I didn't get much out of Douglas Wolk's 2021 book ALL OF THE MARVELS, an admittedly yeoman effort to observe how Marvel Comics used its chosen tropes both in a historical, synchronic sense and in a developmental, diachronic sense. Ironically, if I'd actively disliked it, I probably would have reviewed it here. But as things stand, I'll confine myself to praising Wolk for pointing out what he called "Marvel's first shared-universe, multiple-series crossover, which was published immediately after FANTASTIC FOUR #1."
Some histories speak as if the initial issue of FF marked the transition between the new Marvel brand and such older (sometimes tenuous) publishing-entities like "Timely" and "Atlas." However, the company changed its branding status--denoted the letters "MC," stylized to form a barely noticeable insignia-- on the covers of two magazines dated June 1961, PATSY WALKER #95 and JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #69. A quick scan of both comics online shows that all of the stories in these issues are indistinguishable from other monster-tales and teen humor antics that the company had been publishing for several years, so whatever purpose the re-branding served for the company, it was not to indicate a new approach to the type of material published. Indeed, these would probably be the sort of stories Lee was reacting against when he set out to do superhero yarns to suit himself (at least in part), rather than confining himself to anticipating the tastes of a perceived audience.
There is of course no hint of a shared universe in the earliest issues of FANTASTIC FOUR. Issue #4 revives the Golden Age hero The Sub-Mariner as a recurring opponent for the quartet, but Lee and Kirby don't stress Namor's history as a previously published icon. In issue #5 the Human Torch is seen reading a HULK comic and baiting the Thing about his resemblance to the Green Goliath, but the first true crossover, with the actual Hulk appearing in the FF's pages, doesn't take place until issue #12, dated March 1963. Other features launched in 1962 display no great hurry to acknowledge any connections in Marvel's slowly evolving superhero line.
Yet in late 1961 and early 1962, Lee apparently took it into his head to suddenly tie together the protagonists of three "girl humor" comics and one "female professional" comic. It seems unlikely that the only person in authority over Lee, publisher Martin Goodman, would have ordered this unusual stratagem. By all accounts Goodman was largely concerned with his more profitable publishing ventures and only rarely interfered with Lee's editorial decisions.
In Part 2 I'll devote more space to why Stan Lee might have chosen to institute the first Marvel Comics crossover, but for now, I'll confine myself to the content that appeared in this initial "multi-issue crossover."
KATHY #14 (dated Dec 1961)-- The titular "teen-age tornado" (who's really just a standard "nice girl") alerts her friendly enemy Liz to the fact that the comic magazine PATSY AND HEDY #78 has just reached newstands. Kathy anticipates that the comic will spotlight a fashion design she sent to the company to be reproduced for one of the characters to wear, which was a standard real practice in "girls' comics" dating back to the forties. Snarky Liz becomes irate because she too sent in a design, but she wasn't contacted. Liz insists that they go to Patsy Walker's house and beard her in her lair because, in a trope also later used in FANTASTIC FOUR, the characters in published comics actually have a lived existence on this Earth. The teen girls are received by both Patsy Walker and her boyfriend Buzz (who in the 1970s will be transformed into super-heroine "Hellcat" and super-villain "Mad Dog"). Liz yells a lot, and is mollified when Patsy tells her that her submitted design will be used in future. In this silly story's only witty joke, Buzz flirts with Kathy by asking, "how come you aren't in a comic mag of your own," and the poor teen-age tornado can't find the words to tell him that they're in her comic at this very moment.
LIFE WITH MILLIE #14 (also dated Dec 1961) -- Kathy then jumps books not to guest-star with either Patsy or Hedy, but with Marvel's oldest "girl humor" comic character, Millie the Model. The above cover stands in for the story well enough, depicting the travails Kathy goes through trying to get the autograph of the world-famous model.
PATSY WALKER #98 (ALSO dated Dec 1961)-- This time it's Patsy, who in theory is a high-school teenager, who decides to attend a costume party dressed up as the world-famous Millie. Even though Millie is theoretically an adult and ought to look rather different from a teenager posing as her, Millie's boyfriend Clicker encounters disguised Patsy and is totally fooled. (Fun fact: the boyfriend's name was originally "Flicker;" can't imagine why the publishers decided to change it...)
PATSY WALKER #99-- Though it's the very next issue of PW, its cover-date is Feb 1962, but I think it's reasonable to assume that Lee either scripted the issue (or assigned the scripting) around the same time as the other three stories. Of all four stories, this is the only one that strongly looks like hype for a new series, since the first issue of Marvel's LINDA CARTER STUDENT NURSE (dated Sept 1961) had just debuted a few months previous. It's an odd story since it lacks any humor except for snarky remarks by Patsy's friendly enemy Hedy. Linda Carter simply turns up at Patsy's class and talks to girl students about the importance of nursing as a career, and a final hype-box encourages readers to check out Linda's own comic.
In Part 2 I'll discuss possible motives for this comparative orgy of crossovers, but I'll state right now that Lee certainly wasn't trying to be ambitious in any way. All of these are really bad stories for their genre, and I speak as someone who has a minor liking for "girl humor" comics-stories. I didn't try to read all the other stories in the cited issues, but by chance I did read a separate tale in LIFE WITH MILLIE #14. This isn't a crossover, but it's metafictional like KATHY #14. Millie's parents show up at her studio and inform their daughter that they've been reading her comic, and they've decided to upbraid her fellow model Chili for constantly messing with Millie. However, Chili overhears Mom and Pop discussing their intentions, and she moves to defuse their anger by shamelessly flattering both of them. The two rubes are so stoked by her praise that they end the story by criticizing Millie for not appreciating her nemesis. I'm not saying this is a GOOD story either, but it looks forward to oddball superhero stories like FF #10, in which Lee and Kirby are seen creating a FANTASTIC FOUR magazine with at least partial input from Reed Richards.
Before I address the crossover-situation more in Part 2, I will note that Stan Lee wrote a ton of these humor comics, and though none of them are extraordinary, they did help him hone his skill with witty badinage so that he became renowned as the best writer of verbal humor in comics, albeit with considerable backup from his artist-collaborators. Every time I read the endless sniping between one of the Nice Girls and her Nasty Girl counterpart, I hear Lee whetting his wit for the endless yakkety-yak between the Thing and the Human Torch.
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