I bought this high grade copy of Journey Into Mystery #50 from comic book dealer John Verzyl of Comic Heaven in the 1980s when John was still located in Alhambra, California. This issue upgraded for me a well read average copy I had since the 1970s that been obtained from mail order. Journey Into Mystery has a long, colorful pedigree in the history Of Marvel Comics.
Martin Goodman's comic book distributing company, the Atlas News Company, started in 1951. Dozens of comic books were published by Goodman in the 1950s and carried the Atlas Globe logo on the cover of the comic book. The general perception is that the Atlas Implosion occurred in the summer of 1957. One internet source however says Atlas was discontinued in 1956 and another magazine distributing company, the giant American News Service, continued distributing Goodman's comics (still with the Atlas Globe logo) until American News went out of business in 1957. At any rate Journey Into Mystery was an early Atlas horror comic. The first issue was cover dated June 1952. During the so called Atlas Implosion Journey Into Mystery was suspended after #47 cover dated August 1957. It was one of only three Goodman science fiction / fantasy comics to survive the Implosion. The other two being Strange Tales and World Of Fantasy. Several months later Journey Into Mystery #49 cover dated November 1958 was published. The stories in this book are most likely not new stories but older "inventory" stories that never been published due to inferior quality but stored away. After the Atlas Implosion Goodman's few remaining comic books were distributed by his main rival, DC Comics, under a contract that limited him to eight comics per month. This contract lasted until late 1968. The Goodman comics from the late 1950s and early 1960s carry an IND logo which stands for DC's distributing company, the Independent News Service. I call them pre-Marvels. When the artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko came to work at Goodman's company, in about September 1958, Marvel Comics did not yet officially exist. The cover logo "Mc" signifying Marvel Comics didn't begin to appear on Goodman comics until the summer of 1961.
Journey Into Mystery #50 is the first issue since the Atlas Implosion to feature new stories instead of inventory stories. Steve Ditko has a story in this book, but not Jack Kirby. The cover is by Joe Sinnott which is unusual as most of the newly revitalized Goodman comics / pre-Marvels had covers by Jack Kirby. This JIM #50, along with a reborn Strange Tales #67 and World Of Fantasy #15 and three new titles, Strange Worlds, Tales Of Suspense, Tales To Astonish are historically important because they marked a fresh start for Martin Goodman's and Stan Lee's crumbled and tattered comic book company. This new start led directly to the most explosive and influential revolution in the history of American comic books, the Marvel Age Of Comics!
