Reading Room JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "Filbert's Frightful Future!"

After Mighty Thor began his run in Journey into Mystery as of #83......

...and before Norse mythology-related backup series like Tales of Asgard began, the one-shot shorts like this never-reprinted tale continued to fill the back of the book until the inventory was used up!

Don Heck penciled and inked this story from Marvel's Journey into Mystery #85 (1962).

Stan Lee plotted it, but experts are not sure if he scripted it.

Lee usually co-signed the later shorts he scripted, but only Heck's signature is here.

Just about everything Lee didn't script at this point was handled by his brother Larry Lieber.

(Stan's birth name is Stanley Leiber. He used "Stan Lee" on his comics work because he wanted his real name on the Great American Novel he planned to write.

When he finally realized he would be forever known for his comics and not any prose novel he might write, he legally changed his name to "Stan Lee".)

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Thor Masterworks

Volume 1 

featuring the Thor stories that appeared in front of the never-reprinted tales we present!
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Space Hero Saturdays JOURNEY INTO UNKNOWN WORLDS "They Wait in the Shadows!" & JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "Monsters on Mercury!"

Sometimes "heroes" are everyday people...

...placed in unique situations, like colonizing a distant world, as in the tale behind a very misleading (but extremely-kool) Bill Everett cover!

Illustrated by Bob Forgione and scripted by an unknown writer, this story from Atlas' Journey into Unknown Worlds #47 (1956) is more "hard" science-fiction and less "science-fantasy" than this later tale by a pair of Silver Age legends following the same basic plot...

This long-forgotten Stan Lee/Steve Ditko (You've heard of them, right?) tale from Atlas' Journey into Mystery #78 (1962) amps up the humans' paranoia, but plays down scientific accuracy!
(Even in 1962, we knew Mercury was unlivable for humans without extensive protective equipment and clothing!)

But, to be fair, both tales are equally-good at getting the Yuletide message across, eh?

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Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories

Reading Room JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "Three Who Vanished"

One of the joys of doing things like Reading Room...

...is uncovering a rarely-seen work by one of the greats in the business, like this tale from Atlas' Journey into Mystery #50 (1959)!

With a (admittedly somewhat-misleading) cover by Joe Sinnott, interior art by Steve Ditko, and script probably by Larry Lieber (Stan Lee almost always had his byline on his own scripts), it's a great example of the sort of energy and creativity that was just waiting for a spark to coalesce into what would become Marvel Comics only a year or so later.

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Creativity of Ditko

Reading Room JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "Humans, Keep Out!"

While the Mighty Thor stories in the front of Journey into Mystery have been reprinted over and over...

...the backup stories from that period have rarely appeared since their initial publication over 50 years ago!

The last page demonstrates clever use of "camera angles", witholding the secret of how the humans avoid being destroyed until the next-to-last panel!

In fact, a 1970s "how-to" book for aspiring filmmakers used Silver and Bronze Age Marvel comics to graphically-demonstrate such things as camera work, film editing, sound effects, etc.

You can read the entire book HERE.

Writer Stan Lee and artist Don Heck produced this sneaky little tale in Marvel's Journey into Mystery #86 (1962) that's only been reprinted once, in Marvel's Giant-Size Man-Thing #4 (1974)!

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Atlas-Era

Journey into Mystery

Volume #4

Holiday Reading Room JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "Monsters on Mercury!"

Though it doesn't look like it...

...this is a Yuletide story, and thus, an appropriate entry into the Holiday Reading Room!

This long-forgotten Stan Lee/Steve Ditko tale from Atlas' Journey into Mystery #78 (1962) wasn't the first time this concept was used!

You'll find out what we mean...Thursday!

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Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories

Haunted House Reading Room JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "House!"

Here's a late Halloween...or on-time Dia De Muertos treat...

...one last haunted house tale to wrap up our Haunted House Reading Room series!

And it's a never-reprinted story at that!

In 1971, the Comics Code loosened restrictions on many of the banned horror comics tropes that caused the "Seduction of the Innocent" witchhunt of the mid-1950s that almost destroyed the comics industry.

Vampires, werewolves, maniac killers, and their ilk, limited to b/w magazines for the last couple of decades, returned to four-color comics...along with adaptations of classic horror stories and new tales by enthusiastic writers and artists who were big EC Comics fans and never thought they'd have a chance to create similar color comics again!
Marvel jumped back into the horror comic business with a slew of new titles like Tomb of Dracula, Monster of Frankenstein,  Marvel Spotlight (which featured Werewolf by Night, Ghost Rider, and Son of Satan, all of whom got their own books),  Man-Thing in Adventures into Fear and then his own title, a revival of Strange Tales with The Golem and Brother Voodoo, and a trio of anthologies, Chamber of Chills (a title used by Harvey Comics in the 1950s), Supernatural Thrillers, and a revival of Journey into Mystery!

Quite a bit of the new material from these anthologies (all of which went reprint in a year or so) has never been reprinted, so when we searched through the archives for rare haunted house-themed stories, this long-unseen tale from Marvel's Journey into Mystery V2#1 (1972) all but jumped up at us!

Enjoy this half-century old bit of long-lost comics history!

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Horror Comics of the 1950s

Haunted House Reading Room JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY "I Spent the Night in a Haunted House!"

Last Thursday, we saw the first version of this haunted house story...

...now let's look at how Stan Lee, his brother, and a Silver Age superstar artist re-told the tale a decade later!

Stan Lee turned the previously-used plot over to his brother, writer Larry Lieber and artist Don Heck who modified it slightly for this story from Atlas' Journey into Mystery #80 (1962).
Trivia: When this story was reprinted in Marvel's Monsters on the Prowl #26 (1973), the comics the kids were reading were updated to then-current titles...

...but the last panel still showed the kid reading Journey into Mystery...because that title had just been revived!

Be here Thursday for one more version of this tale...by Stan Lee and another Silver Age superstar!
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Marvel Masterworks: Atlas-Era
Journey into Mystery
Volume 4