Comics Missing from the Timely/Atlas List

The ongoing effort to juggle all the books that need to be entered into the Project

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vanhornluke
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Comics Missing from the Timely/Atlas List

Post by vanhornluke »

I've been compiling for the Complete Marvel Reading Order what we've been calling the Handbook Reading Order. This includes everything from the main 616 reading order from the Golden Age to the present, as well as everything we're including in the "Expanded Marvel Reading Order" (which includes alternate reality versions of 616 characters, other time periods for 616 like the westerns and Hyborian comics, as well as parallel realities that crossover with 616 like the New Universe and Ultraverse). What the Handbook reading order adds besides those stories are all of the stories that the handbooks/guidebooks/indices or any other official Marvel publication establish as 616 that we may not have otherwise known to classify as 616 (as well as the confirmed 616 humor/romance stories, since there are so many of them and very few people are interested in reading them). This includes some promotional/educational comics, horror/sci-fi stories in 40s/50s anthologies, and the like. It also includes stories that haven't specifically been referenced by the handbooks, but that the handbooks nevertheless give us every reason to believe are 616. The idea behind this last category of stories is that the official index series gives as official next/previous appearances of some historical or pre-Marvel fictional characters (such as Winston Churchill and the Three Musketeers) their appearances in some of the 40s/50s anthologies that are otherwise unconnected to 616 stories. Thus, we know that any historical or pre-Marvel fictional character who appears in a known 616 story (say, an issue of Avengers) should also have any of his/her appearances in the old anthologies considered as 616 stories as well (at least, if those old stories are consistent with 616). I've been slowly going through all of the 40s and 50s comics that I have access to (or access to information about) to make sure that all such above stories are included in the Handbook Reading Order. So far I've completed up through 1955. Below is a list of all the stories through 1955 I've found that y'all should include in the MCP that aren't already included and aren't on the Timely/Atlas list (I apologize if I accidentally list something that y'all have already included). If it would be desired, I can supply further info on more stories once I've completed more years.

I should note that here I'm only listing the issue numbers. For more detailed breakdowns on specifically which stories within the issues are confirmed as 616, as well as information for many of them on why they're 616 (e.g., because they include an appearance of Abraham Lincoln), see this thread at the CMRO forums (I don't replicate all of that info here because, as you'll see if you click that link, it would make this post enormous). This explains why I've listed some Patsy Walker issues below because, even though y'all don't include Patsy's stories, sometimes other characters (like Cindy Smith) would have stories included in Patsy issues.

Timely/Atlas Comics
3-D Action #1
Adventures into Terror vol. 1 #43, vol. 2 #4, 6, 10, 15-16, 19, 21, 29-30
Adventures into Weird Worlds #3-5, 11, 13, 15-17, 21-22, 24, 30
All True Crime #42
All True Crime Cases Comics #26
Amazing Detectice Cases #7
Amazing Mysteries #32-3
Astonishing #10, 18-19, 22, 31, 35, 42
Battle #3, 17-18, 20-21, 25-34, 36, 43
Battle Action #5-12, 14-15, 17, 20
Battle Brady #10-14
Battlefield #8, 10
Battlefront #6-11, 13-14, 16-17, 19-24, 26-30, 33, 35, 37
Battleground #2
Bible Tales for Young Folk #1-2
Bible Tales for Young Folks #3
Bible Tales for Young People #4-5
Blaze, the Wonder Collie #2-3
Combat #7-11
Combat Casey #6-34
Combat Kelly #1-44
Complete Mystery #1
Crimefighters #3-4, 9
Jann of the Jungle #8-17
Journey into Mystery #2, 6, 9, 11, 13-16, 21
Journey into Unknown Worlds vol. 1 #37, vol. 2 #4, 19-20, 22-23, 27-29, 34, 37, 39
Jungle Action vol. 1 #1-6
Jungle Tales #1-7
Justice #19-20, 34
Justice Comics #4
Krazy Komics #2
Lawbreakers Always Lose #1-2, 4
Lorna, the Jungle Girl #6-26
Lorna, the Jungle Queen #1-5
Man Comics #1, 22-24, 26-28
Marines in Action #1-4
Marines in Battle #1-9
Marvel Tales vol. 1 #96-97, 100, 106-107, 112-114, 127-128, 133, 135, 139
Men's Adventures #23-24
Menace #3, 7, 9
Miss America #53-66
Miss America Magazine vol. 7 #34-37
Mystery Tales #1, 6, 17, 21-22, 25-26, 29-30, 35
Mystic #5-6, 10, 17, 23-25, 31, 38-39
Mystic Comics vol. 2 #1-4
Navy Action #1-9
Navy Combat #1, 4
Oscar Comics vol. 1 #25, vol. 2 #4, 6-7
Patsy and Hedy #17-23, 26-29, 31-32, 83
Patsy and Her Pals #3-9
Patsy Walker #27-30, 33-35, 48-54, 59, 76, 92, 98-99
Patsy Walker Comics #10, 13-26
Police Action #7
Rawhide Kid #1-16
Red Warrior #1-6
Reno Browne #50
Rugged Action #4
Spellbound #7, 10, 22-23
Sports Action #3
Strange Tales #3, 5-10, 13, 15, 21, 27-29, 34, 39, 41
Suspense #7, 10, 15-16, 20, 23, 27
True Western #1-2
Uncanny Tales #6, 14-18, 22, 24
War Action #11-13
War Adventures #13
War Adventures on the Battlefield #2
War Combat #4-5
War Comics #3, 16-18, 21, 24-30, 34, 36-38
Western Outlaws #5, 7
Western Outlaws and Sheriffs #61-2, 65, 69, 73
Willie Lumpkin newspaper strips
Young Men #21-23
Young Men on the Battlefield #19-20

