Captain America the Bull Fighter: Action and impact in Tales of Suspense #59

Since I'm using my copy of Essential Captain America Vol. 1 as reference material here, I won't be able to cover the Iron Man half of this issue. It's a half-assed, half-hearted effort in the Back Issue Diving tradition!

While Doctor Strange and Star Wars: Rogue One are both still on the horizon, I'd say the dust has settled on the "big" comics movies for 2016. Warner Bros. made two valiant efforts in the form of Batman v. Superman and Suicide Squad, but the clear winner in terms of quality blockbuster entertainment has got to be, hands down, Captain America: Civil War.

(You can let me know how wrong I am in the comments section, DC-heads!)

Captain America and Iron Man are a couple of interesting characters when contrasted. In the case of Steve Rogers, you have a paragon of virtue, whose greatest strength is also his greatest weakness: his lack of ability to compromise. With Tony Stark, you've got a man of great vanity who, to his credit, is quite capable of changing his mind and finding a middle ground in any dispute. That's what I like about the Marvel films so much; Steve is a rock, while Tony is water, shifting shapes to fit his environment.

But that has diddly squat to do with the issue I'm spotlighting today, so maybe I should move on from this digression . . .

Tales of Suspense #59 is a famous first from the dawn of the "Marvel age of comics". Just one issue prior, Cap and Iron Man met in mortal combat and this issue sees the two as allies; albeit in two separate monthly strips. In 1964, desperate business dealings had left Martin Goodman's publishing house with limited distribution in the comic book market, so a Stark-like compromise had to be made. Rather than two monthly series, they'd have to go the anthology route and combine the two into one magazine. Other examples include Hulk and Giant Man in Tales to Astonish, as well as Doctor Strange and Nick Fury sharing Strange Tales.

Cap's first solo outing in this new era is a brief, punchy little pot boiler where a local mobster named Bull believes Captain America to be the weakest link of the Avengers. He and his goons storm Tony Stark's mansion, where Cap has made his home, and attempt to take him down, only to be trounced by Cap's slick acrobatics and hand to hand skills. (The indestructible vibranium shield doesn't hurt, either.)

Cap's humble nature shines through on the last page. He assures the gang of criminals that they're "lucky only I was here. If the other Avengers had been around, somebody could've been hurt!"

The scripting is by Stan Lee, and it's the usual bombast you'd come to expect if you've read literally anything by him. Cap is plagued, but never defeated, bu self-doubt as he adjusts to the brave new world of the sixties after being on ice since WWII. Bull is a doofus and possible prototype for future mob-influenced Marvel characters like Hammerhead over in Amazing Spider-Man.

The art is laid out by Jack "The King" Kirby, but finished and inked by Chic Stone. Kirby's dynamism is on full display here, as this was the period in his career when he made the transition from an artist of relief to an artist of impact. Stone's finishes give a rounded quality to the physiques of the figures, and in a few panels you'd swear you were looking at Don Heck artwork.

The fight scene between Cap and Bull's gang, which makes up most of the issue, is another classic Kirby production. Kriby fight scenes are always wonderfully choreographed, and even artists working today could do a lot worse than to look back on his Cap stuff. These fight scenes would become a staple in he and Lee's run of Cap stories, eventually becoming so visually striking and fun to follow that Lee would abandon his usual overblown captions just to let them breathe. Half a century later, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely would do the same thing in Batman & Robin.

(If I have one pet peeve in superhero comics, it's when a character has a stack of word balloons next to their head while punching out a baddie. The timing never makes sense to me.)

Like I mentioned above, I don't have the Iron Man story contained in the other half of this issue on hand, but you can safely assume it involved either a)Tony fighting the commies or b)someone trying to take over Stark Industries. Well, the cover blurb says the Black Knight is going to show up, but don't believe everything you read. Thanks for reading!

Twitter: @ChrisBComics
E-Mail: backissuechris@gmail.com