Russkie-Smashing with AI! JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY / WHERE MONSTERS DWELL "Ruler of Earth!"

Despite the ominous-sounding title (and word balloon)...

...the Artificial Intelligence in this tale is benevolent...until Russkies enter the picture!
(Yeah, Russkies ruin everything!)

So, let's travel to the "future" year of 1990...as seen from 1962...

Appearing as the cover-featured story in one of the final pre-Mighty Thor issues of Atlas' Journey into Mystery (#82 in 1962), this story by plotter/editor Stan Lee, writer Larry Leiber, penciler Jack Kirby, and inker Dick Ayers is a clear Cold War/anti-Communist parable!

But, when the tale was reprinted at the end of the Cold War in Marvel's Where Monsters Dwell #25 (1973)...

...editor Roy Thomas had the hammer and sickle and red star insignias removed from the Russkies' hats...

...and replaced with an "H", which was explained with the change in the dialogue balloon above!
HYDRA???
Why not AIM...who were always more tech-oriented?
So, presumably, there are at least two worlds in the Marvel Multiverse where ROE presides, to this day, over a peaceful Earth!
Bonus for putting up with this all this fanboy mishigas...the lovingly-detailed original art for the spash page by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers!

BTW, did you note how warm, cuddly, and almost teddy-bear-like the cover's ROE is, compared to the version in the story itself?

Commie-Clobbering Kaiju TALES OF SUSPENSE "Power of the Colossus!"

When Last We Left Commie-Crushing Kaiju Colossus...

...the Russkies, unable to stop the rampaging kaiju through "normal"military means, decide to use a nuclear bomb...

Judging by the closing caption, this story from Atlas' Tales of Suspense #14 (1961) was apparently meant for Journey into Mystery!

At any rate, it received enough reader response that a sequel appeared in Atlas' Tales of Suspense #20 (1961)...

...though it only involved Commies at the beginning, when they shipped the statue off to America for an international exposition, not realizing the aliens who animated it would return, only to be beaten by good ol' Yankee ingenuity!
BTW, please don't think that Colossus didn't have the cover to himself, but the splash pages were so kool that we didn't want to use them as the post headers as we usually do in multi-part presentations...

Here's Tales of Suspense #14 (note they mis-colored him orange on the cover)...

...and here's the cover (by Herb [Incredible Hulk] Trimpe) from his reprinting in Marvel's Monsters on the Prowl #17 (1972)!

A year later, the character, whose reprints had sold better than other issues of MotP, was given a brand-new ongoing series, continuing the storyline from the end of the second appearance!

Since no Communists were involved in any of those tales, we're nor presenting them here!
But, there's one thing we'd like to mention...

Fellow Commie-Clobbering Kaiju Fin Fang Foom made his first new appearance since his original Strange Tales story (which we showed HERE and HERE) over a decade earlier, in the final two issues of Colossus' series!

(Can you tell it was during the Kung-Fu craze of the early 1970s?)

Next Week, We Return to Our Usual Russkie-Smashing Fun!

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Commie-Clobbering Kaiju TALES OF SUSPENSE "The Colossus Lives!"

We Have Already Seen...

It's a story as old as time.

Sculptor is ordered by evil rulers to create tribute to their "greatness".

Flying saucer crashes nearby.

Alien pilot, seeking shelter until rescue, enters statue to protect itself.

Evil rulers' troops arrive.

Alien, believing they are after him/her/it, lashes out!

As they used to say in TV Guide, "hilarity ensues!"

Things get even wilder when this tale concludes...

TOMORROW!

Plotted by editor Stan Lee, scripted by Larry Lieber, penciled by Jack Kirby, and inked by Dick Ayers, this cover-featured story from Atlas' Tales of Suspense #14 (1961) is prime "giant monster" material...except for a really kool, alliterative name like, say, Fin Fang Foom!

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Commie-Clobbering Kaiju TALES OF SUSPENSE "I Created the Colossus!"

For Our Final Commie-Clobbering Kaiju...

...we return to Marvel's predecessor, Atlas Comics, where kaiju (although we didn't call them that back then) rule!

The monstrous mayhem continues...

TOMORROW!

Plotted by editor Stan Lee, scripted by Larry Lieber, penciled by Jack Kirby, and inked by Dick Ayers, this cover-featured story from Atlas' Tales of Suspense #14 (1961) is prime "giant monster" material...except for a really kool, alliterative name!

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NoKo Crushers SGT FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS "Commission in Korea!" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

...the Howling Commandos under Colonel "Happy Sam" Sawyer, are sent into North Korea to blow up a secret air base!

With a slightly shaken-up "Happy Sam" stationed outside the base as backup, Sgt Fury and the Howlers attack in their own inimitable style...

Why all the set-up for Nick Fury?

He had recently-appeared in Fantastic Four (V1N21 [1963]) as an eyepatch-wearing CIA colonel (though he's named "Sgt Fury" and wearing ripped Army fatigues on the cover) to help them stop the Hate Monger and reminisce with Reed Richards/Mr Fantastic, whom he'd met during WWII when Reed was an OSS agent.

So we knew the crusty noncom-turned-officer had survived to the (then) present day.

But bigger plans were in store for Nick...

Fury had just replaced The Human Torch and The Thing as Dr Strange's co-feature in Strange Tales as of #135 (1965), making him the first comic character to have two simultaneous strips set in two different time periods!
(Howling Commandos in the 1940s, S.H.I.E.L.D. in the "present day" 1960s!)
Several of the Howlers joined Nick at S.H.I.E.L.D., including Dum-Dum, Gabe, and eventually, Eric Koenig.

Fanboy Trivia:

Eric isn't in this Annual set in the period between World War II and the 1960s because he wasn't even introduced into the WWII-era Howling Commandos comic until six months after the Annual was published (#27 in late 1965)!
And, we finally got to see the only exclusive Sgt Fury-themed Marvel merchandise of the 1960s...a Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos t-shirt (which, unlike most of the other Marvel shirts of the 1960s, had never been reissued by Graphitti!)

Would I love to have a Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos shirt (in XXL, sadly)...

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NoKo Crushers SGT FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS "Commission in Korea!" Part 1

Though Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos were best-known for their World War II exploits...

...many of the current comic readers don't know how they battled Commies in the 1950s!

And, no, this ain't rebooting Marvel history with retroactive continuity like the recent Ben Grimm and Logan mini-series presentation!
This was written and illustrated during the Silver Age of Comics by the original Marvel Bullpen crew and has been officially part of Marvel continuity since!

This tale from Marvel's Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos Annual #1 (1965), gives the details...

We'll observe, Commie...NEXT MONDAY!

In the 1960s, Marvel's Annuals were a mixed bag.

Unlike DC's 80-Page Giants which were all-reprint, Marvel's combined a new lead story with new behind-the-scenes featurettes and pin-ups along with a couple of reprinted stories into a 72-page package for the same 25₵ price as the aforementioned Giants.

This Stan Lee-scripted, Dick Ayers-penciled, Frank Giacoia-inked tale ("Frankie Ray" was Giacoia's pseudonym because he was doing a lot of freelance work for DC at the time.) covered a major, but untold, event in the group's history...their only battle during the Korean War!

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