Non-Timely/Non-Atlas Comics
Marvel has occasionally pulled into 616 the non-Marvel stories of characters who have entered the public domain, such as Dr. Nemesis and the original Ghost Rider (Rex Fury). The following is a list of such stories that should also be included in those characters' chronologies.
Amazing Man Comics #5-26
Amazing Mystery Funnies #24 (American Ace)
The Arrow #2 (American Ace)
Best of the West #1-12 (Ghost Rider)
Black Phantom #1 (Ghost Rider)
Blackstone the Magician #1
Bobby Benson's B-Bar-B Riders #13-15 (Ghost Rider)
Cat-Man Comics vol. 2 #13-15, vol. 3 #1-2 (Volton)
Champ Comics #11-25 (Human Meteor)
Champion Comics #7-10 (Human Meteor)
Crash Comics #1-5 (Strongman)
The Eagle #2-4 (Spider Queen)
Funny Pages vol. 2 #3-4 (Dave Dean)
The Ghost Rider #1-14
Lightning Comics vol. 1 #6, vol. 2 #1-6, vol. 3 #1 (Dr. Nemesis)
Red Mask #42-50 (Ghost Rider)
Stars and Stripes Comics #2-6 (Amazing Man)
Super-Mystery Comics vol. 3 #3-4, 6 (Dr. Nemesis)
Tim Holt #6-41 (Ghost Rider)

Not to My Knowledge Confirmed to Be 616 But are Consistent with 616
This isn't a comprehensive list, but the following series jumped out at me as not being listed:
Billy Buckskin
The Kid from Dodge City
My Friend Irma newspaper strips
Reno Browne
Sailor Sweeney
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Re: Comics Missing from the Timely/Atlas List

Post by Somebody »

vanhornluke wrote: This explains why I've listed some Patsy Walker issues below because, even though y'all don't include Patsy's stories, sometimes other characters (like Cindy Smith) would have stories included in Patsy issues.
Your list you link to in the CMRO forum appears to include Patsy stories though (e.g., "1192. Miss America Magazine #2s; “Patsy Walker” Romance"), which haven't been canon since her first MU appearances back in the Beast strip of Amazing Adventures (they were comics-in-the-MU. Her new series is revisiting this - note the first issue cover has a load of them being presented to her to sign!), which the Handbook acknowledges. Have you been checking your other stuff against the handbook in case it's been explicitly written off, given that this is a "Handbook Order" and your having a heading "Not to My Knowledge Confirmed to Be 616 But are Consistent with 616" implies that you HAVE confirmed the others?

