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My original introduction here was inadvertently wiped out when I started Vol. 3 so I really have nothing to work with right here. All I know is that this collects ToA #’s 1-10 and it was issued from January 1959 to October 1959. This was right before the Marvel Age of Comics and this was still the Atlas imprint.
Spoilers Ahead
-Tales to Astonish #1- We start off with a ninth wonder of the world story with big mutated monsters, head to a poltergeist story (in the inimitable style of Ditko) with a twist ending that wasn’t all that shocking (the poltergeist expert is a poltergeist), continue with a text story that features heat wave possibly caused by aliens, fly to a planet where a robot-hating man is saved by robots, and end with an alien invasion foiled by a man who was able to read the signs so to speak. I just finished Menace Vol. 1 recently and this is like night and day. Menace was a lot better both in terms of stories and twist endings. I understand this focused more on the bizarre and alien rather than the macabre but the ending were pretty forced and I think we may be in for a long ride.
-Tales to Astonish #2- Okay, so a notorious hunter ends up on an alien planet and is (get this) hunted by them. WHAT A TWIST! We continue with a text story that features a boy making a bubble and how it could’ve made the family money but the boy through the formula away. A Center of the Earth story follows and it doesn’t add much to other prehistoric centers of the earth except that the guy went through a timewarp. A man steals and tries to go into hiding on another planet but immediately regrets that when the new planet has small people and he sticks out like a sore thumb. Next up is a man heading through space frozen and he actually ends up in another dimension because of the curvature of the universe. Yeah, it didn’t make any sense to me either. A man is asked to find a Martian and this is another one of the “Alien hiding as human” stories. I wonder how many of those we’ll see during the course of these Atlas books?
-Tales to Astonish #3- Ditko illustrates a story about an alien traveling back in time to steal gold but since he’s a thief and in jail his ship was never built and it’s a time travel paradox! Our text story features a young boy meeting a man who can control weather with his stick and getting enough time to go to the ball game. It was just a tale about how even man’s most complex inventions must bow to Mother Nature in some respects. We follow with a story that looks at a man finding a spaceship on the coast but it was just a Russian spy. So he shoos them away. When he sees another spaceship they open fire but the thing flies away! They really were aliens! A miser hides his money on an asteroid but is shocked to realize he buried it in the asteroid belt and finding the hiding spot will be impossible. Next up is an alien landing on a smaller planet and causing havoc (completely accidental I may add). The big twist is that the alien causing the damage was from Earth! We end with a thief being sentenced to a life of solitary confinement but he escapes into the stars. We learn that the judge tricked the prisoner into doing that. The prisoner THINKS he’s free but he’ll be in solitary the rest of his life. I thought that was a really fitting story and I think it tells a lot about what the future of our prison systems possible could be.
-Tales to Astonish #4- We start with an evil director doing an alien invasion movie but real aliens show up and kidnap him. They can’t leave yet so they tell the director that if anyone helps him he can go but if not he’ll be going to Mars with them. He’s a jerk so no one helps him. Mean people always get what they deserve. The text story is an odd one featuring a man not believing in any fairy tales until he meets them. There wasn’t much to this story. A man steals a magic brush that allows a painting to come true. So the man draws himself as a handsome guy, then as a successful painter and then as a ruler of a country. Of course these things have a way of turning against the man who wields the power. One of his paintings inspires his subjects, they revolt and he ends up in prison. We meet a person who makes time stand still. What does he do with this sudden development? He goes on a robbing spree. Unfortunately he doesn’t count on people being able to see him while time was frozen! Enjoy jail, idiot! Up next is a man who falls for a mermaid and we learn he’s a mer-man. He never noticed this before? We end with a funky Ditko story about a space patrol capturing a space pirate. It made no sense but it had that trippy Ditko feel to it.
-Tales to Astonish #5- Kirby rocks the first story with what he does best – monsters. The Easter Island heads are actually aliens waiting for an invasion but no one believes the man who witnessed it! That also provided the cover story which is another great Kirby illustration. An inventor tries building a robot and the only thing longer than the time he took to do it was the time it took me to finish it. It was terrible and the twist ending (if you can call it that) was just weak. No one bought these for the text stories though. Aliens are planning an invasion in our next story and they send out only one scout. If he’s successful and comes back they invade but if they never hear from him again they won’t. So the dumb alien goes out to space and tries stealing a ship. The ship turns out to be alive and eats him. So much for that invasion. We continue with the best tale of the issue – a man who can take pictures of tomorrow. He takes pics of the stock market, horse races and everything to make him money. He even takes a picture of himself but gets very quiet when it shows up blank. Creepy. Another guy has a get-rich scheme. He’s found a note that will make people go unconscious and he gives it to a wealthy man. He waits for him to listen to the record but nothing happens. Ready for it? The guy is deaf! We end with an alien going to the forbidden planet and he soon learns why it is forbidden. The ending (which you could see from a mile away) was that the forbidden planet was Earth and he was from a much tinier galaxy. At least Ditko was on art for that last tale and it made it bearable.
