Avengers 20 & 21 2 fn- Silver Age 1965 Marvel Comics Lee & Heck 1st Power Man

	£		18
	$		30

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Avengers 20

Published: September 1965, Original Cover Price: 10d with a 3cm x 3cm 6d dealers stamp

"Vengeance is Ours!" Script by Stan Lee, pencils by Don Heck, inks by Wally Wood. Avengers Roll Call: Captain America, Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch. Villains: the Swordsman and the Mandarin. Cameo by Iron Man. Jack Kirby/Wood cover.  An early English Avengers letter from John McNeeney 178 Greenacres Rd Oldham Lancs.

Condition is Fine-

Covers

All original staples rust free and pages and intact with significant staple stress.  Spine intact with significant wear but no roll.  Front cover has moderate edge, corner and general wear.  It is flat and colour is reasonably bright, clear, although somewhat dimmed by its 50 years.  Back cover is off white, with a little muddying in its white areas typical of silver age comics.  It has a 5cm curved tear towards its top LH corner with adjacent 3cm creasing.  Inside covers have black & white advertisements with off white, albeit muddied pages with minor margin tanning.

Internal

Pages fully intact and attached to original rust free staples with minor staple strain.  Pages off white with minor tanning but no brittleness.  Typical “pin holes” on bottom margin endemic in silver age Marvels.

nice for a 45+ year old comic

Avengers 21

Published: October 1965, Original Cover Price: 10d

"The Bitter Taste of Defeat!" Script by Stan Lee, pencils by Don Heck, inks by Wally Wood. Avengers Roll Call: Captain America, Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch. Villains: the first Power Man (Erik Josten) and the Enchantress. Guest appearance by Tony Stark (Iron Man). Flashback cameos by the first Baron Zemo, the Executioner, and Wonder Man. Letter to the editor from comics writer Mike Friedrich. Jack Kirby/Wood cover. NOTE: 1st appearance of Erik Josten as Power Man (aka the Smuggler aka Goliath, aka Atlas of the Thunderbolts)

Condition is Fine-

Covers

All original staples rust free and pages secure and intact with moderate staple stress.  Spine intact with significant wear and minor roll.  Front cover has moderate edge, corner and general wear with 3cm creasing at the bottom RH corner.  It is flat and colour is reasonably bright, clear, although somewhat dimmed by its 45+ years.  Back cover is off white, with a little muddying in its white areas typical of silver age comics. Inside covers have black & white advertisements with off white pages with minor margin tanning.

Internal

The centre spread is attached although vulnerable at the bottom staple.  Otherwise all pages fully intact and attached to original rust free staples with minor staple strain.  Pages off white with minor tanning but no brittleness.  Typical “pin holes” on bottom margin endemic in silver age Marvels.

Nice for a 50 year old comic

For more info on the Avengers and their creators read on after this friendly message. >>>>>

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The Avengers is a team of superheroes, appearing in magazines published by Marvel Comics. The team made its debut in The Avengers #1 (Sept. 1963), and was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist/co-plotter Jack Kirby, following the trend of super-hero teams after the success of DC Comics' Justice League of America

Labeled "Earth's Mightiest Heroes", the Avengers originally consisted of Iron Man (Tony Stark), Ant-Man (Dr. Henry Pym), Wasp (Janet Van Dyne), Thor, and the Hulk (Bruce Banner). The original Captain America was discovered by the team in issue #4, trapped in ice, and he joined the group when they revived him. The rotating roster has become a hallmark of the team, although one theme remains consistent: the Avengers fight "the foes no single superhero can withstand". The team, famous for its battle cry of "Avengers Assemble!", has featured humans, mutants, robots, gods, aliens, supernatural beings, and even former villains.

The team debuted in The Avengers #1 (Sept. 1963), using existing characters created primarily by writer-editor Stan Lee with penciller and co-plotter Jack Kirby. This initial series, published bi-monthly through issue #6 (July 1964) and monthly thereafter ran through issue #402 (Sept. 1996), with spinoffs including several annuals, miniseries and a giant-size quarterly sister series that ran briefly in the mid-1970s Other spinoff series include West Coast Avengers, initially published as a four-issue miniseries in 1984, followed by a 102-issue series (Oct. 1985–Jan. 1994), retitled Avengers West Coast with #47; and the 40-issue Solo Avengers (Dec.1987–Jan. 1991), retitled Avengers Spotlight with #21.

