Below you’ll find our reading selections for the year of 1965, and at the end of our reading, you’ll find my thoughts on the year and our winners for hero and villain of the year.
Feel free to discuss the comics and any related thoughts below in the comments!
1965 Comic Reading List
| 1965 | Comic Book Title | Issues |
| 1 | Fantastic Four | #36, #37 |
| 2 | Avengers | #16 |
| 3 | Daredevil | #7, #8 |
| 4 | Uncanny X-Men | #12 to #13 |
| 5 | Amazing Spider-Man | #26, #27, #28 |
| 6 | Journey Into Mystery Annual | #1 |
| 7 | Fantastic Four / Fantastic Four Annual | #39, #40 / #3 |
| 8 | Uncanny X-Men | #14, #15, #16 |
| 9 | Fantastic Four | #44 to #45 |
| 10 | Strange Tales | #130 to #141 |
The Voting – 1965
The Marvel Hero of the Year: 1965
I’d like to thank everyone in the My Marvelous Year club for once again making the Hero of the Year vote darn near impossibly close. The X-Men, Fantastic Four, Dr. Strange, and Daredevil all threatened for the title, while back-to-back winner Spider-Man suddenly found himself on the outside looking in.
If nothing else, the voting is a testament to the strenght of Marvel Comics as they progressed throughout the 60’s. Here we are in 1965, half way through Marvel’s publications in the 60’s, and just look at the variety and strength of titles.
The X-Men feature two of their most essential storylines, with the introduction of the Juggernaut, Professor Xavier’s origins, and the introduction of the Sentinels. More pertinent, in 1965 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby rolled out the full-fledged mutant paranoia and mirrored racial inequality that would come to define the children of the atom.
Meanwhile, Dr. Strange was on an eleven issue struggle for his life, as the combined power of Baron Mordo and Dormammu sent him on the run, and in search of Eternity! Steve Ditko’s plotting and vision for both the mystical and cosmic elements of Strange Tales are literally out of this world, and shape so much of Marvel Cosmic to come. Remember, too, Ditko was doing all this at the very forefront of 60’s psychedelia, with the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour still just a kernel of a crazed glint in Charlie Manson’s haunted mind.
Oh, and Daredevil fought Stilt-Man. I’m still trying to figure out how the devil of Hell’s Kitchen tied Dr. Strange in the voting!
At the end of the day, though it’s the Fantastic Four who come away with their first title since 1962, and second overall. Jack Kirby’s imagination has been running wild in this series since day one, but it’s in 1965 that he dreams up the Frightful Four, the Skrull homeworld, and the Inhumans. By this point, Stan Lee has the dialogue and character interactions down to a science, making Big Ben Grimm’s forced heroic turn towards a nearly victorious Doctor Doom all the more impactful.
All this, and I haven’t even mentioned Sue and Reed got married! Fantastic Four Annual #3 is a prime example of the potency of a Marvel Universe crossover, with all sorts of relevant players getting in on the wedding action.
Spidey’s been on a run, and rightfully so, but 1965 belongs to the Fantastic Four. 1966 will put the two to the ultimate test, just you wait and see…
1965 Hero of the Year: Fantastic Four
The Marvel Villain of the Year: 1965
1965’s villain of the year is a deceptively easy choice despite thick competition form Stilt-Man, and with half the vote, the voters agree: Welcome to the podium, Juggernaut!
There’s some great discussion of his introduction in the comments below, but Juggernaut’s entrance in Uncanny X-Men #12 is one for the ages. Kirby and Lee intersperse the approach of the Juggernaut with creepy Professor X sharing his origin (there’s a time and a place Charlie). The tension mounts almost beyond belief, until the final, perfect reveal of Cain Marko, aka Juggernaut.
If you had asked me before we started if Juggernaut would win any Villain of the Year titles, I’d have guessed no. Don’t get me wrong, I like Jugs, I just never thought he’d have the presence to command an entire year. I was dead wrong! Juggernaut is 1965’s Villain of the Year.
1965 Villain of the Year: Juggernaut
The Marvel Comic Issue of The Year: 1965
Issue of the year was a close shootout between Fantastic Four Annual #3 and Uncanny X-Men #12. Although I love the feel good wedding, and effective crossover cameos of Fantastic Four Annual #3, I have to give the nod to Uncanny X-Men #12 for the reasons explained in the Juggernaut title above. It’s just too well crafted a villain’s entrance. We don’t even see Juggernaut until the final panel, and it may be the most menacing he’ll ever function as an X-Men villain!
1965 Issue of the Year: Uncanny X-Men #12
Next: 1966
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I can’t enter to the full list of this year, its say that I need to get an access from the manager of the website or something like that, please help me.
I wanna sea the full list and start reading the comics of this year.
