ᴛᴀʟᴇṩ  ᴏғ  ṩɪʟᴠᴇʀ  ᴀɢᴇ  ᴛɪᴍᴇ  ᴛʀᴀᴠᴇʟ A  Very  Ditko  Christmas!

tales of SILVER AGE TIME TRAVEL
travel back to STRANGE TALES #129 (FEB 1965)

—You can’t possibly imagine my overwhelming disappointment when I first read the final page of the DOC STRANGE story in Strange Tales 129—the Tyrant of the Sixth Dimension!—on Christmas Day in 1964, but I shall try to explain by starting back on the previous day. You see, on Christmas Eve, I’d made my usual trip to the PX newsstand where IRVING had a batch of five comics waiting for me.  He’d set aside that week’s three Marvel superhero comics (Strange Tales 129, Spider-Man 21, and Tales to Astonish 64) plus a DC comic—Justice League 33—with a note that I could skip right to the end of page seven if I just wanted to meet the man of the year 25,673 without reading the inept JLA’s attempts to escape from the time traveler’s locked-room puzzle. Oh, and Herbie 7, which I was instructed to take to my kid sister LINDA (she’d paid him the requisite 12¢ in advance).

Irving also informed me that the Doc Strange story in Strange Tales 129 had time travel! And in addition, I knew all three of the Marvels sported STEVE DITKO stories, so all I could think was, Holy Blitzen! Time Travel! Ditko! And Linda outta my hair reading her HERBIE! It’s gonna be a very merry Christmas for me!

I decided to read the JLA on Christmas Eve, saving Doc Strange for Christmas Day itself. Kind of like how you eat all your Brussels sprouts first to get them out of the way, while saving the stuffing to finish off the meal in the best possible way. Seeing as how the JLA was a DC story, I felt no surprise when it had the most ridiculous eight-page set-up for meeting a time traveler that you could ever imagine, although KASTON THARN, the man from the future, did have a cool explanation of time:The unfortunate part of Kaston Tharn’s story is that he and his fellow future-people had managed to pull an alien out of the river of time, and only the JLA of the twentieth century could save them. Doesn’t the 26th millennium have their own JLA? I wondered. Oh, never mind. It was Christmas Eve, so I gave them a pass on that plot hole. But as I read on, I couldn’t fully excuse them falling into the same deep hole that trapped most of Marvel’s time travel: The entire time-travel aspect of the story had real purpose. All it did was bring some gooey aliens for a 16-page battle. Yep. That’s the old Darnit!-Do-Something-That-You-Couldn’t-Do-with-Plain-Old-Space-Travel trap, and it was the second-most annoying annoyance in time travel stories.

And with that second-most annoying annoyance still in my head me, I instantly fell asleep with visions of time machines dancing in my head, happily oblivious to the impending disappointment that would hit me on Christmas Day.

The Rocket Ship?

I woke on Christmas morning with Linda hurtling onto my bed, shouting “Here’s what SANTA’s gonna bring me!” and waving her Herbie comic in my face. We weren’t allowed to go out into the living room on Christmas Day until MOM and DAD were up, so our annual ritual was to make as much noise as possibly until our slumbering parents finally got up.

“He’s gonna bring you Herbie?” I shouted back.

“No, silly.” She began jumping up and down on the bed, waving an ad in my face at each bounce. “He’s gonna bring me this!”

I knocked her feet from under her and grabbed the comic. I had to admit to myself that the Jet “Rocket” Space Ship in the ad—over six feet long!—was a definite prize, even at $4.98.*

* about $40 today

Naturally, I began scheming how I’d come up with $4.98 (plus 63¢ postage and handling). I had nearly fifty cents, but that was earmarked for January comics. But Linda—yes, little Linda—always had stashes of money coming out her ears. The situation called for some finesse.

“Yeah, it’s okay,” I said, pretending to examine the price of the ship in detail. “Oh, $4.98. Plus 63¢ postage and handling. That’s a lot, but I could give you maybe, I don’t know, let’s say 24¢ if you could come up with the other $5.37. Think of it as my Christmas present to you this year.”

“Not by your Uncle Bob’s root beer!” she shouted back. “Santa’s bringing it to me. I wrote him a letter this morning.”

“This morning? But he had to bring all the presents last night.”

“Exactly.” She grabbed her Herbie back. “And if you’d read Herbie, you’d know how to send letters back in time.”

Here’s the thing: I did read Herbie (don’t tell Linda), but I didn’t remember him sending letters through time. For time letters, there was that one JACK FINNEY story [“The Love Letter”—your friendly neighborhood editor], but she wouldn’ta been reading that. I had to focus. The trick was to keep in her good graces, so when Santa didn’t deliver the ship, she’d look favorably on my 24¢ contribution to the rocket.

“Ah, I see what you mean,” I said. “You’ll really enjoy that rocket.”

Her eyes narrowed and she pointed her pinky at me. “Number one,” she said, “don’t talk to me like I’m still five.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Quiet.” She pointed her ringman at me. “Number two, I know what you’re up to, and you won’t sweet talk me into letting you use my jet rocket space ship that’s out there under the tree right now.” Her tallman pointed at me next. “Number three, you still owe me 24¢ from months ago!”

“I paid you!”

“You didn’t.” Her index finger pointed my way, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “And number four, I don’t care if Mom and Dad ever get up.” She tip-toed out of our room, presumably to sulk in the hallway.