The group began with the random teaming of Thor, Iron Man, Ant-Man, Wasp and Hulk, who joined forces to thwart the Asgardian menace Loki in response to a call for help from Hulk's teen sidekick, Rick Jones. Pym suggested the heroes remain together as a team, and his partner Wasp suggested they call themselves "something colorful and dramatic, like...the Avengers." The name stuck, and a legend was born.Iron Man provided the group with financing and high-tech equipment in his dual identity as rich industrialist Tony Stark, donating his Manhattan residence to serve as their headquarters, Avengers Mansion. Stark's butler, Edwin Jarvis, stayed on as the mansion's principal servant and chief of staff, becoming a valued friend, confidant and advisor to the group. Stark also drew up a charter and by-laws to guide the team, and sought A-1 security clearance from the federal government, but he encountered resistance from the team's first National Security Council liaison, Special Agent Murch, and the general public regarded the new team somewhat uneasily. Much of this early skepticism focused on the monstrous Hulk, who soon quit the team in a fit of rage, but the group's image improved dramatically after they recruited long-lost war hero Captain America, who became the inspirational cornerstone of the Avengers. Thanks largely to his presence, the team won its A-1 security status and rapidly became the most respected super-hero team of its generation. This newfound prestige was sorely tested when the remaining founders retired from active duty for various personal reasons, leaving "Cap" alone to lead a roster of unlikely new recruits, all former criminals: the outlaw archer Hawkeye, and mutant terrorist twin siblings Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. The public was baffled, but Iron Man hoped that rehabilitating them might make up for the team's early failure with the Hulk. The new roster proved him right, and "Cap's Kooky Quartet" did the founders proud. All four of them went on to long service records with the Avengers. Hawkeye in particular became a valued mainstay of the team second only to his mentor, Cap.

Avengers membership proved very fluid over the years. Thor, Iron Man, Pym and Wasp would all return for further tours of duty, though the unstable Pym did so in a series of alternate identities as Giant-Man, Goliath (an identity also used temporarily by Hawkeye), Yellowjacket and Doctor Pym. The four returning founders would all serve stints as team leader, too, and the group produced a series of impressive leaders over the years, notably Captain America, Wasp, Hawkeye and Iron Man. New recruits during the team's early years included the Swordsman (exposed as a double agent and expelled), Hercules, the Black Panther, the android Vision, and the Black Knight. Alien hero Captain Mar-Vell became one of the team's staunchest allies during the cosmic Kree-Skrull War. The Black Widow joined the team after years as an unofficial ally. A reformed Swordsman rejoined alongside his enigmatic lover Mantis, though he died protecting her from Kang and she soon left Earth to fulfill her prophesied destiny as the Celestial Madonna. Moondragon, Beast, Hellcat and Two-Gun Kid became members, though all but Beast opted for reserve status; the group attracted associates such as the aging speedster Whizzer, Wonder Man, the robotic Jocasta, the time-spanning 31st century Guardians of the Galaxy, and Ms. Marvel (later Warbird), all of whom helped the team oppose the mad man-god Korvac and his wife Carina.

1960s

"And there came a day, a day unlike any other, when Earth's mightiest heroes and heroines found themselves united against a common threat. On that day, the Avengers were born—to fight the foes no single super hero could withstand! Through the years, their roster has prospered, changing many times, but their glory has never been denied! Heed the call, then—for now, the Avengers Assemble!"

—Prologue from The Avengers used in the 1960s

The first adventure features the Asgardian god Loki seeks revenge against his brother Thor. Using an illusion, Loki tricks the Hulk into destroying a railroad track. He then diverts a radio call by Rick Jones for help to Thor, whom Loki hopes will battle the Hulk. Unknown to Loki, Ant-Man, the Wasp, and Iron Man also answer the radio call. After an initial misunderstanding, the heroes unite and defeat Loki after Thor is lured away by an illusion of the Hulk and suspects Loki when he realises it is an illusion. Ant-Man states the five work well together and suggests they form a combined team; the Wasp names the group "the Avengers" because it sounded "dramatic"

The roster changes almost immediately; by the beginning of the second issue, Ant-Man becomes Giant-Man and, at the end of the issue, the Hulk leaves once he realizes how much the others fear his unstable personality Feeling responsible, the Avengers attempt to locate and contain the Hulk, which subsequently leads them into combat with Namor the Sub-Mariner This would result in the first major milestone in the Avengers' history: the revival and return of Captain America. Captain America joins the team and he is also given "founding member" status in the Hulk's place The Avengers go on to fight foes such as Captain America's wartime enemy Baron Zemo, who forms the Masters of Evil, Kang the Conqueror, Wonder Man, and Count Nefaria

The next milestone comes when every member but Captain America resign and are replaced by three former villains: Hawkeye, the Scarlet Witch, andQuicksilver Although lacking the raw power of the original team, they proved their worth by fighting and defeating the Swordsman  the original Power Man; and Doctor Doom  Soon Henry Pym (who changes his name to Goliath) rejoins the Avengers and the Wasp,] along with Hercules  the Black Knight,  and the Black Widow  although the last two do not obtain official membership status until years later.

