(Cover Date: October, 1963)

[Rating is for Human Torch story]

I read it only for the main human torch and spider-man story and it was pretty boring. Sorry, Jack Kirby, you are a good artist, but Stan isn't the best writer sometimes... And Spider-Man is definitely not Jack's character to draw.

There are also 10 (!!!) more different stories but... And that's a very BIG but... they are just reprints of already published comics...

Well, 72 big pages and you get only 18 pages of brand new content. And even this one new story isn't that good... I think it does not worth the price it had back then.

Strange Tales Annual #2 is mostly interesting because of its historical value—it features an early team-up between Spider-Man and the Human Torch. Seeing two young, hot-headed heroes clash before eventually working together is fun in theory, and it gives a glimpse of Marvel experimenting with shared-universe storytelling in the early ’60s.

That being said, the story itself feels pretty thin. The plot is simple and predictable, and while it’s cool to see Ditko’s Spider-Man alongside Kirby’s Torch, the execution doesn’t fully deliver the excitement that the concept promises. The art has some charm, but the issue overall hasn’t aged very gracefully.

For me, this one lands right in the middle: historically notable, but not particularly engaging by today’s standards. more