-Tales to Astonish #6- Stone Men invade Earth! Luckily a scientist is there to tell them to let them be because they can’t really see anything up here. They return home. The reason seemed far-fetched but whatever; this isn’t Science America or something. A cautionary tale about Patents and potato peelers is our text story. Somehow the embodiment of peeling a potato stops a man from patenting a quicker peeler. I have no idea what the writer smoked to get that one but I would like to try some of it. A snob grows up to be wealthy and in control of his own planet. He trains the aliens like Pavlov to never enter his glass dome but when the oxygen pipes burst his calls for help go unheard since no one can enter the dome! A silly tale follows with a man laughing at Pan and losing his hair and mustache as a result because the guard who was at the exhibit was Pan himself! That was a waste of Kirby art to put him on that story. We continue along with a man hijacking a bomb to go to Russia and sell it. His plans are derailed when he sees the bomb is not controlled from within but radio controlled. I can’t believe he could learn how to control a rocket by going the library and learning about it. Aliens invade an African nation that sells wood sculptures that look like the aliens. They want to be sent out so they can learn of Earth’s plans before invading. Of course they don’t account for the varnish that is put on them and makes them stuck in place. Silly aliens!
-Tales to Astonish #7- Some soldiers in an atomic sub blast through a glacier only to find an alien chilling in there waiting for life to kill itself so he and his buds can take it over. He loves humans and their weapons because they will kill themselves a lot more quickly. You have to love these cautionary tales against war. A boy makes a money tree in the text story (can he make me one?) and Kirby draws our next tale of an old man helping out aliens and getting a treasure from them – air. A good old-fashioned ghost story is up next. A realtor doesn’t want to sell a guy a house because it is haunted but the guy doesn’t believe it. He spends a night, sees the spooks and bails. Turns out that the realtor lives there and is a ghost. A man takes pictures with a camera but he finds shots of another dimension! He tries telling someone (who doesn’t believe him) but he soon does when the camera (and the man) are taken to that other dimension! The ending was a bit screwy but it was a fun story. A man creates two statues (good vs. evil) and the evil statue actually comes alive! The good statue inexplicably comes alive, too, and both tumble off the edge of their mountainous home into the water below and both are seemingly destroyed. Ditko drew it but I think it is a story best suited to Kirby.
-Tales to Astonish #8- A strange floating head promises destruction to NYC but a young teenager soon uncovers that it is just a ploy by crooks using projection images. The illustration on the splash page (by Paul Reinman) with the floating head was just spectacular. The story wasn’t too bad, either. The next story features the return of the evil statue from last issue. He basically destroys a lot of things before unwittingly hiding in a rocket ship that is sent out into space. It’s a good idea – send evil out to space. Our text story is a weird one about glasses and an eye doctor having a door leading to another dimension. We continue along with a man who finds a genie and has him do a bunch of crazy things (make him a golden house, a flying horse, and even taking away the Atlantic Ocean) before deciding he wants to be an all-powerful genie, too. Of course his miscalculation was that a genie must always obey the one who found him and so the previous genie locks him in a flask and dumps him into parts unknown. A gigantic mummy emerges in the desert looking for something before heading off into space. The big mummy was actually an alien whose race can only travel wrapped up like a mummy. It was a corny ending to an otherwise fun book.
-Tales to Astonish #9- Kirby illustrates the return of the evil genie from last issue. He takes over the world and his next mission is taking over the universe but when he gets too far away from Earth his power fades and he’s sent back to his flask. It’d be cool if someone brought this character back. A man tries to figure out why we humans can’t get past a certain point in space. It’s almost like they are in a fishbowl and someone is watching over them. Hmmmmm. That one featured some great Ditko art. A crazy lizard is unleashed after a man’s growth serum is accidentally splashed on it. The lizard is out of control and the only hope is to attach rockets to it and blast it off into space. The lizard lands on another planet and soon becomes king of what would come to be known as Earth. I liked that ending. The text story features two people going through time and learning that the Timestream cannot be tampered with. However they see Washington fall off the boat when he crossed the Delaware so he’s saved. Turns out one of the travelers was a Revolutionary War hero! There’s a really cool story of a man using a robotic teddy bear to steal things but one night the bear doesn’t work. The man checks and is ready to take the bear back from the poor family and surprisingly the bear turns on the scientist! That was a good way to end this issue.
-Tales to Astonish #10- A huge beast called Titano attacks and Kirby does an awesome job with the story. The story ends with Titano being led to a glacier where he’s trapped. There’s a weird flying saucer text story that didn’t make any sense and we follow with an alien telling Earth it is going to end when a runaway planet hits it. The man was right but had the wrong planet. Ditko illustrates a great story of a man flying back to orbit with a species of bugs that travels through radio waves and they have venom that can’t be cured. So he basically hovers there until he’s shot out of the sky (after sending his journal to Earth). He’s lauded as a hero for his sacrifice. Kirby ends this story (and masterworks collection) with a story of a man who steals a formula for youth but he ends up disappearing into nothingness. That’s a theme I’ve seen before (I remember that happened to Silvermane in an issue of Amazing Spider-Man). This was another strong issue to round out the collection.
-The Bottom Line- These are always fun to read. Value wise they can’t be beat. These individual issues are worth several hundreds (especially the earlier ones worth thousands) so the $60 cover price (or thereabouts) means you get a great deal in getting these early issues. Sure some of the stories are really obvious and some are bordering on almost unreadable but there were some memorable ones in here. The best thing about this collection is the amazing art of guys like Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Dick Ayers, Don Heck, Joe Sinnott and others. The art is nothing short of fantastic and at times it can make a bad story much more enjoyable. Definitely worth a look.
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