When writer Roy Thomas commenced, there was a greater focus on characterization The Black Panther joins the team followed by the Vision. The Avengers are headquartered in a New York City building called Avengers Mansion, provided courtesy of Tony Stark (Iron Man's real identity), who also funds the Avengers through the Maria Stark Foundation, a non-profit organization. The mansion is serviced by Edwin Jarvis, the Avengers' faithful butler, and also furnished with state-of-the-art technology and defense systems, including the Avengers' primary mode of transport: the five-engine Quinjets.

1970s

The adventures increased in scope as the team cross into an alternate dimension to battle the Squadron Supreme and fight in the Kree-Skrull War an epic battle between the alien Kree and Skrull races and guest-starring the Kree hero Captain Marvel. The Avengers also briefly disband when Skrulls impersonating Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man use their authority as founders of the team to disband it The true founding Avengers, minus the Wasp, later reform the team in response to complaints from Jarvis

The Vision and the Scarlet Witch fall in love, although the relationship is tinged with sadness as the Vision believes himself to be inhuman and unworthy of her Writer Steve Englehart then introduces Mantis, who joins the team along with the reformed Swordsman Englehart linked her origins to the very beginnings of the Kree-Skrull conflict in a time-spanning adventure involving Kang the Conqueror and the mysterious Immortus, who are revealed to be past and future versions of each otherMantis is revealed to be the Celestial Madonna, who is destined to give birth to a being that will save the universe. This saga also reveals that the Vision's body had only been appropriated, and not created, by Ultron, and that it had originally belonged to the 1940s Human Torch. With his origins now clear to him, the Vision proposes to the Scarlet Witch. The Celestial Madonna saga ends with their wedding, presided over by Immortus. Englehart's tenure also coincided with the debut of George Pérez as artist.

After Englehart's departure (and a seven-issue stint by Gerry Conway) Jim Shooter began as writer, generating several classic adventures, including "Bride of Ultron", the "Nefaria Trilogy", and "The Korvac Saga", featuring nearly every Avenger who joined the team up to that point. New members added during this time include the Beast,a resurrected Wonder Man, Captain America's former partner the Falcon, and Ms. Marvel.

Shooter also introduced the character of Henry Peter Gyrich, the Avengers' liaison to the United States National Security Council. Gyrich is prejudiced against superhumans and acts in a heavy-handed, obstructive manner, insisting that the Avengers follow government rules and regulations or else lose their priority status with the government. Among Gyrich's demands is that the active roster be trimmed down to only seven members, and that the Falcon, an African American, be admitted to the team to comply with affirmative action laws. This last act is resented by Hawkeye, who because of the seven-member limit loses his membership slot to the Falcon. The Falcon, in turn, is unhappy to be the beneficiary of what he perceives to be tokenism, and decides to resign from the team, after which Wonder Man rejoins.

Stan Lee

Stan Lee (born December 28, 1922) is an American comic book writer, editor, actor, producer, publisher, television personality, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics.

In collaboration with several artists, most notably Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, he co-created Spider-Man, the Hulk, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor, and many other fictional characters, introducing complex, naturalistic characters and a thoroughly shared universe into superhero comic books. In addition, he headed the first major successful challenge to the industry's censorship organization, the Comics Code Authority, and forced it to reform its policies. Lee subsequently led the expansion of Marvel Comics from a small division of a publishing house to a large multimedia corporation.

He was inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1995.

Marvel revolution

In the late 1950s, DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz revived the superhero archetype and experienced a significant success with its updated version of the Flash, and later with super-team the Justice League of America. In response, publisher Martin Goodman assigned Lee to create a new superhero team. Lee's wife urged him to experiment with stories he preferred, since he was planning on changing careers and had nothing to lose.

