Strange Tales #86
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeStrange Tales #86, cover-dated July 1961, marks a pivotal corporate threshold in Marvel's publishing history: it is the first issue of the series — and among the very first comics of any title — to carry the new 'MC' (Marvel Comics) logo on its cover, signaling the formal retirement of the Atlas Comics identity that had branded the company since 1951. That branding shift coincided almost exactly with the launch of the Marvel Age of superheroes (Fantastic Four #1 had appeared only months earlier), making this issue a tangible artifact of the moment Marvel reimagined itself. Within the anthology format that defined the pre-superhero Strange Tales, the issue also preserves the creative triangulation of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko working simultaneously in the same book — the same team that would shortly transform American comics. As the first appearance of the robot Mechano, it contributes one more creature to the dense Silver Age monster catalog that Strange Tales was then assembling, several of which were later folded into ongoing Marvel Universe continuity.
In "I Created Mechano!", two scientists face a nightmare they never saw coming when their experimental robot goes rogue and terrorizes the city. With the authorities closing in, they must defend their creation—only to find an unexpected ally in a group of alien invaders who flee in panic at the sight of the mechanical giant. Written by Stan Lee and Larry Lieber, illustrated with explosive energy by Jack Kirby and inked by Dick Ayers, this 1961 Marvel classic features a cover by Kirby and Ayers that captures the moment the robot’s rampage begins.
In "I Created Mechano!", a scientist and their partner must race to save their creation—a towering robot they built to protect humanity—when it goes rogue and turns on the city. As authorities prepare to destroy it, the duo confront a sudden threat from alien invaders who flee in shock at the sight of the machine, just before the police open fire.
Jo, a shy boy with a knack for breaking things, discovers his old globe reacts strangely when it’s damaged—mirroring real-world harm in eerie, uncanny ways. When he accidentally smashes it, a sudden force tears through space, triggering a distant world’s destruction.
In "Beware of Meeks Bringing Gifts!", a sudden arrival of alien visitors brings miraculous technology that ends poverty and war—until a skeptical journalist, Jo, confronts one of them on live television, forcing a confession under threat of a gun. The gift-givers' true intentions hang in the balance as peace unravels into suspicion.
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The issue went on sale April 13, 1961, during the brief window when Atlas/Marvel was transitioning its corporate identity without yet having a stable superhero line to anchor it. Editor Stan Lee oversaw the anthology, with Larry Lieber scripting the lead story from Lee's plot — a common division of labor at the Goodman shop during this period — while Jack Kirby penciled both the cover and the lead story with Dick Ayers inking, and Steve Ditko contributed a standalone short. The minimalist 'MC' rectangular logo that debuted here (letters stacked vertically inside a plain frame) was shaped by Marvel's internal production staff and would remain in use only until mid-1963, when it was replaced by the fuller 'Marvel Comics Group' wordmark, making this early logo a short-lived but historically significant design marker.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First issue of Strange Tales — and one of the first Marvel comics of any title — to display the new 'MC' (Marvel Comics) logo on its cover, formally marking the end of the Atlas Comics branding era (July 1961 cover date; on-sale April 13, 1961).
- First and only Earth-616 appearance of Mechano, a roughly 30-foot-tall robot built from scrap metal by an old man (Mr. Hopkins) and his young assistant Tommy Briggs; activated accidentally by radiation from a dropped atomic transmitter at an industrial fair.
- Lead story 'I Created Mechano!' written by Stan Lee (plot) and Larry Lieber (script), penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by Dick Ayers, colored by Stan Goldberg, lettered by Artie Simek.
- Second story 'Georgie's Globe!' drawn by Steve Ditko, in which a boy discovers his globe mirrors real-world geography in uncanny ways — a classic Ditko twist-ending short of the kind that capped nearly every issue of Strange Tales during this era.
- Third story 'Beware of Meeks Bringing Gifts!' — a Trojan-Horse alien-invasion tale — penciled by Jack Kirby and inked by Sol Brodsky, with its title explicitly referencing the adage derived from the legend of the Trojan Horse.
- A text story titled 'Discovery' with art by Joe Maneely also appears in the issue.
- A version of Mechano later appeared in Nextwave #11, used as a weapon by the corrupt Beyond Corporation, though that story was subsequently placed in an alternate reality rather than Earth-616.
- The lead Mechano story has been reprinted multiple times, including in British anthology Sinister Tales (Alan Class) #10, #156, and #191, and in the Marvel hardcover Monsters: The Marvel Monsterbus by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber & Jack Kirby (2017).
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↩ Reprints Astonishing #54 (1956)
Reprinted in Sinister Tales #156 (1977), Sinister Tales #191 (1983), Monsters: The Marvel Monsterbus by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber & Jack Kirby #1 (2017), Marvel Masters of Suspense: Stan Lee & Steve Ditko Omnibus #1 (2019), Astounding Stories #37, Misterios del Gato Negro #137, Secrets of the Unknown #26, Secrets of the Unknown #81, Sinister Tales #10
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