Tnx
This was such an interesting year. I feel like in some areas you could really feel the strain on Stan Lee’s writing in terms of kind of dull villains and dialogue (particularly in some of the earlier FF issues) but in other cases, the character building and storytelling is through the roof, especially with the X-Men issues we read. Juggernaut was remarkably well done, and is one of the most effective tellings of an origin story I’ve ever seen, since not only is it perfectly paced, but it ties into the action on the page rather than just being exposition for no clear reason. Also, I continue to be amazed at how fully formed a lot of characters are right out of their debut, like the Inhumans with Karnak, Gorgon, Medusa, Lockjaw, and Black Bolt all there and pretty much their usual selves right from the start, or Hydra and Shield being more or less the Hydra and Shield we all know from pretty much the very first appearance.
I think my overall favorite of the ongoing comics is a tie between Spider-Man and Strange Tales, though X-Men is close. FF at this point feels a little tired (I’ve always felt pretty indifferent about the Frightful Four, who were featured prominently in 1965), but I know that they’re about to hit a huge stride in 1966 with Galactus and the Silver Surfer among others. I just love Spider-Man though, and Doctor Strange is an incredible feat of imagination and artwork (though I wasn’t madly in love with the plot). I was also taken aback at how good the Shield and Hydra stuff was, especially with how the Hydra leader arc got resolved and how awesome Nick Fury is.
I also just want to note how great Stan Lee’s humor is in Spider-Man. With titles like “Never Step On A Scorpion! Or…You Think It’s Easy To Dream Up Titles Like This?” and lines like “Aw, go juggle beehives, prune-face!”, you just can’t go wrong.
Great take on the year, and I am also continually impressed with how much I like Nick Fury here.
Stan’s spidey humor kills me too. Brings a smile to face at least once an issue.
I was really impressed by the Inhumans origin as well. Unfortunately, I haven’t had time to keep up with all the stories each week, so I’ve been cherry picking to catch the stories I’m most curious about. The Inhumans story was the first time I kept reading past the recommended issues to complete a story arc because I hadn’t read any Inhumans besides Jenkins’ great Marvel Knights story, so it was really interesting to discover their remarkably fully-formed and way-out-there world as it was invented by Lee and Kirby. Perhaps my favorite story arc so far even (although I haven’t read all of them). I think my favorite single issue so far is Daredevil’s origin, which is a real classic and captures the perfect balance of fun and serious that made me enjoy Mark Waid’s Daredevil so much.
After posting this, I realize that the rest of the story arc is on the 1966 reading list, as should have been obvious to me. But I was tired, and my mind was still off in the Great Refuge. Regardless, a great run of F.F. issues.
Finished the Strange Tales binge this morning! And i have thoughts on them.
Standalone Thing/Johnny Strange Tales Stories:
130: Goofy, but certainly fun. I had just assumed The Beatles would be more involved, like with a kidnapping plot or some such, but this was good.
131: Bouncing Ball of Doom? Sure, why not? I’m beginning to seriously doubt the things the Thinker says about himself.
132: Convoluted, but fun. I wish Sue had gotten tapped to be part of this plot, but I guess the vaguely sexist reason provided for why she wasn’t going to be made sense…for 1965.
133: Return of the Puppet Master… I feel like he should have changed his voice if he was going to interact with his stepdaughter.
134: I am the Watcher, I shall not interfere!!! Except I totally will, lol. Guy can’t mind his own business to save his life.
Strange Tales SHIELD Arc: Some good old fashioned 1960’s spy stuff. It’s goofy at times, to be sure, but I really like this. As soon as I saw there was a female member of Hydra, that was the Master’s daughter, I immediately, and correctly, pegged her for betraying the organization to Fury. The wrap-up on the Hydra plot-line was good, with just enough open ends to allow it to come back. The transition to the next plot was rather odd though with the ESP helmets and everything.
Strange Tales Dr. Strange Tales Arc: I found this really enjoyable, and I had no idea what was going to happen. When I hit a cliffhanger I wanted to roll into the next issue. Mordo and Dormammu theoretically make good allies, but they do not work well together. I feel like this is mostly Mordo’s fault. Dude, if he’s telling you to attack one figure over another, do it. It’s a bummer about that unnamed woman being banished to some other realm, but I like how melodramatic Dormammu was at the end. The physical fight to the death, the banishment of Mordo for trying to cheat. Classic self-defeating villainy. I still lean towards the Fantastic Four as best heroes, but Strange has given them a run for their money, and if there was a question about best ongoing story-line, I’d go with this one.
Haha the Watcher interferes more than Talib on the Broncos (ok that was a serious stretch).
