Reading Room: NOT WHO YOU THINK: Captain Comet "Vicious Space Pirates”

A space-going hero named "Captain Comet" who saves the Earth?

Plus, he's drawn by Al Williamson and Frank Frazetta?

Sign me up!

But, he's not DC Comics' mutant mental marvel...

 ...but a character who only appeared once, in 1953, two years after DC's space hero debuted in Strange Adventures #9, and would continue as an ongoing strip through 1955 (usually getting the cover slot)!

The Captain Comet we've just shown you was more a Flash Gordon / Buck Rogers-type hero, set in the future, battling interplanetary threats with fists and ray guns.

Appearing in the first issue of Toby Press' anthology title Danger is Our Business, he obviously was meant to be an ongoing character, but there was never another appearance, except for a reprint in 1958.

Did DC issue a "cease and desist" due to trademark infringement?

We'll never know...

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Reading Room: CLAWFANG THE BARBARIAN

After Crom the Barbarian, came ClawFang the Barbarian!

(weird how most barbarians have a "hard C" name...Conan, Crom, ClawFang, Claw, Kull, Kothar, Kyrik, etc.)

We'll never know, since this was ClawFang's only published adventure!

A cool mix of sf/fantasy genres written and laid-out by Wally Wood with pencils and inks by Al Williamson, appearing in Unearthly Spectaculars #2, part of a short-lived line of action/adventure comics produced by Harvey Comics in the mid-1960s.
Oddly, while there were numerous "jungle hero/heroine" strips and books with sci-fi/fantasy elements, Clawfang was only the second actual barbarian strip in comics history, after Crom.
Five years later, Marvel would launch Conan the Barbarian, and suddenly, an entire new genre bloomed in comics with almost every publisher launching at least one barbarian-themed comic.
But Crom and ClawFang were there first!

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