Amazing Adult Fantasy

 I love the fact that this series was - for a time - called Amazing Adult Fantasy and that its tagline was "the magazine that respects your intelligence"! I mean, I have always loved these monster/sci-fi stories since first discovering them via reprints in the 60's, but they are pretty silly overall and not particularly adult-themed. But maybe I'm just looking at it from a modern day point of view. In any case, the compendium collects the entire series, including the debut of Spider-Man in the last issue, and is a fun-filled book of wacky fantasy.

Stan Lee apparently wrote the entire series - he was pretty damn prolific, although the artists certainly helped the story along - and was aided and abetted by two of the best comic book artists ever - Jack Kirby (usually inked by Dick Ayers) and the incredible Steve Ditko. Kirby and Ditko seemed to be in a contest to outdo each other in designing the most outlandish and monstrous creatures, although they all retain earthly designs in this series. Both men would go other-worldly in later works. That's not to say that these creations are inferior in any way - each issue pretty much outdoes the previous one!

Of course, considering that the tales average a half dozen or so pages, there's not a lot of depth to the plots, but there are some intriguing twists'n'turns throughout. Some concepts are a bit more unbelievable that others, but in the spirit of "suspension of disbelief", they are all damn enjoyable.

And, apparently, I shouldn't start writing my reviews before I read the whole book as I see that the "adult" tagline was added about halfway through the series when Stan decided that he and Ditko (and apparently, Stan's uncredited brother) would collaborate on tales that were somewhat more cerebral - although still comic book fodder, of course, but with a bit more challenging themes. The moralistic tales are somewhat akin to the likes of later TV shows like the Twilight Zone, or Outer Limits with twist endings as well as sci-fi themes of time and space travel and death, and the consequences of these, and still the bad guys get what they deserve in the end!

Stan was always looking for ways to denounce prejudice and before he created the X-Men, "The Man In The Sky" told the tale of telepathic/telekinetic mutants (one that looked remarkably like Peter Parker) that were hounded by "normal" society but only wanted to help mankind. Of course, this thinking led to the creation of many of their greatest oddball heroes, such as the Fantastic Four, the X-Men and, yes, Spider-Man, whose classic debut completes this compilation (other than some fun extras - covers, original artwork, etc.).

This is a truly "amazing" compendium and well worth the money - high quality printing, hard cover, and incredible contents! Certainly recommended for fans of this kind of story-telling!