Isn't that a skyscraper going overhead?

[dr_hermes]

One thing I love about Golden and Silver Age comics is their dreamlike, anything-goes quality. They're like fairy tales in that respect. The most outrageous events are regarded with a straight face. The Earth is sliced neatly in half or swapped with another planet, with no real disastrous effects; people can be frozen inside a block of ice for

Comments

[thekamisama]

Have you ever seen the "Marvel Super Heroes" animated version of this? Since Hanna Barbera had the rights to the Fantastic Four they turned it into a Submariner feature in which he saves the X-Men's superhero party from Magneto raising them into space.

[thekamisama]

My bad, it was still Doom in that one too. Seems like it still would've worked with Magneto huh?

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7cxnq_marvel-superheroes-submariner-chapt_shortfilms

[dr_hermes]

Oh my. Those are so bad that they're hypnotic. Ir's like watching a multiple car pile-up. I had forgotten about those early Marvel cartoons where actual art from the comics was modified with a minimum of moving mouths or arms.

[stevegreen]

Even better, Doom reads the headline whilst looking at the sports page: genius.

[stevegreen]

The early Marvels have an hallucinogenic vitality about them. Even now, I can't help but love them.

[dr_hermes]

There is so much in them that just wouldn't work. But the energy and zest and creative fire draw me in every time.

[m_faustus]

Funny. I am too young to have seen this one. But there was a later issue where the FF team up with Iron Man and it is revealed that Reed Richards has built the top of the Baxter Building to fly off in just this manner if you pull a lever. He said that the landlords made him do it for public safety reasons. Like you said, at the time, not really thinking about it it seems almost reasonable. But now? One lever and they go shooting into space? Seems a little, well, dumb. There was also an issue even later where Gladiator of the Shiar Imperial Guard picks up the entire building by the corner. Reed figures out that he shouldn't be able to do that and that he must have mental powers that are holding the thing together. So obviously comics are getting much more reality based.

[dr_hermes]

I think what happened was that comics started shifting to an older readership. Stan Lee was aiming at high school and college age rather than grade school readers. A lot of the whimsy and exuberance faded out, stories became gradually more serious and grim ("gritty" used to be the word). Events from earlier on increasingly had to explained away or given a more rational sounding explanation. It's historical revisionism. I can see why writers and editors do this, it's natural enough.

In this very story, my first thought is that Doom's magnetic gizmo is not simply pushing up from the basement and lifting the Baxter Building, as seems to be the case. Rather, it's creating a powerful magnetic field around the building which both lifts and holds the strucure together. So I do the same rationalizing as the editors do.