The Fury stories are kind of underrated, and honestly feature some of my absolute favorite Kirby art. Every single machine and contraption he designs is a work of art.
One thing I like to do while reading through these is old books is to look at the letters pages, too. And I note in issue 26 of ASM there is a letter from Steve Gerber. The Steve Gerber wikipedia page says he is from St. Louis, as was the letter, so I have to assume its the same guy. He suggested that Spidey should make an appearance in Patsy Walker or Millie the Model, so it sounds like Steve’s sense of humor…
That’s so great! That’s one thing I would absolutely love Marvel Unlimited to include. Some letters pages slipped in their scans for “The Captain” arc in the 80’s, and it’s amazing how closely they parallel fan outrage over Superior Spider-Man in the 2010’s.
So it looks like imma gonna take a week (a year?) off and start right in with 1966 so I don’t feel like I’m forever catching up. At least for a week. I will be reading the stuff I missed so you might get some late comments on those.
So long as you don’t miss 1966 – it’s a crazy great year!
Gotta admit – one of the reasons I’m a bit behind is I just got the Peggy Carter s.1 DVD and immediately started watching it. Good stuff. And along with it came Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. s.2 which I haven’t started yet. So, I’m gonna be a bit busy for awhile, but I have started MFY 1966.
*MMY 1966. [blush]
I burned through everything except the Strange Tales while snowed in. So here are my thoughts before I read those.
Fantastic Four #36: Weird initial thought, but has Sue done something with her? Looks nice. 😀 I’m actually looking forward to the wedding, so that’s fun. And it’s good to see Sandman join a sinister team with a plan that’s actually good. Maybe he should loop back to the Sinister 6 and tell them to jump Spider-Man all at once.
Fantastic Four #37: The first alien story that I’ve enjoyed. I had figured out Reed’s plan pretty quickly, but it was still fun to see it in action. I’m sure this is the last we will ever see of the Skrulls.
Avengers #16: I suppose this was primarily a throat clearing issue, but I actually found the replacement process rather fun. I haven’t been loving the Avengers in the past, but I felt kind of melancholy seeing everyone part ways anyway. This might be more indicative of how strongly I feel for the MCU version.
Daredevil #7: We’ve only been doing this for two weeks, and I don’t really expect to vote for Namor again for Best Villain like I did in 1963, but I just love the guy for some reason. Whenever he shows up I just get really, irrationally, happy. It was just fun seeing Daredevil go toe to toe and lose, only for Namor to spare him because he appreciates bravery. I would love to see this lawsuit for control of dry land picked back up again in the future.
Daredevil #8: What on earth? I mean, I fell for the whole twist with the ownership of patents, so that was fun. Stiltman might just be the goofiest villain we’ve seen so far, even more than the guy with the apes.
X-Men #12-13: This was an excellent issue. Even though the Juggernaut is a well known figure, my girlfriend whose only seen the X-Men movies looked over my shoulder while I was reading this and shouted “I’m the Juggernaut bitch”, but I still felt a lot of dread while reading the first issue. brandonh was right about it being like a horror movie. Then when the Juggernaut properly appears for the second issue he was a rather intimidating figure that took everything the X-Men had to stop him. Unless something in Strange Tales surpasses it, Juggernaut is the villain of the year. The Sentinels and Doom leave an impression, but not quite like this.
Spider-Man #26-28: These were fine issues hitting on the theme of how hard it is being Peter Parker. There’s something really sad about a hero having to go to a store to buy their own costume because they can’t use their own. I’m glad to see Peter move on to college and I’m looking forward to those stories. Personally, I’m rather tired of the Peter in high school schtick they keep going back to in the movies.
Journey Into Mystery Annual: I’m not a huge fan of issues that lean on action the whole, time, but this was fine. I’d like to see Thor and Loki travelling together more in the future.
Fantastic Four 39-40: Compelling couple of issues and I really enjoyed seeing the depowered team. I’ve come to expect the Fantastic Four as very certain as they face their conflicts. Reed developing weaker alternatives to their actual powers was very cool. I don’t know if this story would have worked as well if it wasn’t Doom as their opponent, because his glee at using Reed’s weapons against them was very infectious. Good stuff
Fantastic Four Annual 3: I’ve only been reading comics over the last few years, and Marvel over less time, but I’m so tired of massive crossover event comics. So it was refreshing to see it done so expertly here with everyone coming together to make sure Sue and Reed’s wedding goes off without a hitch. While Doom is rather unnecessary to the proceedings, and seems to only be involved because he should have something to do, it was cool seeing a lot of the villains from this young universe come out only to be stopped by the heroes. It’s a credit to the Stan and Kirby how I’ve come to really care for these characters, over my initial annoyance at Johnny and Ben, and was pleased to see the actual ceremony. What clinched this as the best issue of the year, though I still have 12 to go so that may change, was Stan and Kirby getting denied entry to the event. Perfection. This issue, more than any other, made me annoyed that Marvel doesn’t have the rights to make these movies.
