IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 1960s , I had been an avid follower of Flash , Green Lantern and The Justice League of America . I'd even been known to stray into the world of Superman and the other Mort Weisinger-edited titles. But all that changed when I discovered Stan Lee's Tales to Astonish and The Avengers . From that point on, I would dismiss DC's titles as "kids stuff" and scorn other kids who were still reading them. And I stuck steadfastly to that opinion until 1968, when DC began publishing some titles that caught my eye. First it was Beware the Creeper and The Hawk and the Dove , both drawn by Steve Ditko, who'd left Marvel in a huff a couple of years earlier. But then I'd begun noticing other titles, particularly Secret Six , from Marvel's arch-rival and my opinion of DC began to soften a little. I really don't know why I picked up the first issue of DCs The Secret Six (May 1968) from a newsagent spinner rack. The cover is a bit uninspi...
THERE WAS NO PLAN FOR THE INHUMANS , at least not at first. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had introduced Madam Medusa - unheralded - as a member of the Fantastic Four foe group The Frightful Four. And for eight issues of the Fantastic Four comic - 36 (Mar 1965) to 43 (Oct 1965), Medusa haughtied her way through the stories, coldly collaborating with The Wizard and his team to bring about the defeat and/or demise of the Storm family. Tea and antipathy - The Frightful Four's dislike of each other is obvious from the start. So why does Medusa hang out with a group of people she despises. In the end, Stan and Jack never really explained that. While the other Frightfuls each had a clear motive for doing what they did - mostly being previous foes of Johnny (The Human Torch) Storm in numerous Strange Tales adventures - there was no such reasoning behind Medusa's enmity towards the FF. She was literally a character with no motivation. More importantly, Stan's scripts never even hinted ...