Bill Everett (1917–1973)

Ahh, golden age comics - I love them in all of their hokey, and yet charming, glory. I love learning about the 1940s, and golden age comics are like a pop culture time capsule.

Namor starts his own title off right by ripping apart a shark with his bare hands, saving his people from destruction, and, of course, taking out a bunch of Nazis. He does that last part quite frequently in this volume. Modern Namor may be an isolationist who doesn't bother much with the surface world's problems, but show more this Namor is staunchly anti-Nazi, and he spends a lot of his time fighting them. He also seems to talk with a Brooklyn accent, which is rather amusing.

The co-feature starring Angel (no, not Warren Worthington III, but Thomas Halloway) dabbles in the horror genre. Angel's costume might be ugly, but he is pretty awesome. He has no superpowers of his own; he just goes against whatever evils cross his path armed with his wits.

This volume also includes original ads that ran with the comics (mostly featuring Captain America and his battle against spies - which you too can join, for only ten cents!) and prose stories - including one by the legendary Stan Lee, who was just starting out his comic book career!

This collection, in my opinion, is worth every penny. Not only are the stories fun, but it's great to look into the history of the era, too. show less

Once again the problem here is too many cooks in the art department. Jack Kirby, Bill Everett, John Buscema and Gil Kane all take a shot in the first dozen stories reprinted here.

Bill Everett's style is the most interesting since he sticks to the style he used in the 40s and 50s which gives the strip a more 3D look that the flatter Marvel Age style typified by Kirby.

Unfortunately the stories also seem dated with dumb looking robots and androids plus a silly villain called The Boomerang. show more Another gamma ray baddie (following on from The Leader) is The Abomination; I remember a lot of these stories were adapted for the Marvel Super-Heroes cartoon show back in the 60s: "Doc Bruce Banner, belted by gamma rays, turned into The Hulk, ain't he un-glamourace?"

Tales To Astonish #92 brings Marie Severin in for a long stint which stabilises the strip a great deal. Having started out at EC Comics in the 50s, her style is also atypical of the Marvel look and has strong links to the Golden Age and early Silver Age look.

The final story reprinted here is from Hulk #102, the first issue of Ol' Greenskin's own mags since the abortive 6 issue run in 1962-3.

Stan Lee's introduction is again mostly uninformative hype but the inclusion of some original unaltered covers at the back provide some kind of bonus. show less

Demasiadas explicaciones para mi gusto. Y lento. También será cosa de la época, imagino. Pero interesante, al ser el primero del personaje.

Again, this seems a book without a plan, usually with our hero bouncing from one adventure to the next with not much connective tissue between them.