidently didn’t meet all of my neighbors). You just had to sell Christmas cards to get it. The books that came out in October had a choice of “Glamour Wigs … in a choice of colors and styles” for just $4.95! “Soft and lovely as a movie star’s hair-do!” Now, ladies … how could you pass that up. Interior ads in the romance books included “Stop Ugly Nails!”, “A Poetic Tribute to Our Late and Beloved President,” “Reduce Your Measurements” and “100 Little Dolls” on the same page, and the classic “Don’t Be Fat!” Also, for some strange reason, the Millie and Patsy books included an ad for that comic book staple, “Monster-size Monsters! Full 6 Ft Tall in Authentic Colors for Only $1.00!” I guess comics-reading girls in the 1960s liked monsters, too.

Just a few more house ads from the December 1965 Marvel books, showing a mixed bag of both November and December books.

And that brings us to the close of our first year of Tales From My Spinner Rack! Click on the link below to read all the other posts from this year (35 of them!) and keep an eye out for our brand new video based on this series, coming soon to the Official Tales From My Spinner Rack! YouTube Channel!