Kirby leaves the FF this year. This is basically it for the Silver Age in any meaningful sense. There really isn't a lot of quality in the art at Marvel at this time. Romita is good when he does full pencils on Spider-Man. John Buscema is good but doesn't do anything regularly until he takes over on the FF (at which point we're comparing him to Kirby at the height of his power). His brother Sal is serviceable on the Avengers but not great. Gene Colan is still out there, but inconsistent (The secret ingredient is Tom Palmer inks). Everywhere else it's pretty bad. There's a tendency to try and emulate Steranko's style but most artists don't have his talent and it just comes off looking messy. Comic awards seem to be a more regular thing, indicating a growth/sophistication of the fan base. Marvel sweeps: Roy Thomas gets best writer (it should really still be Stan for Spider-Man), Neal Adams gets best penciler, Tom Palmer gets best artist. Fantastic Four is the best adventure title. Silver Surfer #5 (Al Harper) gets best full length story. Spider-Man is best hero and Dr. Doom is best villain. Stan Lee lost best editor to DC's Dick Giordano by one vote. For a few months comics had pages that split space between story and ads. Comic panels on the top, ads on the bottom. Very annoying. I don't think this went over well and it went away fairly quickly.

Notable events: Not a lot of major events this year: The Black Widow upgrades her costume. Dr. Doom gets his own series in Astonishing Tales, shared with Ka-Zar. Death of Captain Stacy

New characters: You can tell that we're not seeing A-list characters being created, as well: the Zodiac, Kangaroo, Monocle, Arkon, Jim Wilson, Richard Fisk, Llyra, Agatha Harkness