[There's a reason we're not including the Patsy stuff, in other words! We probably WILL add the others, at least provisionally, but I'd like to be sure.]
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Re: Comics Missing from the Timely/Atlas List

Post by Russ Chappell »

Thanks for the list. There is some behind-the-scenes work in this direction, and this kind of stuff always helps.
vanhornluke wrote:Marvel has occasionally pulled into 616 the non-Marvel stories of characters who have entered the public domain, such as Dr. Nemesis and the original Ghost Rider (Rex Fury). The following is a list of such stories that should also be included in those characters' chronologies.
I'm a little shaky on this part. I suspect we'll conclude that these are the Marvel Universe versions of these characters, and that the events depicted in stories by other publishers didn't really occur to these characters. Much like Lois Lane's listing here, we don't include her appearances in books published by DC. We'll see.
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vanhornluke
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Re: Comics Missing from the Timely/Atlas List

Post by vanhornluke »

Somebody wrote:
vanhornluke wrote: This explains why I've listed some Patsy Walker issues below because, even though y'all don't include Patsy's stories, sometimes other characters (like Cindy Smith) would have stories included in Patsy issues.
Your list you link to in the CMRO forum appears to include Patsy stories though (e.g., "1192. Miss America Magazine #2s; “Patsy Walker” Romance"), which haven't been canon since her first MU appearances back in the Beast strip of Amazing Adventures (they were comics-in-the-MU. Her new series is revisiting this - note the first issue cover has a load of them being presented to her to sign!), which the Handbook acknowledges. Have you been checking your other stuff against the handbook in case it's been explicitly written off, given that this is a "Handbook Order" and your having a heading "Not to My Knowledge Confirmed to Be 616 But are Consistent with 616" implies that you HAVE confirmed the others?

[There's a reason we're not including the Patsy stuff, in other words! We probably WILL add the others, at least provisionally, but I'd like to be sure.]
The Patsy issues I listed in my post here (not at CMRO) fall into two categories:
1) non-Patsy stories featuring 616 characters. Most of the comics Timely/Atlas published at this time were anthologies, including the humor/romance series. Thus, sometimes there was a random Cindy Smith or Jeanie story included in a Patsy issue.
2) There were occasionally crossovers between Patsy and other characters (e.g., Millie). It's not entirely clear if these are supposed to be in-universe fictions, like the standard Patsy stories, or if they're genuinely 616. There's some reason to think they're 616, so that's why I listed them. MCP is, of course, free to decide not to include those crossovers, though.

Regarding Patsy more generally, I realize that Marvel stupidly decided to retcon the various Patsy series as in-universe fictions (ignoring the fact that Patsy crossed over with other characters, and they didn't retcon these other characters's stories, like Millie, as also in-universe). The reasons I included the Patsy stories over at CMRO (and this wasn't just my decision; others over there agreed that they should be included) are that A) as already mentioned, Patsy crossed over with other characters with no indication that these crossovers aren't genuine 616 stories and B) the official Index series refer to some of Patsy's stories in her own series as genuine 616 stories. Thus, apparently, the various Patsy stories are in a kind of nebulous gray area of canonicity. We know that in-universe Patsy had a lot of comics about her, and the stories don't entirely match the real 616 Patsy, but we also know that at least some of her stories published in those comics are 616. It's a mess, but since I tend to err on the side of inclusion when something falls into a gray area, I included them. Rest assured there will be a warning over at CMRO about the nebulous nature of Patsy's stories once they actually start being added to the site.
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Re: Comics Missing from the Timely/Atlas List

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Russ Chappell wrote:Thanks for the list. There is some behind-the-scenes work in this direction, and this kind of stuff always helps.
vanhornluke wrote:Marvel has occasionally pulled into 616 the non-Marvel stories of characters who have entered the public domain, such as Dr. Nemesis and the original Ghost Rider (Rex Fury). The following is a list of such stories that should also be included in those characters' chronologies.
I'm a little shaky on this part. I suspect we'll conclude that these are the Marvel Universe versions of these characters, and that the events depicted in stories by other publishers didn't really occur to these characters. Much like Lois Lane's listing here, we don't include her appearances in books published by DC. We'll see.
Well, I think it's pretty obvious that the 616 Lois Lane and Clark Kent aren't the same characters as the various DC versions of them. It's not so obvious that's the case with the public domain characters, though. Invaders vol. 2 refers specifically to their backstories from the public domain comics and references some of their characters, although I suppose since specific story elements from the public domain stories aren't explicitly referenced it's possible to claim the public domain stories didn't happen in 616. That appears to go against the spirit of the handbooks, though, since iirc Dr. Nemesis's first appearance is listed as an issue of Lightning Comics rather than in Invaders vol. 2 in his handbook entry.

