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Tales to Astonish #69

Jul 1965
Stan Lee, Jack Kirby

Tales to Astonish #69 cover

Story Name:

Trapped In The Lair Of The Leader!


Synopsis

Tales to Astonish #69 synopsis by Julio Molina-Muscara
Rating: 4 stars

The Leader orders his Humanoids to bring the Absorbatron and the Hulk to his lair, where he starts a series of tests on the green giant. Unseen, the “patient” turns into Bruce Banner, who sends S.O.S. messages using Morse code. 

The Leader finds the chamber empty and fills it with gas. Banner turns into the Hulk and breaks free. Hulk follows his captor up to the Absorbatron room and destroys the device. But the villain escapes. 

Meanwhile, Glenn Talbot and his soldiers arrive at the Leader’s lair. One soldier spots the Hulk and shoots him. The bullet hits its target on the head while the Hulk was in mid transformation! The soldiers look for Jade Jaws but find Banner, who is dead!

Also in this issue: Rick Jones, Thunderbolt Ross

--


 

Review / Commentaries


Tales to Astonish #69 Review by (May 30, 2023)

Review: And now the heavy sci-fi stuff starts as Hulk and Leader meet for the first time (sort of, Hulk is mostly unconscious) and the Army is after him and Rick is helpless and Bruce is trapped and now he’s dead and..and..and…. This is what great comics were made of in the Silver Age: interesting stories and non-stop excitement!

The Giant-Man story has a silly new costume for the Human Top who is acting more like a megalomaniac than usual, revealing that he lusts after Wasp and wants to possess her after Giant-Man has been eliminated. And he sets up a crazy comic book-type trap (because this is a crazy comic book) which the hero falls into but escapes from—by shrinking, the very ability we were told in no uncertain terms last issue that Hank Pym could no longer employ. Otherwise—his escape is actually fairly clever, you know. But impossible. Not impossible in real-life terms alone but by the standards of the comic book itself.

And the most bizarre moment in the story? Human Top backhands Wasp across the face—a move that looks startlingly familiar in retrospect, mirroring Hank’s famous slap many years later that has shaped his entire character arc to this day. 

Comments: Hulk story: Events of this story take place concurrently with AVENGERS #17, though Hulk and the Avengers never meet. Inker Mike Esposito credited as Mickey Demeo. Giant-Man story: Part two of two parts. Final Giant-Man story in this title; Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne return in the Sub-Mariner tales in issues #77-78 and then in AVENGERS #26; Janet appears as the Wasp in those last two issue but Hank does not become Giant-Man. Title is a play on the Bible verse, 1 Corinthians 15:55, “O Death, where is thy sting?” unaware that the verse is a cry of victory, not despair. Wasp’s headdress has changed since the end of the previous issue; a neat trick if you can do it. Final appearance of Wasp’s trained wasp, Boopsie. The Human Top can fly by spinning at 6500 RPM’s; he next appears (along with a lot of other villains) disrupting Reed and Sue’s wedding in FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #3. Giant-Man mentions Patsy Walker.



> Tales to Astonish comic book info and issue index

Elektra

This comic is in the following collection:
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Collecting INCREDIBLE HULK (1962) #1-6, TALES TO ASTONISH (1959) #100, INCREDIBLE HULK (1968) #102, and material from TALES TO ASTONISH (1959) #59-99 and #101.

Excelsioring your collection:
Statue Hulk (Battle of New York) 1/10 - Infinity Saga - BDS Art Scale - Iron Studios
Holy smokes, Batman!
(The Boy Wonder)
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Main/1st Story Full Credits

Jack Kirby
Mickey Demeo
?
Jack Kirby (Cover Penciler)
Frank Giacoia (Cover Inker)
Stan Goldberg (Cover Colorist)
Additional Credits
Letterer: Art Simek.

Characters

All stories. Listed in alphabetical order.

Bruce Banner
Bruce Banner

(Robert Bruce Banner)
Giant-Man
Giant-Man

(Hank Pym)
Hulk
Hulk

(Robert Bruce Banner)
Thunderbolt Ross
Thunderbolt Ross

(Thaddeus Ross)
Wasp
Wasp

(Janet Van Dyne)


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