#quogg

[marvelinorder]

Tales to Astonish (1958) #30 [E Story] recap

"Quogg" by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko

Once again I'll only be focusing on the relevant story from this issue rather than reviewing all of them. Our story is called "Quogg!" and as you can see didn't merit a spot on the cover. I want to say this is because the story just isn't very good and the creators probably knew it. Anyway, on to our recap!

Our protagonist is a guy who gets caught stealing and flees from the authorities and into the jungle! They follow him, so he tries to shake them off by...throwing his car over a ledge.

Not surprisingly, this maneuver doesn't work and the men continue to follow him until he steps onto a crumbling cliff and falls into some water and they give up.

He eventually makes his way to a village, where in no time he's already making plans to be an asshole.

As you can see above, he sneaks into Quogg's valley. Once inside, he sees there's a lone hut. He begins making plans to fool the villagers, assuming they are merely superstitious...because man, this guy is an asshole.

At this point, I don't know about you but I'd very much like this guy to get his comeuppance. Luckily, this turns out to be the case because there IS a Quogg!

The hut was Quogg the whole time! Welp, can't say I'm sorry for our racist criminal. I hope Quogg ate the shit out of him.

If you're wondering what the hell this issue is doing in the Order, it's because Quogg reappears in Monsters Unleashed (2017) #3, making him a reoccurring character.

The End! And see you next time for Incredible Hulk #1!

[pageliveblogscomics]

I enjoyed this, but there wasn’t much actual story here, mostly just a shot and sweet setup with a great punchline. Three Stars.

And of course, my new favorite character HAS to be Quogg.

QUOGG!

[quasar1967]

Tales To Astonish #30

Jan 9th 1962

The Return Of The Gorilla Man

The Remedy Oil

The Thing From The Hidden Swamp

What Was The Staggering Secret Of The 13th Floor

Quogg

[lesbianfrankieraye]

Tales to Astonish v1 #30, Steve Ditko and Stan Lee

[rocket-prose]

A pair of original Steve Ditko pages. The first is from the “Quogg!” story published in Tales to Astonish #30 (Marvel, 1962). The second is from “You Can’t Change the Past!”... published in Tales of Suspense #43 (Marvel, 1963).

[beaft]

Writing prompt idea of you like: humans go back in time to prevent war with alien race, end up provoking aliens to attack humans.

“Wow,” said Assistant 737. “To tell you the truth, I reallywasn’t expecting that to work.”

“What precisely did you think might happen?” said Professor Verren,closing the door of the time machine capsule behind them.

“No idea,” said Assistant 737. He was gazing about withfascination. The world around them looked much the same as the one they’d justleft, except without all the fire and death and people screaming in terror ofthe unknown. It was a nice change. “I kind of thought we’d just getspaghettified or turned into a new kind of quark or something.”

“If the situation weren’t so precarious, I might give you a righteousspeech on the folly of doubting my nigh-incontestable scientific prowess,” saidProfessor Verren, “but there’s no time for that right now.” He drew a keyringfrom his pocket and locked the door of the capsule with one of the forty-oddkeys hanging from it. Then he turned back to Assistant 737, adjusting hisspectacles with his free hand. “If my navigating skills are up to the task, we’recurrently a quarter of a mile away from the place where the ship first madeberth. If we can make contact before the initial hostilities take place, thenwe may just have a shot at convincing them to parley with us.”

They looked around. The cornfield was utterly deserted. Tallstalks murmured and sighed like a restless ocean, and at the sky’s apex a whiteand merciless sun beat down.

“And you’re absolutely certain you got the right year?” saidAssistant 737.

Professor Verren gave him a quelling look.

“I’m just saying,” said Assistant 737. “No spaceship.” Heshaded his eyes and looked up at the impossibly blue horizon. There was nothingto be seen except for the distant specks of birds, wheeling high overhead. Ifthere was a spaceship the size of China with built-in pyrotechnic flashbulblasers and titanium rocket launchers anywhere up there, it was exceptionallywell-hidden.

“This is the trouble with you young people,” Professor Verrensaid. “No patience whatsoever. I calculated our arrival time using the mostadvanced algorithms I had at my disposal, and the margin for error isapproximately 0.0000182895%. I assure you, my friend, we are in the correcttime zone. The spaceship is most definitely here.”

They stood in the cornfield for a few minutes more. The sunwas making the sweat prickle on the back of Assistant 737’s neck. He shiftedfrom foot to foot, wishing he’d remember to bring his suncream, or at least abottle of ice water.

“Can I sit down?” he said, when the heat became unbearable.“I’m getting a bit dizzy. Forgot breakfast this morning.”

