Showing posts with label Centaur. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Centaur. Show all posts

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Reading Room: ONE-SHOT HEROES Ferret

Criminals are a cowardly, supersitious lot...
...but even they weren't afraid of this lame character in his only Golden Age appearance!
The writer and artist of this tale from Centaur's Man of War Comics #2 are unknown, and so was this character...until the tail-end of the B/W indie craze in 1992, when Malibu Comics revived a revamped group of Centaur Comics heroes as "The Protectors".
The Ferret was remade into a feral character who looked almost exactly like Marvel's Sabretooth, but was obviously-intended to capitalize on the popularity of Wolverine!
The Protectors ran 20 issues and Ferret starred in a one-shot book that sold well enough to prompt a 10-issue run of his own title.
Not bad for a guy who appeared in only one story before his revival.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Reading Room: NOT WHO YOU THINK: THE ARROW "Correcting the Colonel's Court-Martial"

No, he's not the guy currently on the CW...
...since that character is based on Green Arrow, who was given that colorful name to avoid confusion with this guy, comics' first archer superhero, as detailed HERE!
Ironically, the CW superhero visually-resembles this character more than DC's Green Arrow,  whose back-story has been Smallville-ized for the tv series.
Written and illustrated by Paul Gustavson (who also created another archer hero who predated Green Arrow...Quality's Alias the Spider), this tale appeared twice in Centaur titles, first in Funny Pages V2#12 (1938), then in FantoMan #2 (1940), which was actually the short-lived title's first issue.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Reading Room: ONE-SHOT HEROES Rainbow

Of all the comic characters inspired by other comic characters...
...this one has to be the silliest of all!
...the next issue of...???
As it turns out, this appearance in the back of Centaur's The Arrow #3 (1941) was the Colorful Crusader's one-and-only foray into superhero action.
Face it, it's not much of a gimmick, and the costume doesn't really show a "rainbow" effect, like Holo-Man, for example...
Art by Don Heck and Joe Giella
...but the concept of a character inspired to become a superhero (albeit one without weapons or powers) from reading a comic book is rather cool.
Written by "Ed Herron" (France Edward Herron aka France Herron), who was a writer/editor at several companies, co-created the Red Skull (with Jack Kirby) and Captain Marvel, Jr. (with Mac Raboy), and was a major contributor to various Superman and Batman series of the 1950s-early 1960s.
Illustrated by Alfredo "Al" Plastino, who went on to better things as one of the two primary artists (along with Wayne Boring) for Superman in the 1940s thru early 1960s (including working with Herron again)!

Friday, January 4, 2013

Reading Room: NOT WHO YOU THINK: THE ARROW "Smashing the Protection Racket"

No, he's not the guy currently on the CW...
...since that character is based on Green Arrow, who was given that colorful name to avoid confusion with this guy, comics' first archer superhero, as detailed HERE!
Ironically, the CW superhero visually-resembles this character more than DC's Green Arrow,  whose back-story has been Smallville-ized for the tv series.
This tale was written and illustrated by Paul Gustavson, who also created another archer hero who predated Green Arrow...Quality's Alias the Spider!

And, as pointed out by reader DarkMark, this never-reprinted tale appeared in Centaur's Funny Pages V4 #1 (1940).
I had listed another appearance, also written and illustrated by Gustavson.
(This is what happens when you drink the last of the holiday eggnog and then keyboard a blog entry...)

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Reading Room: ONE-SHOT HEROES! The Owl

With the Court of Owls currently bedeviling The Batman...
...we'll be looking at previous heroes to use the motif of an owl.
This character from Centaur Publications' Funny Pages V4N1 (1940) was the first costumed Owl.
Written and illustrated by Martin Filchock, he appeared only a couple of months after the first appearance of The BatMan in Detective Comics #27 (1939), and shows a number of similarities to the initial version of the Caped Crusader.
As it turns out, 1940 was a good year for owls as two more heroes (and one heroine) would show up within six months to claim the name.
We'll be looking at them next week...

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Guess the connection between these two Lost Heroes!


Besides the fact they both fly!

Answer: they're both jet-propelled!
(Air-Man's wings are balloons! They don't flap like Hawkman, Birdman, or most other avian-themed characters!)

