Strange Tales #97
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeStrange Tales #97 holds a singular place in Silver Age Marvel history as the earliest known comic to feature characters named 'Aunt May' and 'Uncle Ben' — the same names Steve Ditko and Stan Lee would assign, just months later, to Peter Parker's beloved guardians in Amazing Fantasy #15 (cover-dated August 1962). The story 'Goodbye to Linda Brown,' written by Lee and drawn by Ditko, establishes the pair as the caretakers of a wheelchair-bound young woman who turns out to be a mermaid — a whimsical anthology one-off that nonetheless reads, in retrospect, as a dress rehearsal for two of Spider-Man's most emotionally resonant characters. The Marvel Database and Wikipedia both note that Ditko's character designs for this Aunt May and Uncle Ben are nearly identical to — though slightly younger than — the figures who would define Spider-Man's moral universe, making the issue a fascinating, concrete window into how the Lee-Ditko creative partnership recycled and refined character concepts in the frenetic early months of the Marvel Age.
In "The Madness!" from Strange Tales #97, a man is swept through a mysterious mist into the 16th century, only to be imprisoned as a madman in a grim asylum. When he escapes, he’s pulled back to the present—only to find the asylum keeper now the one locked away, deemed insane by modern eyes.
In "Goodbye to Linda Brown," a quiet girl named Jo, confined to a wheelchair and living with her aunt and uncle, begins sleepwalking—each night rolling herself through the house and down to the sea. There, beneath the waves, she moves with a grace that defies her waking form, a secret only her family seems to understand. The story lingers on the tender, bittersweet bond between Jo and her guardians, hinting at a truth deeper than flesh and bone.
In "Behind the Dreadful Door!" from Strange Tales #97, a struggling painter stumbles upon a hidden room believed to be the wellspring of a legendary artist’s genius. What he finds inside defies reason—otherworldly figures who pose as models, and soon, he becomes the newest subject in their eerie, timeless tableau.
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Strange Tales #97 was released on March 8, 1962 (with a June 1962 cover date), squarely in the frenzied opening run of what Marvel historians call the Marvel Age. The issue was a typical anthology of the era: written principally by Stan Lee (with Larry Lieber also credited), it gathered short science-fiction and supernatural stories drawn by Jack Kirby (pencils, inked by Dick Ayers), Steve Ditko, Gene Colan, and Joe Maneely — a cross-section of the studio talent Stan Lee was deploying across his entire line. The Grand Comics Database notes that 'Goodbye to Linda Brown,' the Ditko-drawn Aunt May/Uncle Ben tale, is itself a retelling of an earlier Dick Ayers story, 'The Sea Waits for Me!,' from Journey Into Unknown Worlds #43 (March 1956), which adds yet another layer of recycling to this already prototype-rich issue. The issue also carried an in-house advertisement teasing The Incredible Hulk #1, which went on sale just one week later — a snapshot of Marvel's aggressive cross-promotional machine firing on all cylinders during its most explosive growth period.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover date: June 1962; on-sale date: March 8, 1962; published by Marvel (indicia publisher: Vista Publications Inc.).
- The issue contains five segments: 'When a Planet Dies!' (pencils Jack Kirby, inks Dick Ayers), text story 'Mystery Pupil' (art Joe Maneely), 'The Madness!' (pencils Kirby, inks Ayers), 'Goodbye to Linda Brown' (script Stan Lee, art Steve Ditko), and 'Behind the Dreadful Door!' (art Gene Colan).
- The story 'Goodbye to Linda Brown,' drawn by Steve Ditko and scripted by Stan Lee, features an elderly couple named Aunt May and Uncle Ben caring for their niece Linda Brown — the first-ever printed use of those two names together, approximately three months before Amazing Fantasy #15 (cover-dated August 1962) introduced the Spider-Man supporting characters of the same names.
- The Aunt May and Uncle Ben in this story are given no surname, and Marvel has never established them in-universe as the same characters as May and Ben Parker; however, multiple sources note that Ditko's character designs for them are nearly identical to — though slightly younger than — the Spider-Man versions.
- 'Goodbye to Linda Brown' is itself a reworking of an earlier Marvel/Atlas story, 'The Sea Waits for Me!' (art by Dick Ayers), originally published in Journey Into Unknown Worlds #43 (March 1956), illustrating the era's common practice of script recycling.
- The issue contains an in-house cross-promotional teaser advertisement for The Incredible Hulk #1, which went on sale approximately one week after Strange Tales #97 — a telling artifact of Marvel's rapid-fire 1962 launch schedule.
- Pages within the issue also advertise Amazing Adult Fantasy (the Lee-Ditko anthology that would become Amazing Fantasy #15 the following month) and Fantastic Four, capturing Marvel's entire early Silver Age line in a single issue's ad pages.
- The 'Goodbye to Linda Brown' story was later reprinted in Marvel Tales Vol. 2 #83, and 'Behind the Dreadful Door!' was reprinted in Weird Wonder Tales #21 (March 1977); other stories in the issue were collected in Monsters: The Marvel Monsterbus by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber & Jack Kirby Vol. 2 (2017).
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Reprints
↩ Reprints Mystic #52 (1956)
Reprinted in Amazing Stories of Suspense #24 (1964), Sinister Tales #20 (1965), Secrets of the Unknown #134 (1972), Sinister Tales #135 (1974), Uncanny Tales #112 (1975), Weird Wonder Tales #20 (1977), Weird Wonder Tales #21 (1977), Weird Wonder Tales #22 (1977), Marvel Tales #83 (1977), Uncanny Tales #139 (1979), La Mujer Araña #23 (1982), Amazing Stories of Suspense #203 (1983), Sinister Tales #201 (1984), Marvel Selects: Spider-Man #5 (2000), Spiderman: Stan Lee y Steve Ditko #2 (2003), Marvel Visionaries: Steve Ditko #[nn] (2005), Die Spinne #51½ (2009), Marvel Gold. El Asombroso Spiderman: Poder y Responsabilidad #[nn] (2014), Crypt of Horror #26 (2015), Monsters: The Marvel Monsterbus by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber & Jack Kirby #2 (2017), Marvel Masters of Suspense: Stan Lee & Steve Ditko Omnibus #2 (2019), Marvel Visionaries: Steve Ditko #[nn] (2019), The Amazing Spider-Man (Penguin Classics Marvel Collection) #[nn] (2022), Biblioteca Marvel #4 (2023) + 8 more
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