Lee acted on that advice, giving his superheroes a flawed humanity, a change from the ideal archetypes that were typically written for preteens. Before this, most superheroes were idealistically perfect people with no serious, lasting problems.Lee introduced complex, naturalistic characters who could have bad tempers, fits of melancholy, vanity; they bickered amongst themselves, worried about paying their bills and impressing girlfriends, got bored or even were sometimes physically ill.

The first superhero group Lee and artist Jack Kirby created was the Fantastic Four. The team's immediate popularity led Lee and Marvel's illustrators to produce a cavalcade of new titles. With Kirby primarily, Lee created the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor and the X-Men; with Bill Everett, Daredevil; and with Steve Ditko, Doctor Strange and Marvel's most successful character, Spider-Man, all of whom lived in a thoroughly shared universe.Comics historian Peter Sanderson wrote that in the 1960s:

DC was the equivalent of the big Hollywood studios: After the brilliance of DC's reinvention of the superhero ... in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it had run into a creative drought by the decade's end. There was a new audience for comics now, and it wasn't just the little kids that traditionally had read the books. The Marvel of the 1960s was in its own way the counterpart of the French New Wave.... Marvel was pioneering new methods of comics storytelling and characterization, addressing more serious themes, and in the process keeping and attracting readers in their teens and beyond. Moreover, among this new generation of readers were people who wanted to write or draw comics themselves, within the new style that Marvel had pioneered, and push the creative envelope still further.Stan Lee's Marvel revolution extended beyond the characters and storylines to the way in which comic books engaged the readership and built a sense of community between fans and creators. Lee introduced the practice of including a credit panel on the splash page of each story, naming not just the writer and penciller but also the inker and letterer. Regular news about Marvel staff members and upcoming storylines was presented on the Bullpen Bulletins page, which (like the letter columns that appeared in each title) was written in a friendly, chatty style.

Throughout the 1960s, Lee scripted, art-directed, and edited most of Marvel's series, moderated the letters pages, wrote a monthly column called "Stan's Soapbox," and wrote endless promotional copy, often signing off with his trademark phrase "Excelsior!" (which is also the New York state motto). To maintain his taxing workload, yet still meet deadlines, he used a system that was used previously by various comic-book studios, but due to Lee's success with it, became known as the "Marvel Method" or "Marvel style" of comic-book creation. Typically, Lee would brainstorm a story with the artist and then prepare a brief synopsis rather than a full script. Based on the synopsis, the artist would fill the allotted number of pages by determining and drawing the panel-to-panel storytelling. After the artist turned in penciled pages, Lee would write the word balloons and captions, and then oversee the lettering and coloring. In effect, the artists were co-plotters, whose collaborative first drafts Lee built upon.

Early life

Stan Lee was born Stanley Martin Lieber in New York City on December 28, 1922, in the apartment of his Romanian-born Jewish immigrant parents, Celia (née Solomon) and Jack Lieber, at the corner of West 98th Street and West End Avenue in Manhattan. His father, trained as a dress cutter, worked only sporadically after the Great Depression, and the family moved further uptown to Fort Washington Avenue in Washington Heights, Manhattan. When Lee was nearly 9, his only sibling, brother Larry Lieber, was born. He said in 2006 that as a child he was influenced by books and movies, particularly those with Errol Flynn playing heroic roles By the time Lee was in his teens, the family was living in a one-bedroom apartment at 1720 University Avenue in The Bronx. Lee described it as "a third-floor apartment facing out back", with him and his brother sharing a bedroom and his parents using a foldout couch

Lee attended DeWitt Clinton High School in The Bronx.[ In his youth, Lee enjoyed writing, and entertained dreams of one day writing The Great American Novel He has said that in his youth he worked such part-time jobs as writing obituaries for a news service and press releases for the National Tuberculosis Center; delivering sandwiches for the Jack May pharmacy to offices in Rockefeller Center; working as an office boy for a trouser manufacturer; ushering at the Rivoli Theater onBroadway;] and selling subscriptions to the New York Herald Tribune newspaper. He graduated high school early, at age 16½ in 1939, and joined theWPA Federal Theatre Project

Early career

With the help of his uncle Robbie Solomon, Lee became an assistant in 1939 at the new Timely Comics division ofpulp magazine and comic-book publisher Martin Goodman's company Timely, by the 1960s, would evolve into Marvel Comics. Lee, whose cousin Jean[ was Goodman's wife, was formally hired by Timely editor Joe Simon.

