Arctic Ink Comics Review

After the early problems concerning Tony Stark and his supporting cast in the Iron Man stories were fixed, it interestingly highlighted the Armored Avenger himself as the least dynamic element in Tales of Suspense. Particularly, whenever Stark dons his suit, he becomes all but infallible, and while there's always some fun tech-based gag involved, his action scenes haven't been particularly memorable in most cases. What the following two issues did to improve the situation wasn't so much to fix the action, or even to bring down Iron Man's power levels, but to write around his advantages to create more stakes. In other words, these stories became about villains attempting to outplay Iron Man rather than outgun him, and that angle made for refreshing, interesting conflicts. Tried and true! Tales of Suspense #51: "Face-to-Face with The Sinister Scarecrow" Writers: Stan Lee Artists: Don Heck Editor: Stan Lee Publication Date: December 9, 1963 Cover ...

Out of the entire Spider-Man rogues’ gallery, and possibly the whole catalogue of Marvel bad guys, probably no one enjoys the status of running joke quite like the Enforcers. They’re commonly known as the dumbest, least interesting, and most generic bunch of antagonists imaginable, more often than not used as a punchline, so much so that later writers almost certainly have taken it as a challenge to write a story using Fancy Dan, Ox, and Montana and try to make it compelling. For this reason more than anything, The Amazing Spider-Man #10 occasionally suffers from a reputation as one of the more expendable issues of the early era. Even though the main villain of the story is the Big Man, and the Enforcers are there only to make the action scenes seem meaningful and to give the crowd of bad guys an identity, the terrible threesome seems to eclipse the rest of the book’s narrative identity in casual conversation. The Amazing Spider-Man #10: "The Enforcers!" Writers: Stan ...

After a combination of stories of varying quality struggling to maintain a cohesive identity, by issue #4 The Incredible Hulk was in a dire need of a hit. This was the time to deliver a definitive story, not only to establish what Hulk was going to be going forward, but also to make it clear to the reader what it is that makes this magazine worth buying in the future. The weird shifts in tone and premise culminating in Rick being able to mind-control the Hulk in issue #3 were making the character hard to latch onto, and there's only so many do-overs one can take before a series starts to feel like just a heap of underdeveloped story ideas rather than a coherent narrative. Unfortunately, issue #4 doesn't do what it needed to. To its credit, it doesn't ping-pong between styles quite like the first two did, but it's also losing its grasp on the gothic tragedy vibe that was the closest thing to a proper identity so far. This issue, consisting of two separate stories, take...

In the Spring of 1964, Marvel was right in the middle of its super-hero renaissance: Fantastic Four and Spider-Man were enjoying solid popularity, Avengers and X-Men were finding their stride to various degrees of success, and characters like Thor and Iron Man were solidifying a presence in their respective anthology series. It was a mix of conventional super-heroes and more grounded, complex, human characters that were becoming something of a specialty for Marvel. This was the landscape in which Daredevil debuted, leaning hard into that latter side of the Marvel identity. Worth the wait! Daredevil #1: "The Origin of Daredevil" Writers: Stan Lee Artists: Bill Everett, Jack Kirby, Sol Brodsky & Steve Ditko Editor: Stan Lee Publication Date: February 4, 1964 Cover Date: April 1964 Art by Bill Everett and Jack Kirby. © Marvel Comics. Daredevil #1 was initially intended for publication several months earlier, but was delayed due to artist Bill Ev...