Design of the Week Redux USA IS READY!

Each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another...unless it does really well, in which case we retain it for one more week!

This week: As hawks beat the drums of war against everyone from Iran to North Korea, we offer a kool cover from a one-shot comic produced just before we entered World War II...U.S.A. is Ready!
The book itself was re-presented on our "brother" RetroBlog War: Past, Present & Future several years ago.
You can read those posts HERE.
Besides being the basis of the perfect kitschy Memorial Day gift for the veteran in your life, it's a symbol of a time when we were ready to fight because we were the Good Guys and we had to oppose the Bad Guys simply because they were Bad and we were Good.
Unfortunately, since WWII, our military efforts have not always been for the right reasons.
And now, the same conservatives who created the current power vacuum in the Mid-East want us to go back and screw things up further.
But, let's look back on a simpler time when Good and Evil were clearly defined, and we knew that, eventually, we would have to enter a war we had no part in creating.

Reading Room FANTASY MASTERPIECES "Those Who Change"

We wind up this issue with a Stan Lee / Steve Ditko piece...

...that takes the old "if you time travel, don't change anything in the past" concept to an extreme!

This story from Amazing Adult (wonder why they left that out of the reprint credit) Fantasy #10 (1962) was actually a reworking of an earlier Stan Lee-written tale called "The Scientists" from Astonishing #9 (1952) which was longer and had additional plot twists!
You'll be seeing the original (ironically, never-reprinted) version sometime in the next two weeks.
As for this particular tale, since its' 1965 appearance in Fantasy Masterpieces #1, it lay unseen until 2005 when it popped up in Marvel Visionaries: Steve Ditko with additional reprintings in Amazing Fantasy Omnibus (2007) and Marvel 70th Anniversary Collection (2009)

Reading Room FANTASY MASTERPIECES "I Saw the Other World!"

"...if ever a man was born to draw comics, Darlin' Dick Ayers is that pussycat!"

"He's still as much of a comic book fan as any of our rollicking readers!"

Dick Ayers penciled and inked this story from Tales to Astonish #7 (1960) which was also reprinted recently in Marvel Masterworks: Atlas Era Tales to Astonish #1 (2006).

It's believed that Stan Lee plotted and Larry Lieber wrote captions and dialogue for the tale.

Tomorrow, the final story from Fantasy Masterpieces #1...by both of Spider-Man's co-creators!

Reading Room FANTASY MASTERPIECES "I Became a Human Robot"

"Employing a style that combines decorative embellishment with crisp, clear, no-nonsense storytelling..."

"...this talented artisan (Joe Sinnott) has long been one of the most durable and dependable of illustrators." --Stan Lee

Note: this story was originally presented in Tales of Suspense #5 (1959), not Suspense, which was a 1940s-1950s Atlas comic based on the popular radio and TV anthology series of the same name!

In terms of the story itself, how did the scientists know the button on the robot's head would turn it on/off?

And, more importantly, why did the aliens put it there when they built the automaton?

Why not somewhere a little less obvious?

Since the writer is unknown, there's no way to ask him/her.

Joe Sinnott is best-known to Marvel fans as one of the slickest inkers ever, making great pencils look amazing, and salavaging mediocre pencils with his slick style.

Oddly, almost all his Silver Age pencil work was for other companies like Gold Key and Charlton, on licensed titles like 12 O'Clock High, religious-themed stories for Treasure Chest, and romance books, usually inked by Vince Colletta, who obliterated much of the detail work!

BTW, unlike the other Fantasy Masterpieces tales we've presented, this one was reprinted fairly recently, in Marvel Masterworks: Atlas Era Tales of Suspense #1 (2006)

Tomorrow, another Silver Age stalwart shows us "how it's done".

Reading Room FANTASY MASTERPIECES "I Found the Things from Nowhere"

"Not only is Jolly Jack Kirby the undisputed king of superhero artwork..."

"...from The Fantastic Four to long-haired Thor, but he is equally without peer in almost every type of imaginative, far-out fantasy!" --Stan Lee

This tale from Marvel's Fantasy Masterpieces #1 (1965) originally-appeared in Journey into Mystery #60 (1960), and was reprinted, again, in Where Monsters Dwell #9 (1971), but hasn't appeared anywhere in the last 44 years.

That's a pity, since this Jack Kirby-penciled/Steve Ditko-inked story predates both the Kirby-rendered "The Man in the Ant Hill" (Tales to Astonish #27) which introduced Henry Pym who would become...

...aw, you guessed...ANT-MAN...

(Wonder what ever became of him?)

...and Amazing Fantasy #15, featuring Steve Ditko's most famous co-creation...

..your friendly, neighborhood SPIDER-MAN!

BTW, has anyone ever noticed that Ant-Man's and Spider-Man's costumes have opposite/reversed red/blue color schemes?

As for who wrote this tale, the experts believe it's a Stan Lee-plotted, Larry Lieber-scripted story, but I think Lee scripted it as well.

Tomorrow: Another Silver Age artist struts his stuff in a long-unseen short!