His duties were prosaic at first. "In those days [the artists] dipped the pen in ink, [so] I had to make sure the inkwells were filled", Lee recalled in 2009. "I went down and got them their lunch, I did proofreading, I erased the pencils from the finished pages for them". Marshaling his childhood ambition to be a writer, young Stanley Lieber made his comic-book debut with the text filler "Captain America Foils the Traitor's Revenge" in Captain America Comics #3 (May 1941), using the pseudonym "Stan Lee", which years later he would adopt as his legal name. Lee later explained in his autobiography and numerous other sources that he had intended to save his given name for more literary work. This initial story also introduced Captain America's trademark ricocheting shield-toss, which immediately became one of the character's signatures.

He graduated from writing filler to actual comics with a backup feature, "'Headline' Hunter, Foreign Correspondent", two issues later. Lee's first superhero co-creation was the Destroyer, in Mystic Comics #6 (Aug 1941). Other characters he created during this period fans and historians call the Golden Age of comics include Jack Frost, debuting in USA Comics #1 (Aug. 1941), and Father Time, debuting in Captain America Comics #6 (Aug. 1941)

When Simon and his creative partner Jack Kirby left late in 1941, following a dispute with Goodman, the 30-year-old publisher installed Lee, just under 19 years old, as interim editor. The youngster showed a knack for the business that led him to remain as the comic-book division's editor-in-chief, as well as art director for much of that time, until 1972, when he would succeed Goodman as publisherLee entered the United States Army in early 1942 and served stateside in the Signal Corps, writing manuals, training films, and slogans, and occasionally cartooning. His military classification, he says, was "playwright"; he adds that only nine men in the U.S. Army were given that title.Vincent Fago, editor of Timely's "animation comics" section, which put out humor and funny animal comics, filled in until Lee returned from his World War II military service in 1945. Lee now lived in the rented top floor of a brownstone in the East 90s in Manhattan

He married Joan Clayton Boocock on December 5, 1947 and in 1949, the couple bought a two-story, three-bedroom home at 1084 West Broadway in Woodmere, New York, on Long Island, living there through 1952 By this time, the couple had daughter Joan Celia "J.C." Lee, born in 1950; another child, Jan Lee, died three days after delivery in 1953. Lee by this time had bought a home at 226 Richards Lane in the Long Island town of Hewlett Harbor, New York, where he and his family lived from 1952 to 1980 including the 1960s period when Lee and his artist collaborators would revolutionize comic books.

In the mid-1950s, by which time the company was now generally known as Atlas Comics, Lee wrote stories in a variety of genres including romance, Westerns, humor, science fiction, medieval adventure, horror and suspense. By the end of the decade, Lee had become dissatisfied with his career and considered quitting the field.

Marvel revolution

In the late 1950s, DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz revived the superhero archetype and experienced a significant success with its updated version of the Flash, and later with super-team the Justice League of America. In response, publisher Martin Goodman assigned Lee to create a new superhero team. Lee's wife urged him to experiment with stories he preferred, since he was planning on changing careers and had nothing to lose.

Lee acted on that advice, giving his superheroes a flawed humanity, a change from the ideal archetypes that were typically written for preteens. Before this, most superheroes were idealistically perfect people with no serious, lasting problems.Lee introduced complex, naturalistic characters who could have bad tempers, fits of melancholy, vanity; they bickered amongst themselves, worried about paying their bills and impressing girlfriends, got bored or even were sometimes physically ill.

The first superhero group Lee and artist Jack Kirby created was the Fantastic Four. The team's immediate popularity led Lee and Marvel's illustrators to produce a cavalcade of new titles. With Kirby primarily, Lee created the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor and the X-Men; with Bill Everett, Daredevil; and with Steve Ditko, Doctor Strange and Marvel's most successful character, Spider-Man, all of whom lived in a thoroughly shared universe.Comics historian Peter Sanderson wrote that in the 1960s:

DC was the equivalent of the big Hollywood studios: After the brilliance of DC's reinvention of the superhero ... in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it had run into a creative drought by the decade's end. There was a new audience for comics now, and it wasn't just the little kids that traditionally had read the books. The Marvel of the 1960s was in its own way the counterpart of the French New Wave.... Marvel was pioneering new methods of comics storytelling and characterization, addressing more serious themes, and in the process keeping and attracting readers in their teens and beyond. Moreover, among this new generation of readers were people who wanted to write or draw comics themselves, within the new style that Marvel had pioneered, and push the creative envelope still further.Stan Lee's Marvel revolution extended beyond the characters and storylines to the way in which comic books engaged the readership and built a sense of community between fans and creators. Lee introduced the practice of including a credit panel on the splash page of each story, naming not just the writer and penciller but also the inker and letterer. Regular news about Marvel staff members and upcoming storylines was presented on the Bullpen Bulletins page, which (like the letter columns that appeared in each title) was written in a friendly, chatty style.

