THE MISSING AD MYSTERY - OR, WHEN ADS ARE 'SUBTRACTED'...

Sharp-eyed readers who bought the recent BATMAN and HOUSE Of SECRETS Facsimile Editions, may have noticed that, on the ad page on the inside back cover, at the top far right (from the readers' pov) there was an empty space.  (Above is the page as first published in the '70s.)  I'm not quite sure why DC decided to delete one of the ads so many years after the fact, especially as none of them are likely to be valid any more, but such retroactive editing irks me somewhat.  After all, a facsimile should be a true facsimile, not a partial one.  In case you bought the mags and wondered what the blank space was about, that's the missing ad below in close-up.

What's your opinion on this, readers?  Couldn't give a stuffed monkey (might even be one in the ads), or do you think the ad should've been left in?  Rant, rave, and rage (or just leave a polite response) in our ever-lovin' comments section.  And, just in case you have difficulty imagining a blank space (the inside of my head doesn't count), that's the ad page from the facsimile editions below in all its incomplete glory.

PSSST! HEY, SAILOR - DO YOU CARRY A TORCH FOR YOUNG MEN...? (NAH, DON'T LET THE TITLE PUT YOU OFF - IT AIN'T WHAT YOU MIGHT THINK IT IS!)

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

Before the MARVEL AGE Of COMICS began in 1961, publisher MARTIN GOODMAN decided to revive TIMELY COMICS' three main superheroes of the '30s and '40s and see if he could repeat the wartime popularity the characters had once enjoyed.  It was 1953, and by this stage Timely was now calling itself ATLAS - at least on the covers.  However, the indicia inside the mags usually sported a different name, as Goodman had many subsidiaries within the comicbook line's parent company, MAGAZINE MANAGEMENT.

In the case of YOUNG MEN #24, it was INTERSTATE PUBLISHING CORP., and within its interiors The HUMAN TORCH, SUB-MARINER, and CAPTAIN AMERICA made their return to four-colour comicbooks.  They only lasted five issues though, before disappearing again, and the world had to wait until the '60s to see The Human Torch (though not the original) and The Sub-Mariner in the pages of The FANTASTIC FOUR, and Captain America in The AVENGERS.  (A try-out with an impostor appeared in a Torch solo story in STRANGE TALES to gauge reader reaction to the prospect of Cap's return.)

Well, you know the rest.  All three characters are still around today in some form or other, so all's well that ends well, eh? I think I've got an issue of FANTASY MASTERPIECES somewhere that reprints Young Men #24, but the reproduction (if I remember correctly) isn't all that great and besides, I can't be bothered digging it out.  So here instead is the cover and splash pages of #25 for you to paste your peepers on.  Just think how different the future of the comicbook industry might've been had this '50s revival been successful.