January 1965: Failure’s Not an Option

This 1965 house ad features four issues that typify characteristics that made Marvel Comics unique.

At Marvel, superheroes were rarely permitted to fail. Instead, they were revamped and recycled until they clicked.

For example, after his own comic book ended with its 6th issue in March 1963, the Incredible Hulk was a monster without a title, wandering in the wilderness both literally and metaphorically. But Stan Lee kept him in readers’ sight, and in October 1964 the Hulk returned to share Tales to Astonish with Giant-Man.

That character had his own troubles, and in Tales to Astonish 70 (Aug. 1965) he’d be replaced by the Sub-Mariner — another super-antihero like the Hulk. But Giant-Man, too, wouldn’t be gone long. He returned in a new costume with a new name, Goliath, in The Avengers 28 (May 1966).

Fantastic Four 34 features the protagonists fighting each other, something they’d done frequently since their first issue. Conflicts between and within Marvel’s superheroes were one of the company’s innovative dramatic strengths.

And Spider-Man — seen here in Amazing Spider-Man 20 — became popular by exemplifying that very soap opera quality. Like all superheroes, he tended to battle villainous mirror images of himself — super-powered animal men like Dr. Octopus, the Vulture, the Chameleon, the Lizard and, here, the Scorpion.

In Tales of Suspense, Iron Man and Captain America flirted with real-world international politics. You didn’t see that at DC.

 “I liked Iron Man because I liked the idea of taking a guy who nobody’s ever made a hero of before — a guy who’s a member of the military-industrial complex — and making a hero out of him,” Lee recalled in 1983.

And here in Tales of Suspense 61, Captain America wades into communist Vietnam to rescue a missing pilot from the Viet Cong leader-cum-sumo wrestler General Wo.

But after all, Cap had worn his politics on his star-spangled sleeve ever since he was introduced giving Adolph Hitler a well-deserved punch in the snoot in 1941.