Throughout the 1960s, Lee scripted, art-directed, and edited most of Marvel's series, moderated the letters pages, wrote a monthly column called "Stan's Soapbox," and wrote endless promotional copy, often signing off with his trademark phrase "Excelsior!" (which is also the New York state motto). To maintain his taxing workload, yet still meet deadlines, he used a system that was used previously by various comic-book studios, but due to Lee's success with it, became known as the "Marvel Method" or "Marvel style" of comic-book creation. Typically, Lee would brainstorm a story with the artist and then prepare a brief synopsis rather than a full script. Based on the synopsis, the artist would fill the allotted number of pages by determining and drawing the panel-to-panel storytelling. After the artist turned in penciled pages, Lee would write the word balloons and captions, and then oversee the lettering and coloring. In effect, the artists were co-plotters, whose collaborative first drafts Lee built upon.

Because of this system, the exact division of creative credits on Lee's comics has been disputed, especially in cases of comics drawn by Kirby and Ditko. Lee shares co-creator credit with Kirby and Ditko on, respectively, the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man feature film series.

In 1971, Lee indirectly helped reform the Comics Code The US Department of Health, Education and Welfare had asked Lee to write a comic-book story about the dangers of drugs and Lee conceived a three-issue subplot in The Amazing Spider-Man #96–98 (cover-dated May–July 1971), in which Peter Parker's best friend becomes addicted to pills. The Comics Code Authority refused to grant its seal because the stories depicted drug use; the anti-drug context was considered irrelevant. With Goodman's cooperation and confident that the original government request would give him credibility, Lee had the story published without the seal. The comics sold well and Marvel won praise for its socially conscious efforts. The CCA subsequently loosened the Code to permit negative depictions of drugs, among other new freedoms.Lee also supported using comic books to provide some measure of social commentary about the real world, often dealing with racism and bigotry. "Stan's Soapbox", besides promoting an upcoming comic book project, also addressed issues of discrimination, intolerance, or prejudice

Don Heck

Donald L. "Don" Heck (January 2, 1929 – February 23, 1995) was an American comic book artist best known for co-creating the Marvel Comics character Iron Man, and for his long run penciling the Marvel superhero-team series The Avengers during the 1960s Silver Age of comic books.

Early life and career

Born in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, New York City, New York, Don Heck learned art through correspondence courses as well as at Woodrow Wilson Vocational High School in Jamaica and at a community college in Brooklyn.  He continued with an impromptu art education in December 1949 when at the recommendation of a college friend he landed a job at Harvey Comics, repurposing newspaper comic strip Photostats into comic-book form — including the work of Heck's idol, famed cartoonist Milton Caniff.

Heck remained at Harvey, where on co-worker in the production department was future comics artist Pete Morisi, for two-and-a-half years until a Harvey employee, Allen Hardy, broke off "to start his own line, Media Comics [sic; actually Comic Media], in 1952," Heck recalled in 1993. "He called me up and asked me to join." Heck's first known comics work appeared in two Comic Media titles both cover-dated September 1952: the war comic War Fury #1, for which he penciled and inked the cover and the eight-page story "The Unconquered", by an unknown writer; and the cover and the six-page story "Hitler's Head", also by an unknown writer, in the horror comic Weird Terror #1.  Heck's work continued to appear in those titles and in the horror anthology Horrific, for which he designed the logo;  the adventure-drama anthology Danger; and the Western anthology Death Valley and other titles through the company's demise in late 1954.

Heck also did freelance assignments for Quality Comics, Hillman Comics, and Toby Press. For publisher U.S. Pictorial in 1955, he drew the one-shot Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion, a TV tie-in comic based on the 1955-57 syndicated, live-action kids' show of that name.

Atlas Comics

Through his old Harvey Comics colleague Pete Morisi, Heck in 1954 met Marvel Comics architect Stan Lee, editor-in-chief and art director of Marvel's 1950 predecessor, Atlas Comics. As Heck recalled,  Pete Morisi, who worked at Media at the same time [I did], had been to Stan Lee's office, and he had brought his [art portfolio]. One of my stories was in there. and Stan kept going back to my story, saying, 'This is the way you should have done it.' Pete said. 'Look, if you want Don Heck to come up here, he's looking for work, too. I'll tell him you're interested.' Stan said, 'Well, if he happened to walk up here, I might have a story for him.' So I went up there on a Wednesday afternoon. Stan never saw anybody on Wednesdays, and he never saw anybody in the afternoon. But he came out. He looked at the first two pages and said, 'Aw, hell, I know what your stuff looks like. Come on in. I got a story for you.'

