Holiday Heroes MARVEL HOLIDAY SPECIAL "Mighty Thor in 'Twas a Mid-Winter's Night' "

We're Taking a Break from Russkie-Smashing Until After the New Year...

...because our hearts are filled with the Joy of the Season, yea, verily!

Written by Tom DeFalco and illustrated by Sal Buscema, this never-reprinted tale from Marvel Holiday Special (1991) celebrates not Christmas, per se, but the Winter Solstice celebrations popular throughout Europe that the Christian holiday is based on!

From 1991 through 2011, Marvel usually-produced an annual-sized anthology Marvel Holiday Special with all-new tales of Christmas, Hanukkah, and other mid-Winter celebrations!
DC did a couple of similar holiday series featuring all-new stories from the 1980s to the present.
Many of them haven't been reprinted since initial publication, like this one with the God of Thunder and his All-Father, Odin!
We're going to be re-presenting long-unseen stories from those series every Monday through New Year, after which we'll return to superheroes, spies, and other good guys beating up Russkies, ChiComs, NoKos, and other Communist miscreants!

MAD-DOG "vs. the Truly Amazing Space Creatures from the Omega Galaxy"

We interrupt "Russkie Smashers" for an important announcement...

WE'RE BEING INVADED!!!
FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES!!!

Mad-Dog's Silver Age-era creator/writer/artist Bob McKay doesn't exist, despite receiving credit on the cover...

...as well as the splash page.
He's the title character of the 1992-94 TV show BOB, the final series starring the late, great, Bob Newhart!

McCay was the creator/writer/artist of the Silver Age Batman-esque character Mad-Dog!
Unlike most Golden and Silver Age creators, he managed to hold on to the copyright to the character!
When, in the "present day" of 1992, Harlan Stone, editor of Ace Comics, contacts Bob and offers to publish new adventures of Mad-Dog, McCay is ecstatic...until he sees that Stone wants to reboot the character as a grungy, homicidal vigilante!
Stone proposes this comic (published by Marvel) which will present both versions!
Note that, for the purposes of this story, actual writer-penciller Ty Templeton and inker Jeff Albrecht are identified as McCay's "assistants"!
You can read Stone's overly-violent Dark Age version right now over at our 'brother" RetroBlog Atomic Kommie Comics by clicking HERE!
And you can watch (yes, watch) the series' origin story at another "brother" RetroBlog, Secret Sanctum of Captain Video, by clicking HERE!

BTW, Russkie Smashers will return next Monday!

Support Hero Histories

Visit Amazon and Buy

BOB

Complete Series on DVD

from Paramount Home Video on Demand

Paid Link

Russkie-Smashers 1963: TALES OF THE UNCANNY "U.S.A. in 'Double-Deal in Dallas!' "

In 1993, writer Alan Moore and a team of very talented illustrators...

...created a loving tribute to the Silver Age of comics, a six-issue mini-series mimicking the era's style right down to the advertising...

...and covers!

With pardonable pride, we now present a tale of the series' resident Russkie-Smasher...

Note the date on the newspaper under U.S.A.'s foot!

In the universe of 1963, JFK survived the assassination attempt which succeeded in real-life!

While the six-issue mini-series came out as scheduled, the sequel 1963 80-Page Annual, a crossover featuring WildC.A.T.S., Spawn, Supreme, ShadowHawk, YoungBlood and Savage Dragon in the Image Comics multiverse, was never produced.
There were rumors in 2022 of writer/artist Don Simpson doing the book, but they've apparently been just rumors!
1963 the mini-series has never been reprinted in any format...and never will!

CAPTAIN GLORY "Power and the Glory!" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

...millennia ago, a highly-developed civilization discovered that humanity on Earth experienced natural disasters eight times previously which wiped out civilization and forced the survivors to restart from a primitive state in cycles of abut 15,000 years!

As their world crumbled, the "Ninth Men" prepared suspended-animation chambers which would preserve the best scientific, philosophical, and military/support service people to assist the next civilization (aka "Tenth Men") when it reached its' 15,000-year "tipping point".

One such person was Captain Keltan, their greatest warrior.
But not all the selected subjects were altruistic.
Some intended to take advantage of the Tenth Men, and rule the future world!
The chambers, located under what is now Chicago, disgorged their subjects during a series of minor earthquakes (a very rare event in the Midwest), with Keltan's chamber being among the last.
Without others to guide him, and unable to speak any current language, the warrior is having trouble communicating with "present-day" (1993) humans...

To Be Continued Next Tuesday at...

ATOMIC KOMMIE COMICS!

Created by Jack Kirby, developed and scripted by Roy Thomas and illustrated by Steve Ditko, this never-reprinted 1993 one-shot from Topps Comics was part of a trilogy of titles introducing the protagonists of the "Secret City Saga" mini-series that followed!

Next Monday:

Russkie Smashing, Chi-Com Crushing and NoKo Clobbering Resume...

...with the Least-Likely Hero of All!