Data courtesy of the Grand Comics Database under Creative Commons license.

Issue Details

Issue #56
Published August 1964
Frequency monthly
Cover Price 0.12 USD
Pages 36
Editing Stan Lee
Notes Distributed to newstands in May 1964. This issue includes 10 pages of paid advertisements. Distribution date from Joseph Marek's Marvel Comics Group history website.

Cover Details - "The Uncanny Unicorn!"

Characters Iron Man [Tony Stark]; Unicorn [Milos Masaryk]; Pepper Potts
Genre superhero
Pencils Jack Kirby
Inks Dick Ayers
Letters Artie Simek
Notes Letters credit from George Olshevsky's Marvel Comics Index.
Reprinted in Essential Iron Man (Marvel, 2000 series) #1 (2000) [black and white]; in Marvel Masterworks: The Invincible Iron Man (Marvel, 2003 series) #2 (2004); Iron Man Omnibus (Marvel, 2008 series) #1 (2008)

18 page Iron Man story "The Uncanny Unicorn!"

Characters Iron Man [Tony Stark]; Unicorn [Milos Masaryk] (introduction, origin); Happy Hogan; Pepper Potts; Avengers [Thor [Donalt Blake] (cameo); Giant-Man [Hank Pym] (cameo); Wasp [Janet van Dyne] (cameo)]; Crimson Dynamo [Anton Vanko] (flashback)
Synopsis A Soviet agent with high-tech armor comes to the US to capture Iron Man. He kidnaps Pepper and injures Happy to draw Iron Man out, and then threatens to blow up Stark's factory unless Iron Man comes with him. Iron Man boards Unicorn's plane, but then destroys it, though the Unicorn escapes.
Genre superhero
Script Stan Lee
Pencils Don Heck
Inks Don Heck
Letters Sam Rosen
Notes Unicorn next appears in a cameo in Fantastic Four Annual (Marvel, 1963 series) #3 (1965), before appearing in X-Men (Marvel, 1963 series) #22 (July 1966).
Reprinted in Marvel Collectors' Item Classics (Marvel, 1965 series) #14 (April 1968); in Essential Iron Man (Marvel, 2000 series) #1 (2000) [black and white]; in Marvel Masterworks: The Invincible Iron Man (Marvel, 2003 series) #2 (2004); in Iron Man Omnibus (Marvel, 2008 series) #1 (2008)

1 page promo (ad from the publisher) "Two More Triumphs for Marvel..!"

Notes Advertises Strange Tales (Marvel, 1951 series) #123 (August 1964) and Tales to Astonish (Marvel, 1959 series) #58 (August 1964). Printed between the pages of the Iron Man story.

1 page text story "Pouf!"

Characters Charlie Smith; Will
Synopsis A boy stumbles across a secret disintegrating formula stolen from a government lab.
Genre science fiction
Letters typeset
Notes Text story with illustration. Printed between the Iron Man story and the Tales of the Watcher story. Continues from last issue.
Reprinted from Mystic (Marvel, 1951 series) #39 (September 1955) [page 2 originally titled "The Atomizer".]

5 page Tales of the Watcher story "The Watcher's Sacrifice!"

Characters Watcher [Uatu]; Queen Kalthea; Fantastic Four [Mister Fantastic [Reed Richards (cameo); Thing [Ben Grimm] (cameo); Human Torch [Johnny Storm] (cameo)]
Synopsis The Watcher falls in love with a courageous alien queen, but his duty forces him to leave her.
Genre science fiction
Script Stan Lee (plot), Larry Lieber (script)
Pencils Larry Lieber
Inks George Roussos (as George Bell)
Letters Artie Simek
Reprinted in Marvel Collectors' Item Classics (Marvel, 1965 series) #21 (June 1969); in Fantastici Quattro, I (Editoriale Corno, 1971 series) #61 (August 7, 1973) [as "Il sacrificio dell'Osservatore", Italian translation]