Heck became an Atlas staff artist on September 1, 1954; his first known work for the company was the five-page horror story "Werewolf Beware" in Mystery Tales #25 (Jan. 1955),  though Heck in 1993 recalled, "The first job I did was about a whale breaking a ship apart. Then I did [the submarine-crew feature] 'Torpedo Taylor' for Navy Combat," drawing that five- or six-page feature in issues #1-14 and 16 (June 1955 - Aug. 1957, Feb. 1958) and, oddly, doing one page of a five-page story finished by Joe Maneely in issue #19 (Aug. 1958). Until Atlas' 1957 business retrenchment — when it let go of most of its staff and freelancers and Heck spent a year drawing model airplane views for Berkeley Models — Heck contributed dozens of war-comics stories and Westerns plus a smattering of jungle and science-fiction/fantasy tales.

Atlas began revamping in late 1958 with the arrival of artist Jack Kirby, a comics legend whose career was also in need of revamping, and who threw himself into the anthological science fiction, supernatural mystery, and giant-monster stories of what would become known as "pre-superhero Marvel." Heck returned alongside other soon-to-be-famous names of Marvel Comics' 1960s emergence as a pop culture phenomenon, making his first splash with the cover of Tales of Suspense #1 (Jan. 1959), one of the very few Atlas/Marvel covers of that time not drawn by Kirby. In the years immediately preceding the arrival of the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and the other popular heroes of Marvel's ascendancy, Heck gave atmospheric rendering to numerous science fiction / fantasy stories in that comic as well as in sister publications Strange Tales, Tales to Astonish, Strange Worlds, World of Fantasy, and Journey into Mystery. Heck also contributed to such Atlas/Marvel romance comics as Love Romances and My Own Romance.

Comics artist Jerry Ordway, describing this era of Heck's work, called the artist "truly under-appreciated ... His Atlas work (pre-Marvel) was terrific, with a clean sharp style, and an ink line that wouldn't quit."

Silver Age

Iron Man premiered in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963) as a collaboration among editor and story-plotter Lee, scripter Larry Lieber, story-artist Heck, and Kirby, who provided the cover pencils and designed the first Iron Man armour. Kirby "designed the costume," Heck recalled, "because he was doing the cover. The covers were always done first. But I created the look of the characters, like Tony Stark and his secretary Pepper Potts."  Comics historian and former Kirby assistant Mark Evanier, investigating claims of Kirby's involvement in the creation of both Iron Man and Daredevil, interviewed Kirby and Heck on the subject, years before their deaths, and concluded that Kirby ...definitely did not do full breakdowns as has been erroneously reported about ... the first 'Iron Man'. [In the early 1970s], Jack claimed to have laid out those stories, and I repeated his claim in print — though not before checking with Heck, who said, in effect, 'Oh, yeah. I remember that. Jack did the layouts'. We all later realized he was mistaken. ... Both also believed that Jack had contributed to the plots of those debut appearances — recollections that do not match those of Stan Lee. (Larry Lieber did the script for the first Iron Man story from a plot that Stan gave him.) Also, in both cases, Jack had already drawn the covers of those issues and done some amount of design work. He came up with the initial look of Iron Man's armour ...  Heck himself recalled in 1985 that while some sources claimed then "that Jack Kirby did breakdowns," ...that's not true. I did it all. They just didn't bother to call me up and find out when they wrote up the credits. It doesn't really matter. Jack Kirby created the costume, and he did the cover for the issue. In fact the second costume, the red and yellow one, was designed by Steve Ditko. I found it easier than drawing that bulky old thing. The earlier design, the robot-looking one, was more Kirbyish.

Heck presided over the first appearance of Hawkeye, Marvel's archer supreme, in Tales of Suspense #57 (Sept. 1964), and femme fatale Communist spy and future superheroine and S.H.I.E.L.D. agent the Black Widow in #52 (April 1964). He drew the feature through issue #46 (Oct. 1963), after which Spider-Man artist Steve Ditko introduced the familiar red-and-gold Iron Man armour and drew three issues. Heck returned with #50 — which introduced Iron Man's arch-foe, the Mandarin — and continued through #72 (Dec. 1965).