X-Men 14-16: Ah, the real beginnings of the prejudice against mutants. The Sentinels may look a bit goofy, but they overcome that to be rather menacing. I kind of figured that Falk was going to be the one that sacrificed himself, but it still worked rather well. If I have one complaint, it’s that I think this arc could have required one less issue but that would have required moving Beast’s backstory to some other issue.
Fantastic Four 44-45: I’ve been reading the excellent Ms. Marvel so the most exciting thing for me these issues was seeing Lockjaw. Otherwise these were just your average couple of entertaining Fantastic Four issues.
Good stuff. Now let’s see if I can read all of those Strange Tales issues from cover to cover before Thursday.
Current Best Hero: Fantastic Four
Current Best Villain: Juggernaut
Current Best Issue: Fantastic Four Annual #3
Reading all these Fantastic Four issues definitely makes their lack of involvement in the Marvel Cinematic Universe harder to swallow.
Good picks for winners, I’m sensing a trend here in the comments so far…
As much as I love Stan and Jack getting turned away at the wedding, I might like Spidey webbing himself some cake (with just his hand visible) at the engagement party even more. The cameos at this early stage in Marvel are all pretty fun.
Man, this snowstorm has been really handy for burning through this year’s selection. I think I might just have the Strange Tales to work through on the train this week. Now, it doesn’t matter much but I did see that a few comics make reference to issues farther down numerically on the reading list. X-Men 13 makes reference to the FF Annual, which in turn makes reference to Strange Tales 35. Now, that might just be my misinterpreting how to read these, but I thought I should bring it up. Anyway, this year is pretty good so far.
I’m a bit behind but the reference in x-men 13 confused me, it has to be a typo because they mention f.f. annual 4 but annual 3 came out a month later after the x-men ish. I guess this stuff happened a lot when they had to write everything manually.
My issue of the year is X-Men #12, which gets my first 5-star rating to this point.
The intercutting of the Xavier/Marko background with Juggernaut’s implacable advance ratchets up the tension and interest to an almost unbearable degree. I love how the Juggernaut is revealed a bit at a time: first in shadow, then his hands, then his back, and the full image only coming in the last panel. It’s an old device, but it is executed brilliantly here. (copied almost wholesale from my CMRO comments, as I still think that encapsulates my thoughts pretty well on this issue)
X-Men #13 is also a great issue, serving as both a team-up and resolution to the threat raised in #12.
Fantastic Four is in a very fruitful and creative period. The battle against Doom in #39-40 is great stuff. Fantastic Four Annual #3 is a sentimental favorite, as I love Reed and Sue getting together. The number of guest stars is basically everybody in the MU, making it a celebration of Marvel as a whole as well as the FF.
Nick Fury’s intro in Strange Tales #135 is great, giving us lots of action and one of the first looks at the Helicarrier. I’ll admit to being partial to Thing in a Beatles wig from Strange Tales #130.
The other issues picked this year are almost all three-star issues, and quite a few introduce new ideas that would go on to be mainstays of the Marvel Universe. The exception is Daredevil, which was almost uniformly terrible in the 1960s.
My favorite Spider-Man issues of 1965 were absent from the selections, so I will highlight them here.
#23: “The Goblin and the Gangsters”
#29: “Never Step on a Scorpion!”
In both cases, the villains are great. I especially love the Scorpion, as he is so connected to Jameson and has a power set that could take out Spider-Man, at least on paper. Jameson getting caught in the middle of a Spider-Man/villain tussle almost always has the potential for some comedic gold.
Hero of the Year: FF
I can make cases for Spider-Man and X-Men, but the FF are just bursting with awesome ideas and art this year, and they have the wedding, so they win.
Villain of the Year: Juggernaut
This is arguably the scariest version of Juggernaut, as he gets the horror movie treatment. He has a connection to the X-Men’s leader, and his power set is one that the X-Men cannot defeat with physical or mental feats alone.
Completely agree with your sentiments on Uncanny X-Men #12 – this issue was much stronger than I anticipated, and the build to the reveal of the Juggernaut is extremely tense and well-paced.
I like your picks for winners here too… I did not expect Juggernaut to be such a serious contender this early, but need to give him some serious thought!
That’s a lot of Strange Tales to get through…I guess the Human Torch/Thing stories earlier on are exempt, but are we including the later Nick Fury Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D stories?
It’s a lot yeah 🙂 noted in doc, but ST #135 1st story gives you Furys shield origins. From there ST #137 to #141 – just doc strange – are an appropriate fast track. Enjoy!