In any case, your suggestion won't work for the original Ghost Rider (Rex Fury), since Marvel Westerns: The Outlaw Files refers specifically to three of his stories from Magazine Enterprises ("Green Men of Horro," "Ghost Ants of San Pedro," and the story where he meets a Frankenstein impostor), so at the very least those three stories occurred in 616. And if those three are 616, then there's no reason to exclude his other stories as 616.
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Re: Comics Missing from the Timely/Atlas List

Post by vanhornluke »

Somebody wrote:Have you been checking your other stuff against the handbook in case it's been explicitly written off, given that this is a "Handbook Order" and your having a heading "Not to My Knowledge Confirmed to Be 616 But are Consistent with 616" implies that you HAVE confirmed the others?
Oops, sorry for the multiple posts, but I forgot to address this question. Yes, I have been checking against the handbooks. Any old Timely/Atlas stories that they reference, I have been adding. Anything they write off as non-616 I haven't added, with the exception of Patsy for the reasons already given. And those Patsy issues that I listed because of non-Patsy stories are definitely 616, since characters like Cindy Smith and Jeanie are definitely confirmed to be 616 (unlike some of the other humor/romance characters who don't have any positive evidence for being 616, like Georgie or Frankie).
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Re: Comics Missing from the Timely/Atlas List

Post by vanhornluke »

I just remembered another category of stories I should have mentioned in the "Non-Timely/Non-Atlas" section above:

The History of Marvels Comics #1 is an entirely 616 in-universe history of the 616 version of Marvel Comics. It's an interesting history (the comments about Heroes Reborn are funny). What's particularly fascinating, though, is that it says that the pulp magazines published by Martin Goodman are actually retellings of real 616 events. Presumably this doesn't include the sci-fi stories set in various future times (and probably not the porno mags, either), but there's no problem considering the war, romance, adventure, sports, detective, western, and other sci-fi stories as 616. This ties in well with the handbooks, which say that Ka-Zar's (David Rand) first appearance is the first issue of the Ka-Zar pulp, not Marvel Comics #1.

Unfortunately, I can't provide a story-by-story breakdown of the (hundreds? thousands? of) Goodman pulps because they are so rare and it's hard to find info on them. I found a few in archive.org's pulp collection, but that's just a drop in the bucket (wikipedia contains a list of dozens of titles Goodman published, and I have no idea if it's complete: link). Anyway, if the MCP is to be complete, The History of Marvels Comics #1 requires that it include in individual character chronologies any of their Goodman pulp appearances. Ka-Zar is probably the only distinctively Marvel character who has pulp appearances, but there are probably a number of historical figures who have pulp appearances, too (I noticed in one of the western pulps I was able to find that Samuel Colt appears in a story).
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Re: Comics Missing from the Timely/Atlas List

Post by vanhornluke »

Here's a supplement to my above list missing titles from the Timely/Atlas list, covering 1956 through November 1961. Again, I didn't list individual issues of the Martin Goodman pulps because it's so hard to find reliable information about them.

Timely/Atlas
Amazing Adventures #1-6
Astonishing #47, 54
Battle #44-45, 47, 57-58, 61-62, 64-66, 69-70
Battle Action #22-23, 26, 30
Battlefront #43
Battleground #11-12, 14
Cowboy Action #11
Devil Dog Dugan #1-3
Journey into Mystery #33, 40, 54, 56-71, 73-74
The Kid from Texas #1-2
Marines in Action #5-14
Marines in Battle #10-20, 22-23
Marvel Tales #146, 148
Mystery Tales #41
Mystic #44, 52, 55
Navy Action #10-11, 15-16
Quick Trigger Western #12, 15
Sailor Sweeney #12, 16
Sergeant Barney Barker #1
Six-Gun Western #4
Strange Tales #44, 46-47, 67, 70-80, 83, 85-90
Strange Tales of the Unusual #2
Strange Worlds #4
Tales of Suspense #3, 7-15, 17-18
Tales of the Marines #4
Tales to Astonish #3-4, 6, 8-10, 12-15, 17-21, 23-25
Uncanny Tales #48, 54
War Comics #39-41, 45-46
World of Fantasy #1, 11, 19
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