Concurrent with drawing Iron Man, Heck succeeded Jack Kirby as penciler on the superhero team series The Avengers with issue #9 (Oct. 1964), the introduction of Wonder Man. Heck, who inked his own pencils for many years, transitioned to the "Marvel method" of doing comics — in which the penciler plotted and paced the details of a story based on a synopsis or plot outline from the writer, who would afterward add dialog — and was assigned the help of an inker for the first time. He successfully made this adjustment, and went on to make The Avengers, which he drew through issue #40 (May 1967), plus the 1967 annual, one of his signature series. He inked his own pencil work in issues #32-37. In addition, during this period fans and historians call the Silver Age of Comic Books, Heck penciled The X-Men #38-42 (Nov. 1967 - March 1968), and, over John Romita layouts, The Amazing Spider-Man #57-64, 66 (Feb.-Sept & Nov. 1968). Heck would also draw issues of Captain Marvel and Iron Man, the WWII war comic Captain Savage and his Battlefield Raiders, horror stories in Chamber of Darkness and Tower of Shadows, and, once more, love stories, in the romance comics Our Love Story and 'My Love.

Move to DC

By 1970, however, Marvel work became less frequent, and Heck obtained assignments from rival DC Comics, beginning with a short story in the supernatural anthology House of Secrets #85 (May 1970). He did his first DC superhero work with The Flash #198 (June 1970), illustrating a backup story of the super-speedster, and eventually garnered additional work including romance comics, and the backup features "Batgirl", in Detective Comics, and "Rose and the Thorn" in Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane. He began a short run on Wonder Woman with issue #204 ( Feb. 1973), in which the character's powers and traditional costume were restored after several years, and he also freelanced for the short-lived publisher Skywald Comics.

Heck still dipped his toe back occasionally at Marvel, penciling the odd issue of Daredevil, Sub-Mariner, Ghost Rider, The Avengers and others in the mid-1970s, including the first two issues of the superhero team book The Champions. But in 1977, he began working almost exclusively for DC. Heck explained in 1985, "I left Marvel for a change of pace. I kept getting all the new inkers. Everyone who walked in, I got them. A bad inker can kill artwork. I once got some pages back from inking and I just tore them up, that's how bad they were."

With writer Gerry Conway, Heck co-created the DC cyborg bero Steel, the Indestructible Man in the premiere issue (March 1978) of the titular comic.  After that series' cancellation, Heck became regular artist on The Flash, and in 1982 reunited with Conway to draw the Justice League of America, including that year's crossover with the All-Star Squadron.  Heck then returned to Wonder Woman and drew the title until its cancellation in 1986.

Later career

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Heck returned to Marvel, where his work included features for the superhero anthologies Marvel Comics Presents and Marvel Fanfare. The artist even returned to two signature characters: He inked Hawkeye stories in Solo Avengers #17-20 and the subsequent Avengers Spotlight #21-22 (April-Sept. 1989) — both penciling and inking a second Hawkeye story in that last issue — and he drew Iron Man, inking penciler Mark Bright's eight-page "The Other Way Our" in Marvel Comics Presents #51 (June 1990), and both penciling and inking the one-page featurette "Tony Stark, The Invincible Iron Man" in Iron Man Annual #12 (Sept. 1991) and a pinup in Marvel Super-Heroes vol. 2, #13 (April 1993).  Heck also did a smattering of work for such independent comics as Topps Comics' NightGlider, Hero Comics' Mr. Fixit, Vortex's NASCAR Adventures, and Millennium Publications' H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu: The Whisperer in Darkness. His final DC work was penciling and inking over Joe Quesada's layouts for Spelljammer #11 (July 1991), and his last known comics work was the 10-page "The Theft of Thor's Hammer", by writer Bill Mantlo, in Marvel Super-Heroes vol. 2, #15 (Oct. 1993).

Marvel one-time editor-in-chief Roy Thomas said of the artist,  Don was unlucky enough, I think, to be a non-superhero artist who, starting in the sixties, had to find his niche in a world dominated by superheroes. Fortunately, as he proved first with Iron Man and then with the Avengers, Don could rise to the occasion because he had real talent and a good grounding in the fundamentals. He amalgamated into his own style certain aspects of Jack Kirby's style, and carved out a place for himself as one of a handful of artists who were of real importance during the very early days of Marvel".

Heck died of lung cancer in 1995.  He was living in Centereach / South Setauket, New York, on Long Island, at the time of his death.