Professor Verren sighed. “If you absolutely must.”

He sat down amidst the grass stalks and took his phone outof his pocket, opening his favourite app. For a while, there was nothing butsilence, broken by the occasional whirr of a passing helicopter. ThenAssistant 737 said, eyes still fixed on his phone screen, “Hey, Professor?”

“What?”

“You know you once claimed to be unshockable?”

“I claimednothing,” said the Professor, haughtily. “I merely told the truth, as Iendeavour to do in every aspect of my life.”

“I wonder,” said Assistant 737, “if you might allow me totest that hypothesis.” And he smiled a narrow and frightening smile.

Professor Verren’s eyes narrowed. “In what sense?”

Assistant 737 turned the screen towards the Professor.

“I’m not the slightest bit interested in – oh my good Lord what is that?”

“Ectoplasm, I think,” said Assistant 737.

Professor Verren seized the phone from him and stared at it.“Fascinating,” he said, in tones of mingled horror and morbid curiosity. “Andpeople actually take the time to create this kind of content? Of their own freewill? Without any intent to profit?They’re not compelled by, by some sort of – malevolent force or ulteriormotive?”

“This isn’t even that bad,” said Assistant 737, reaching upto take the phone back. “There’s way weirder stuff out there. Here, let me showyou – ”

Ten minutes later Professor Verren had turned the colour ofcottage cheese. Assistant 737 sat at his feet, smirking and triumphant.

“But,” sputtered Professor, “but that’s – genitalia simplydon’t work that way, it’s basicbiology, not to mention that the use of a turkey baster in that context isdefinitely in violation of at least sixfederal laws – ” He scrolled down a little further, and blanched even worsethan before, almost dropping the phone. “Oh,” he said, “oh my God Jesus inheaven that’s a tentacle.” He scrolled further. “And it’s going where? No. Oh, no.”

“Unshockable, hey?” said Assistant 737, grinning.

“There are limits!” criedthe Professor.

“Blarge vlum vlum, suggugon blort?” came an inquisitivevoice from behind them.

They both turned around. An alien stood there, although stood didn’t seem to be quite the rightword for a creature that possessed no legs and quite a substantial number oftentacles. Assistant 737 tried not to flinch. This might have been a timebefore it all went wrong – a time when the citizens of HD606B were friendly andopen to negotiations – but that didn’t change the knee-jerk association of alien with phrases such as slow death and meat slaves and organharvesting. The fact that it could turn them both into a nasty blackenedmess with nothing more than a hard stare didn’t really help. He did his best tosmile and look welcoming, but he could tell that it had come out as more of apained grimace.

“Oh! Good morning, Sir – Madam – er, Personage,” saidProfessor Verren, hastily straightening his tie. “What an honour. I wonder ifwe might trouble you for the location of your – ”

“Snegger fluromorg quogg?”

“What’s it saying?” Assistant 737 asked in an undertone.

Professor Verren was fiddling with his translator. “I’m notquite sure – hold on, I think the signal’s getting garbled.” He spun a dial andpressed a few buttons seemingly at random, a worried little divot formingbetween his brows. “Just give me a moment here.”

A long, prehensile limb shot out, spattering them both withslime, and seized the phone from Professor Verren’s hand.

“Hey! Give that back!” Assistant 737 made a grab for it, butthe Professor seized his arm and pulled him backwards, giving him a warninglook that said clearly: don’t antagonise it.

The alien shifted the phone to another tentacle, thenextended a long limb with various plush extremities on the end, not unlike thefronds of a sea anemone. It brought the screen up to what was presumably itsface and stared.

“What are you doing?” hissedAssistant 737 to Professor Verren. “Grab it back!”

“Direct skin-to-skin touching is a grave insult in theirculture!” Professor Verren hissed back. “We’ll just have to hope it doesn’trealise just what it’s looking at – ”

“Vleeermmpt,” said the alien, horrified.

“Please, good sir,” said Professor Verren, “if I couldtrouble you to return the electronic device – ”

The finger-like fronds tapped at the screen. The picturechanged. The alien recoiled violently, oozing, and let out a strangledscreeching noise. Assistant 737 wiped his cheek clean of flying goo, and wished for the first time in his life that he’dthought to turn on SafeSearch. 

“Wait a minute,” Professor Verren said. He was stillfiddling with his translator. “I think I’m getting something.” He squinted downat the screen, pushing his glasses higher on his nose. “It’s saying something.It’s saying…hang on…”

“Professor?”

“…it mostly seems to be death threats,” the Professoradmitted.

