Strange Tales #89-90

Strange Tales #89-90

Originally released in 1961

Written by Larry Lieber et al.

Art by Jack Kirby et al.

In between the end of World War 2 in 1945 and the start of the Fantastic Four in 1961, superhero comics didn't have the staying power that they used to have, with some rare exceptions like Batman and Superman.  As a result, Marvel branched out into various genres like Westerns, romance, and B-movie monster stories, with the last of those being the focus today.

These stories were stand-alone and usually part of an anthology, where there would be two or three comic stories and a prose story in an issue, with each story usually being written and drawn by different people.  Marvel Unlimited seems inconsistent with how anthologies are handled - in some cases, the entire issue is provided, while in other cases, only the cover story is included, and there are large gaps in the issues. (This lack of coverage is understandable, given how the Marvel brand is primarily associated with superheroes in a shared universe, but it would be nice if they included all of the stories in an issue for the sake of preservation)

The first issue introduces Fin Fang Foom, a massive dragon-like creature who inexplicably wears underpants. When I saw that the story took place on an island nation near China, I was concerned; comics from this era don't have the best track record with drawing or writing Asian cultures.

Fortunately, the depiction here seemed fine.  Fin Fang Foom's story is a two-parter, though both parts are in the same issue, so it just means that it's twice as long as regular stories.  It has a good message about brains being as important as brawn when it comes to fighting dictatorships.  The human characters aren't all that memorable, though the giant monsters and the message will hopefully stick.

I looked into the next issue as well, which included all of the stories this time around.  The main focus was on an alien menace called Orrgo the Unconquerable, who set out to take over the world and prepare it for his species.

A lot of the stories in this issue had Twilight Zone-style twist endings, and while some of them are downright cliche (one story involves a man and a woman who choose to stay on the dying and overgrown planet Earth - by the end of the story, it's revealed that the man's name is Adam and the woman's name is Eve), it was fun to try and guess where the stories would go.

I can see why the monster anthology series didn't stick around for long once the Fantastic Four hit the scene; it feels like it could quickly get repetitive, and the stories all being self-contained meant that there wasn't much room for character growth and development or interesting character dynamics, especially if a story had to fit into 7-14 pages.  They're entertaining in small bursts, though, and it was neat to see B-movie plots in a medium where the realities of budget weren't an issue.