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X-Men #1 (1963): The mutant X-periment

The debut issue of what would eventually become one of Marvel 's flagship titles (with uncountable spinoffs) is an interesting case of a story that feels both ahead of its time and a relic of a bygone era. Even though the deeper socio-cultural commentary attributed to the X-Men only really started to happen later, there's something uniquely interesting about a setup where the villain is essentially the same as the heroes, just ideologically opposed. The storytelling in this first magazine, however, is more reminiscent of early 60s' anthology romps than it is of the more conscious commentary of the Bronze Age and beyond. The new Fantastic Four! X-Men #1 Writers: Stan Lee Artists: Jack Kirby & Paul Reinman Editor: Stan Lee Publication Date: July 2, 1963 Cover Date: September 1963 Art by Jack Kirby and Sol Brodsky. © Marvel Comics. There are conflicting accounts (even between series creators, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby ) about how much of the themat...
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Tales of Suspense #45-47 (1963): How to Fix Iron Man in Three Parts

By the summer of 1963, the Marvel creative team had had the time to not only gather feedback on the Iron Man stories published so far , but also learn from the successes of other series. Without being too familiar with the Fantastic Four comics, I can only presume that as the longest-running reliable seller, a lot of the learnings would have come from that direction. But my personal experience with the Amazing Spider-Man , whose bread and butter was human drama and relatability , leads me to believe that the first few adventures of the wisecracking web-slinger were starting to shape into something of a template for what makes a character work. That's why, I'd argue, we started to see the emergence of recurring supporting characters, engaging villains, and moments of struggle for the main hero in the Iron Man stories featured in Tales of Suspense around this time. The character was hardly interesting in its conception, but starting with #45, you can watch the creative team fig...
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The Amazing Spider-Man #4-5 (1963): The fallible Peter Parker

If The Amazing Spider-Man #3 was all about the hero and the villain , and the thematic dynamics of their respective characterizations, the following two issues (while arguably going sort of hard with the antagonists) drill down on the human behind the mask. There's a lot of character work being done with Peter Parker in these stories, with the super heroing working as a narrative vehicle more than the thematic focus. There's some notably bold moments of flawed characterization that skate surprisingly close to the line of unlikability -- if it wasn't for a tight reversal of those moments framing them as fleeting breaches of integrity, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko might have risked alienating some readers.
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