Tales of the Unexpected #22
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeTales of the Unexpected #22 (February 1958) is a noteworthy specimen of DC's Silver Age science-fiction anthology format, notable above all for Jack Kirby's 'Invasion of the Volcano Men' — a story that scholars and the Grand Comics Database have identified as a direct conceptual predecessor to the Lava Men Kirby co-created for Marvel's Avengers #5 in 1964. The issue also captures a genuinely unusual moment in comics history: Joe Maneely, one of Atlas/Marvel's most celebrated artists of the era, contributing a story to a DC title during the brief, turbulent window when Atlas had lost its distributor and Maneely was freelancing across publishers. Finally, GCD indexers have flagged internal job-number evidence suggesting this issue contains what may be the inaugural 'Doctor Rocket' strip by Henry Boltinoff, adding a small but verifiable 'first' to its contents.
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Tales of the Unexpected launched in 1956 as DC's deliberate response to the creative constraints imposed by the Comics Code Authority, channeling genre energy into science-fiction and fantasy rather than the horror that the Code had effectively banned. By issue #22, the series was publishing work from a rotating roster of Silver Age talent under DC's anthology editorial model, drawing on freelancers from across the industry — including, briefly, artists whose primary home was the competing Atlas line. Maneely's presence here is directly explained by Atlas's mid-1957 distribution crisis, which left the publisher without an outlet and many of its artists, Maneely included, seeking freelance work wherever they could find it. The issue's editorial context — multiple self-contained stories across different creative teams — was entirely typical of the anthology titles DC used to test ideas and characters before committing to dedicated features.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover date: February 1958; published by DC Comics as part of the Tales of the Unexpected Volume 1 ongoing series (issues #1–104, 1956–1968).
- Cover art penciled by Jack Kirby — one of his recurring contributions to the series during this period.
- Contains Kirby's story 'Invasion of the Volcano Men,' which scholars at Comic Book Historians (research by Alex Grand) and the Grand Comics Database identify as a conceptual prototype for the Lava Men Kirby co-created at Marvel in Avengers #5 (May 1964).
- Joe Maneely — the prolific Atlas/Marvel artist whom Stan Lee later called potentially 'the next Jack Kirby' — contributes the story 'Water Was My Enemy,' one of only a handful of DC appearances he made during Atlas's 1957–58 distribution crisis.
- Additional interior stories: 'The Man From Robot Island' (art by Bernard Baily) and 'I Married A Girl From the 4th Dimension' (art by Howard Purcell).
- GCD indexers note that internal DC job-numbering evidence (a '#1' in the first panel) suggests this issue contains the debut installment of Henry Boltinoff's 'Doctor Rocket' humor strip.
- The issue is 36 pages, full color, with an original cover price of ten cents — standard format for DC anthologies of the period.
- Kirby's stories from this issue were later collected in The Jack Kirby Omnibus Volume 1 (DC, August 2011), which gathers his Tales of the Unexpected work from issues #13, 15–18, and 21–24.
Full credits
Reprints
↩ Reprints Strange Adventures #7 (1951), Strange Adventures #29 (1953)
Reprinted in All Favourites, The 100-Page Comic #7 (1958), Century, The 100 Page Comic Monthly #26 (1958), Big Boy #23 (1958), Big Boy #24 (1958), Five-Score Comic Monthly #14 (1959), Historias Fantásticas #16 (1959), Big Boss #10 (1972), Big Boss #11 (1973), Big Boss #59 (1983), The Jack Kirby Omnibus #1 (2011)
Key issues in Tales of the Unexpected
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