Fascist art for fascist times, ctd.:
I like a good villain page. I used to love these "split" books like Astonishing Tales from the former House Of Ideas, including also Amazing Adventures, Strange Tales, Tales Of Suspense, and Tales To Astonish. DC dabbled with the format too over the years, with Prince Ra-Man and Eclipso in House Of Secrets, among others.
In these titles, stories were tight and concise, often continued, and just bite-sized enough to pique and hold interest. And when you finished that month's installment of a character's latest adventure, a different strip would follow immediately, with a separate continuity. Gene Colan and Bill Everett's luscious art on the Black Widow strip in Amazing Adventures was another highlight from this short-lived period of Marvel's climb to the top of the creative poppermost. These were fun comics.
I loved the odd pairing of Ka-Zar and Dr. Doom in Astonishing Tales, especially when Marvel went the perfect extra mile of commissioning Wally Wood to pencil and ink the Doom strip. This made for a weird balancing act of a feature, because it caused a lot of us to wonder how long such a bold and unique experiment could possibly run.
The quandary of the Doom concept, after all, was obvious. How does a writer let the lead character continue to lose issue after issue? Remember that at the time, The Comics Code mandated that crime should always be punished - and by extension, evil - lest impressionable young minds infer that the bad guy could actually (gasp!) get away with it. So how does a writer do that, and still insist on the formidability of the villainous protagonist?
What the writers, Roy Thomas and then Larry Lieber, did was inspired. Why not, Roy must've figured, have Doom square off against dissidents in his kingdom of Latveria, and then be confronted with threats of invasion by other prominent supervillains in the Marvel universe? And who, of all those villains, was most equipped to give to Doom as good as he got, but The Red Skull?
Unfortunately, what was promised as an amazing, classic tussle for the next issue was never realized. Because when one turned to what should've been the exciting continuation of this "astonishing" confrontation - anticipating the savoring of more of that incredible Wood art - what one got instead was...George Tuska?
Somehow, between ish #4 and #5, scripter Roy had apparently managed to piss off the predictably volatile artist by criticizing the quality of the work he was turning in, and the chagrined Wood quit the strip. This was recounted by Roy Thomas himself in an interview in one of the TwoMorrows publications.
With due respect to Mr. Tuska, it was a major editorial gaffe and delusion to rationalize that Wood's departure would hardly be noticed, and that Doom could continue at the same level of quality with another artist. And of course it didn't, because the Doom continuity and the split book concept were abandoned for Astonishing Tales within a handful of issues.
I'm actually still kinda pissed about this, fifty-six years later. There was nothing wrong with Wood's art on Doom. Imagine if we'd gotten to see him draw the bad doctor gloriously for another half dozen issues or more. What wonders and what marvels of art and story might we have seen - pun unintended - if Roy hadn't gotten on an editorial high horse, per edict from Stan Lee, and decided to nitpick? What if he'd opted instead to clam up? Even Thomas has admitted, in retrospect, that this might've been the road better taken.
Sadly, we'll never know. Yes, it was Stan's prerogative to make this creative call. But what's the point of turning on a searchlight to tidy up the living room, when you burn down the house?
Marvel began to lose the plot for me as a reader when these double-header titles died, and Jack Kirby left for DC and hoped-for greener pastures. I stopped buying and collecting, and went on to college and other life adventures. But from time to time I'd look in on the books, to see if I wasn't missing anything. My disappointed impressions of Marvel and DC in the '70s were mostly of artistic stagnation. Fare thee well, late, great Marvel Comics of the '60s. You were wonderful while you lasted.
Anyway, I hope somebody out there likes this page even half as much as I do. I'm winding down my art collecting, and trying to go out with a bang. I'll love to receive any comments.
(PS: There's an error on this splash. Can you spot it?)