“Oh, fabulous,” said Assistant 737.

“Vergum sblibiamogg!” shrieked the alien, brandishing the offending device. “Vershaffa zigg zogg aanng!”

“That means ‘may your planet burn beneath the awesome power of ourlaser guns, you depraved and lawless primitives’,” translated Professor Verren,helpfully. “Or something along those lines.”

Assistant 737 considered this. Then he said, “Do you think we should go backto the time machine?”

The Professor nodded.

They ran.

[marveldailyart]

Hey, I think Quogg is in this issue. #marvel #quogg [#cmro M6] http://ift.tt/2p84d8V

[alternateworldcomics]

Quogg! from Tales to Astonish # 6, 1959.

[pageliveblogscomics]

Wait, what? We’re doing this way faster than I was expecting. I figured he’d be an asshole some more, and then Quogg would show up and kill him, but Quogg is already here?

HAHAHAHAAHA!!!!

Okay, the ending is kind of abrupt, but I do like that the hut was Quogg all along. It really subverts my expectations, in a fun way.

It’s funny how these are included in the Order at all. I get sometimes they go back and grab something from these, but I’m not sure whatever story Quogg eventually reappears in will really benefit from having read this.

[pageliveblogscomics]

I feel like in the world of Marvel Comics, where there are Sub-Mariners and Fantastic Four and alien invasions, people would end up being more superstitious, right? It’s one of those things that makes you wonder about what a world where all of these are really happening would end up looking like.

Fuck you too, asshole! Does he just enjoy murder or something? I’m guessing he’s going to die given how bad he is.

Every few weeks?! How long are you planning on staying here? Also, how much gold and jewels do you think they have? I mean, it sounds like you’re planning on spending two months just murdering random people and living in a grass hut.

[pageliveblogscomics]

Now we get to Tales to Astonish 30: QUOGG!

Looks like this is another monster one where fifty years from now the monster will fight Daredevil or something.

Oh god. Just some trauma from those last comics. Please proceed with depicting Africans in a way that isn’t hugely racist.

I don’t know if you really stole enough money to buy that jeep back.

Interesting choice of skin tone for this African Native. Also, they’re doing a good job of setting up our bad guy protagonist. And with the native police saying none can escape justice, I think we’re going for a story where he gets what’s coming to him and either dies, or is chased back into the arms of the cops.

[marvelinorder]

Quogg Masterpost

Tales to Astonish (1958): #30

[pageliveblogscomics]

Okay, so the Hulk left off earlier trying to murder Rick, but now he doesn’t seem to remember. Instead he remembers that he had to go somewhere, which is what Bruce was doing right before he transformed, and he wants to go see Betty, using her first name like Rick complained about Bruce doing.

This makes Hulk feel even less like his own person and more like a change to Bruce, since he seems to remember more about being Banner than about the last time he was the Hulk. It also makes me wonder if he’s going to be partially reset with each transformation.

I wonder if there will come a point where I don’t get excited about a character commenting on how absolutely wild the world they live in is. And we know that she’s right. Although it makes me wonder about the Golden Age comics. I mean, if the Sub-Mariner is canon, her dad grew up in a pretty weird time too, right? Also, the way she’s talking about them being on the brink of some fantastic unimaginable adventure is interesting too, because the Hulk does kind of change things. Before this, the silver age was just the Fantastic Four, Ant-Man, and Quogg! And two of those were only from one short comic. But after this, we’re going to be getting a lot more, and I feel like her saying this makes the Hulk feel like the tipping point.

Between her feeling that Bruce needs her, and that they’re on the brink of some fantastic unimaginable adventure, and talking about supernatural forces, I have decided that she has psychic powers.

[marvelinorder]

Character Appearances Masterpost

Ben Grimm

Ben Parker

Betty Ross

Bruce Banner

Doctor Doom

Flash Thompson

Gargoyle

General "Thunderbolt" Ross

Hank Pym

Igor Drenkov

Jane Foster (/Nelson)

Johnny Storm

May Parker

Medusa

Miracle Man

Mole Man

Namor

Peter Parker

Quogg

Reed Richards

Rick Jones

Skrulls

Susan Storm

Tad Carter

Thor

Toad Men

[marveldailyart]

AIIIIIEEEEE!!! It’s Quogg! Not even Rod Serling could have predicted such a twist! (Quogg will return in about 55 years.) #marvel #quogg http://ift.tt/2oyoy4o

[marveldailyart]

Finding nothing but an empty hut, the crook walls himself in. “Later on, I’ll kill a native or two and pretend I’M Quogg!” #marvel http://ift.tt/2ogZzX3