As long as Jack Kirby was drawing the Human Torch feature in Strange Tales, reading the title was a treat — a little like getting an additional adventure of the Fantastic Four every month.
But Marvel’s very success brought an end to that. As the company’s superhero titles expanded, even the prolific Kirby couldn’t draw everything, but had to be deployed strategically by editor Stan Lee.
And the moment Kirby stopped drawing the Human Torch feature, my interest deflated. He returned for an issue here and there, but Strange Tales was no longer a fully reliable title.
Other Marvel titles were more consistently fun, and Strange Tales often seemed like kind of an afterthought in the emergent Marvel universe.
When he did draw the title, though, Kirby could certainly bring the bombast.
In Strange Tales 103 (Dec. 1962), Johnny Storm finds himself captured, bound and submerged by insidious aliens from the Fifth Dimension. But he’s freed by the blue-skinned alien beauty Valeria, using her handy Hypno-Ring.
“These aliens were planning to invade Earth, and the reason why they’re sabotaging the construction of new houses is… the swamps just HAPPEN to be a passageway to their dimension,” notes the Comics Archeology website. “The Torch defeats the alien army by creating a super-tornado (!!!!!), saves the girl, inspires a rebellion with a bit of sky writing and captures the alien tyrant.”
Kirby drew the first five solo exploits of Johnny Storm, skipped the 6th, did three more, then turned the title over to Dick Ayers.
Notably, Kirby returned for Strange Tales 114, which tested the waters for the revival of the 1940s character he’d co-created, Captain America. And he was back again for Strange Tales 120, which featured a guest appearance by Iceman, a character from the new Kirby-drawn title The X-Men.
Fortunately for readers, as Kirby departed the title, Steve Ditko arrived with a new back-of-the-book character called Dr. Strange.
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