When ornithologist Claude Stevens was brutally murdered by criminals with an unbreakable alibi, his son Drake decided to avenge him by becoming a masked vigilante.
Using a jet-pack of his own design along with wing-shaped balloons for maneuverability and lift, Drake created an appropriately bird-themed secret identity as Air-Man to work outside the law for justice!
Air-Man caught the murderers, and decided to continue battling evil wherever he found it in the pages of Keen Detective Funnies and Detective Eye Comics!

On the other hand, Cal Martin and Doris Dalton were scientists who used their jet-packs as RocketMan and Rocket Girl almost on a whim, and found they enjoyed crimefighting, so they kept at it for several years!
They appeared in the back pages of the entire run of Scoop Comics, but never made the cover spot!
When Scoop was cancelled, they moved to Punch Comics where Rocket Girl finally got a solo cover, but RocketMan never did!
When their publisher went out of business, another company picked up the rights but re-named them Zip-Jets, since the abandoned "RocketMan" trademark had been taken over by Republic Pictures for their otherwise unrelated leather-jacketed flying serial hero!
Two issues of Zip-Jet, reprinting their Scoop & Punch stories came out before their new publisher also went kaput!
The duo made a final appearance in a one-shot titled Atomic Comics, but whether it was new or reprinted material is unknown, since the issue we scanned for our kool kollectibles was slabbed! ;-(

All three characters have re-appeared in minor roles in Alex Ross' Project SuperPowers, with hints of bigger things to come!

We at Atomic Kommie Comics™ have revived both Air-Man (both Keen Detective Funnies appearances) AND RocketMan & Rocket Girl aka the Zip-Jets, as part of our Lost Heroes of the Golden Age of Comics™ line, on t-shirts, messenger bags, mugs and other kool kollectibles!
Next time someone says "Look, up in the sky...", it might not be who you think...

And don't forget to buy the NEWEST Project SuperPowers comics including...

Thursday, May 20, 2010

He's AMAZING, Man!

He first appeared in the premiere issue of his own title, Amazing-Man Comics #5*.
John Aman was an orphan baby taken to a hidden monastery in Tibet by a secret society of monks.
There, the Council of Seven raised and trained him to be "the Ultimate Human", a perfect combination of physical development and mental ability.
They also gave him the chemically-induced ability to teleport thru a cloud of green mist.
This proved to be handy when Council member, The Great Question, went renegade, set up his own cult and began plotting world domination.
The Council sent Aman into the outside world to prevent The Great Question from wreaking havoc.
Of course, when he appeared in public in his rather-skimpy outfit with an "A" on it, the tabloid press dubbed him "Amazing-Man".
During his short (less than three-year) run, he also helped against spies and saboteurs before Centaur Publications went out of business due to wartime paper shortages in late 1942.

Trivia note: Amazing-Man was one of the first creations of writer/artist Bill Everett.
Everett also created Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, Hydro-Man, and The Fin. (He had a penchant for aquatic characters)

Amazing-Man has returned in several incarnations since then...
Malibu Comics incorporated him (along with most of the other Centaur Publications heroes) into The Protectors series, which ran for a couple of years in the 1990s.
DC Comics introduced a similarly-named, though otherwise unrelated hero into The Justice Society of America's 1940s stories in All-Star Squadron and Young All-Stars (His secret identity is "Will Everett", named after Bill Everett.)
Dynamite Entertainment revived him in Alex Ross' Project SuperPowers, where he's been a background character up to this point. But since his nemesis, The Great Question, has been shown to be one of the conspiracy of The Supremacy, it's only a matter of time before John Aman takes a hand in matters!
And, Marvel Comics has put John Aman himself into a series inspired by his 1940s series, The Immortal Iron Fist!

Of course, we at Atomic Kommie Comics™ have revived Amazing-Man as part of our Lost Heroes of the Golden Age of Comics™ line, including his FIRST cover appearances and two of his best covers on t-shirts, messenger bags, mugs and other kool kollectibles!
But that's not all!
His unique cover logo is included in our Comic Cover LogoWear line, where the best of Golden Age cover lettering ends up on your chest or bookbag!
Plus, he'll soon be part of our Icons of the Golden Age of Comics series!
Pretty good for a guy who was cancelled in the mid-1940s, eh?

*No, that's not a mistake. Issues 1-4 of the comic had been titled Motion Picture Funnies Weekly.
When it didn't sell well, the publisher simply introduced a new character
and retitled the comic, but kept the numbering.
Otherwise, he'd have to pay for a new 2nd class mailing permit for a new publication.
1940s publishers were nothing if not thrifty!