I figured she knew there was no way Santa had brought her that rocket ship, and this was her way of saving face. She’d claim that my disbelief somehow messed up the temporal mail, so it was all my fault. Ah well, what can you do? At least I still had that Doc Strange story to read.

Beware . . . Tiboro!

We’re nearly to my Christmas Day disappointment. Brace yourself. I pulled Strange Tales 129 from under my bed, and turned straight to the Doc Strange story.The story started with a group of reporters discussing the world of the supernatural and dismissing Dr. Strange as any sort of authority. Well, of course, what do you expect when the so-called Master of the Mystic Arts treated you this way?But, oh, those darn disbelievers! They had a scientific panel! You know, that panel kind of got what they deserved. Just what did they expect after scoffing at the pagan idol from Peru? Even at age seven, I saw this one coming:So, Doc Strange comes at their bidding, and we get a cool Ditkoesque battle between the Master and the idol, named TIBORO! Suprisingly, not even the fury of Tiboro’s electro-plasmic spell caused Mom and Dad to stir from their Christmas morning sleep.

The electro-plasmic spell was the low point of the battle for Doc Strange, but not for me. My low point came at the end of the story when Tiboro has been vanquished, and the science panel brought back to our realm. After their experience, they had no remaining doubt that the supernatural was real.

Sounds perfect, right? And so, what annoying thing does Doc Strange do?Yep. The number-one most annoying thing a time traveler can do: A reset. I flung open the window to the bitter Nebraska winter and prepared to throw Strange Tales 129 all the way to Kansas. But I stopped mid-throw.

The Rocket Ship!

There in the back yard was a sturdy box—over 6 feet long! Two red bows adorned the sides of the box. I leaned out the window and looked to the sky, but saw no sign of a sleigh.

“Linda!” I shouted. “Come quick!”

She didn’t, so I marched out and found her at the end of the hall, where I managed to coax her into following me back to our room by telling her that I thought I’d seen a reindeer outside. She claimed she didn’t believe a word I said and never would again in her life, but nevertheless, she followed me back to the room.

“Holy Herbie!” she said when we got to the window. “I told ya he’d bring it!”

She started out the window, and I stopped her. “Mom and Dad aren’t up yet.”

“It’s only the living room that’s off limits,” she pointed out.

I made her put on her slippers and robe before climbing out.

The far side of the box was open, showing nothing inside, although there was a label showing that it had once contained a threshing machine for Grandpa’s farm. I kept quiet about all that.

On top of the box, sat brightly-wrapped present addressed to Linda from GRANDPA MAIN (who was still halfway around the world). She quickly ripped it open, repeating her line about things not in the living room were fair game. Inside, she found a brand new box of 64 Crayola crayons and a set of bright, colored markers of a sort we’d never seen before.

She shook a pink crayon at me. “I told you Santa would bring it,” she said. “You’re the universe’s biggest disbeliever, and I’m never talking to you again because I don’t want to catch whatever it is that you’ve got.” With that, she started drawing pink jet nozzles on one end of the box. Mom and Dad soon joined us, and the rocket ship didn’t turn out half bad, though Linda still wasn’t talking to me.

Eventually, I got my Spider-Man and Tales to Astonish comics from the day before, and crawled inside the rocket box for a quiet read while I kept an eye on Linda, Rocket Designer. And inside I found a present from Grandpa to myself—yet another DC comic of all things! So, I had three comics to keep me entertained now. I cut a few light holes in the top, and sat down to read, starting with the two Marvels.Ditko’s SPIDER-MAN was a joy, especially given that he Spidey in some bickering with the TORCH. And the HULK story was great, too, even if Bruce Banner looked more like Peter Parker than himself.After those two stories, I thought to myself, “Okay, so what if this box is a space ship. What’s to stop me from using it as a time machine as well?” And I did. I took myself right back to the moment when Linda had leapt onto the bed. I listened to her whole impossible story of the jet rocket ship and the letter she’d sent temporal mail, and how Santa was going to bring it.

“Well, what if Santa left it in the back yard instead of the living room?” I said, and this time, she zipped straight to the window.

On the Day of His Return

That’s nearly the end of my story today, but there’s still that DC comic that Grandpa had sent. Turns out it had a Ditko story, a Christmas story no less.

But that Ditko story wasn’t the strangest thing about the book. Take a look here:Who would ever pay a whole dollar for a comic book? Especially a DC? And what’s Steve Ditko doing in a DC anyway? And, Holy Timewarp, the cover date was 1980!

That could mean only one thing. Grandpa Main wasn’t halfway around the world, he was halfway to the 21st century. And that meant he had a time machine. And that meant he could . . .

“Ho, ho, ho, Mike,” I heard, not in Santa’s voice, but in Grandpa’s familiar voice. “How are you progressing with your time travel writing, young man?”

Coming Soon!

Yes, that’s Linda and me in the featured picture up above, as well as Teddy (in my arms) and Snowy in Linda’s. I hope you enjoyed the picture and today’s temporal hijinx, even if it did center around the two most annoying annoyances in time travel stories. As for next month’s Silver Age Time Travel, we’ll see another Strange Tales story, but not with Doctor Strange!

Be HERE—or we’ll tell Hoggoth on you!

Coming Soon!
The TORCH! The THING! The rest of the FF! They all take on KANG, the CONQUEROR in the pages of Strange  Tales  134!
Don’t miss it on the first Wednesday of January!