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Review: Amazing Fantasy Omnibus
Amazing Fantasy Omnibus
Written by Stan Lee
Art by Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers, Don Heck, and Paul Reinman
Published by Marvel Comics. $75.00 USD
Some months before the Marvel Age began in 1961 with Fantastic Four, there was Amazing Adventures, which found Jack Kirby continuing to draw monster comics as he had since the mid '50s, and Steve Ditko drawing moralistic science fiction stories of aliens, ghosts, and many selfish or ignorant men. All these stories, plus some one-page text pieces, were written by Stan Lee, who had yet to become a great success but was always trying to give people what they wanted. With this series, he was capitalizing on monster movies and The Twilight Zone, and if the stories were rather facile (and with many of them only two pages long, depth wasn't what he was after most of the time), at least he had two great interpreters of his ideas in Kirby and Ditko.
Kirby was the more dynamic artist, and today some of his monsters are fondly remembered, though mainly for their kitschy names, like "Krogg," "Torr" and "Monsteroso." He would take his ability for creating memorable grotesques to Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, The Uncanny X-Men and other titles, where the grotesques were humanized and made heroic.
Ditko remained on Amazing Adventures, which changed to Amazing Adult Fantasy with its seventh issue, and continue drawing all the twist-ending sci-fi stories Lee cranked out. Ditko was dynamic in a different way than Kirby. He made the common man interesting. Every nebbish, every smug tycoon and every two-bit thug lit up the page. He also drew a lot of cool aliens, and also a fair representation of Death, seemingly inspired by a similar incarnation in Ingmar Bergman's 1957 film, The Seventh Seal. A typical Lee/Ditko story was, "Why Won't They Believe Me?" from AAF #7, where a man finds a hidden spaceship with written plans of world invasion by aliens changing to human form. He tries to warn the authorities with no one believing him, until finally a government scientist does buy his story, pointing out that only the man could decipher the log book, because in fact he was the alien, having suffered amnesia from the impact of the flight.
There are some interesting tidbits here for Marvelphiles. Lee tried one recurring character for the series, Dr. Droom, a yellow-skinned bald mystic of indeterminate origin, but highly respected by others in his stories. He is a clear precursor to the other Lee/Ditko classic character, Dr. Strange, not to mention the name losing a letter to become the name of the Fantastic Four's greatest nemesis. Droom himself would eventually become Dr. Druid. One can also find examples of Lee's famous penchant for alliterative names here, as well as a scientist with the last name Storm, and a young mutant named Thad who is led away to a secret mutant sanctuary until the world is ready for their kind. And of course, we get the first appearance of Spider-Man, in the renamed-but-shortlived Amazing Fantasy #15, a story that has appeared in a couple Omnibus volumes already, but here we get the other Lee/Ditko stories from that final issue as well, before it was cancelled to make room for a series with a bit more staying power, Amazing Spider-Man.
Although the stories are corny and dated now, the result of over 40 years of other twist ending stories bearing the influence of Rod Serling, the work here is not just hackwork on Lee's part, even if it was done quickly. There are some clinkers, sure, but most are well-constructed, and Lee's utopianism and Cold War fears come through clearly, whether he knew it or not. And though one can sense, retroactively, that Kirby was gearing up for better things than his work here, heavily inked as it was by Dick Ayers, Ditko was really putting his heart into even the least of Lee's tales, with an incredible amount of detail and expression. With ASM and his Dr. Strange stories for Strange Tales, Ditko had room to create worlds and recurring characters, and eventually plot his own stories entirely. Here, he's just a consummate professional, creating good entertainment with little forethought.
Written by Stan Lee
Art by Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers, Don Heck, and Paul Reinman
Published by Marvel Comics. $75.00 USD
Some months before the Marvel Age began in 1961 with Fantastic Four, there was Amazing Adventures, which found Jack Kirby continuing to draw monster comics as he had since the mid '50s, and Steve Ditko drawing moralistic science fiction stories of aliens, ghosts, and many selfish or ignorant men. All these stories, plus some one-page text pieces, were written by Stan Lee, who had yet to become a great success but was always trying to give people what they wanted. With this series, he was capitalizing on monster movies and The Twilight Zone, and if the stories were rather facile (and with many of them only two pages long, depth wasn't what he was after most of the time), at least he had two great interpreters of his ideas in Kirby and Ditko.
Kirby was the more dynamic artist, and today some of his monsters are fondly remembered, though mainly for their kitschy names, like "Krogg," "Torr" and "Monsteroso." He would take his ability for creating memorable grotesques to Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, The Uncanny X-Men and other titles, where the grotesques were humanized and made heroic.
Ditko remained on Amazing Adventures, which changed to Amazing Adult Fantasy with its seventh issue, and continue drawing all the twist-ending sci-fi stories Lee cranked out. Ditko was dynamic in a different way than Kirby. He made the common man interesting. Every nebbish, every smug tycoon and every two-bit thug lit up the page. He also drew a lot of cool aliens, and also a fair representation of Death, seemingly inspired by a similar incarnation in Ingmar Bergman's 1957 film, The Seventh Seal. A typical Lee/Ditko story was, "Why Won't They Believe Me?" from AAF #7, where a man finds a hidden spaceship with written plans of world invasion by aliens changing to human form. He tries to warn the authorities with no one believing him, until finally a government scientist does buy his story, pointing out that only the man could decipher the log book, because in fact he was the alien, having suffered amnesia from the impact of the flight.
There are some interesting tidbits here for Marvelphiles. Lee tried one recurring character for the series, Dr. Droom, a yellow-skinned bald mystic of indeterminate origin, but highly respected by others in his stories. He is a clear precursor to the other Lee/Ditko classic character, Dr. Strange, not to mention the name losing a letter to become the name of the Fantastic Four's greatest nemesis. Droom himself would eventually become Dr. Druid. One can also find examples of Lee's famous penchant for alliterative names here, as well as a scientist with the last name Storm, and a young mutant named Thad who is led away to a secret mutant sanctuary until the world is ready for their kind. And of course, we get the first appearance of Spider-Man, in the renamed-but-shortlived Amazing Fantasy #15, a story that has appeared in a couple Omnibus volumes already, but here we get the other Lee/Ditko stories from that final issue as well, before it was cancelled to make room for a series with a bit more staying power, Amazing Spider-Man.
Although the stories are corny and dated now, the result of over 40 years of other twist ending stories bearing the influence of Rod Serling, the work here is not just hackwork on Lee's part, even if it was done quickly. There are some clinkers, sure, but most are well-constructed, and Lee's utopianism and Cold War fears come through clearly, whether he knew it or not. And though one can sense, retroactively, that Kirby was gearing up for better things than his work here, heavily inked as it was by Dick Ayers, Ditko was really putting his heart into even the least of Lee's tales, with an incredible amount of detail and expression. With ASM and his Dr. Strange stories for Strange Tales, Ditko had room to create worlds and recurring characters, and eventually plot his own stories entirely. Here, he's just a consummate professional, creating good entertainment with little forethought.
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