Showing posts with label Frank Giacoia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frank Giacoia. Show all posts

Monday, May 19, 2025

Russkie-Smashers SENSATION COMICS "Dr Pat--Flight Surgeon!"

She cures the sick, catches criminals...
...and defeats Communists!
Is there nothing Dr Pat Windsor can't do...while looking really kool doing it?
Though Wonder Woman was the cover-featured heroine of Sensation Comics...
...it's obvious Dr Pat is the real "Wonder Woman' of the book, as this never-reprinted story from #100 (1950) by writer Robert Kanigher, penciler Carmine Infantino, and inker Frank Giacoia proves!
She outsmarts a high-ranking Communist officer and shoots down a fighter, while handling her flight surgeon duties!
BTW, the XB-49 "Flying Wing" was a real (albeit experimental) bomber tested during the late 1940s-early 1950s!
It's best-known to the public as the bomber seen in the 1953 movie War of the Worlds delivering an A-Bomb against the Martians!
(Actual flight footage of the ship, not a miniature, was used.)
Who says comics ain't educational?

Monday, June 3, 2024

NoKo Crushers SGT FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS "Commission in Korea!" Conclusion

...the Howling Commandos under Colonel "Happy Sam" Sawyer, are sent into North Korea to blow up a secret air base!
With a slightly shaken-up "Happy Sam" stationed outside the base as backup, Sgt Fury and the Howlers attack in their own inimitable style...
Why all the set-up for Nick Fury?
He had recently-appeared in Fantastic Four (V1N21 [1963]) as an eyepatch-wearing CIA colonel (though he's named "Sgt Fury" and wearing ripped Army fatigues on the cover) to help them stop the Hate Monger and reminisce with Reed Richards/Mr Fantastic, whom he'd met during WWII when Reed was an OSS agent.
So we knew the crusty noncom-turned-officer had survived to the (then) present day.
But bigger plans were in store for Nick...
Fury had just replaced The Human Torch and The Thing as Dr Strange's co-feature in Strange Tales as of #135 (1965), making him the first comic character to have two simultaneous strips set in two different time periods!
(Howling Commandos in the 1940s, S.H.I.E.L.D. in the "present day" 1960s!)
Several of the Howlers joined Nick at S.H.I.E.L.D., including Dum-Dum, Gabe, and eventually, Eric Koenig.
Fanboy Trivia:
Eric isn't in this Annual set in the period between World War II and the 1960s because he wasn't even introduced into the WWII-era Howling Commandos comic until six months after the Annual was published (#27 in late 1965)!
And, we finally got to see the only exclusive Sgt Fury-themed Marvel merchandise of the 1960s...a Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos t-shirt (which, unlike most of the other Marvel shirts of the 1960s, had never been reissued by Graphitti!)
Would I love to have a Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos shirt (in XXL, sadly)...
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Monday, May 27, 2024

NoKo Crushers SGT FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS "Commission in Korea!" Part 1

Though Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos were best-known for their World War II exploits...
...many of the current comic readers don't know how they battled Commies in the 1950s!
And, no, this ain't rebooting Marvel history with retroactive continuity like the recent Ben Grimm and Logan mini-series presentation!
This was written and illustrated during the Silver Age of Comics by the original Marvel Bullpen crew and has been officially part of Marvel continuity since!

This tale from Marvel's Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos Annual #1 (1965), gives the details...
We'll observe, Commie...NEXT MONDAY!
In the 1960s, Marvel's Annuals were a mixed bag.
Unlike DC's 80-Page Giants which were all-reprint, Marvel's combined a new lead story with new behind-the-scenes featurettes and pin-ups along with a couple of reprinted stories into a 72-page package for the same 25₵ price as the aforementioned Giants.
This Stan Lee-scripted, Dick Ayers-penciled, Frank Giacoia-inked tale ("Frankie Ray" was Giacoia's pseudonym because he was doing a lot of freelance work for DC at the time.) covered a major, but untold, event in the group's history...their only battle during the Korean War!
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Wednesday, October 13, 2021

Heroic Halloween in Rutland "Rebirth!"

Technically, this material you're about to read is not part of the almost-mythical "Rutland Trilogy"!
But, since it "sets up" the situation for the final chapter, I'm including it as a prelude to the actual issue which you'll see on Monday!

Crusher Creel aka The Absorbing Man, is a long-time Marvel villain.
We now jump ahead a number of pages...
(The first panel is blurred because it really has nothing to do with this situation, but if I PhotoShopped it out, the page would look weird.)
Once more we see real-life Halloween Parade organizer and comics uber-fan Tom Fagan...
(On this page, I simply cut the bottom 2/3rds off since it has nothing to do with this particular plotline!)
We now jump ahead to the end of the story, as The Absorbing Man arrives in Rutland... 
You knew all along who it was, didn't you?
You've now seen how writer Gerry Conway and penciler John Buscema set the stage in Marvel's Mighty Thor #206 (1972) for the conclusion of the Rutland Trilogy!
Note: while DC sometimes did two, three, and occasional multi-part stories (such as the never-reprinted Silver-Age "Death of Superman" we presented HERE), those were the exceptions rather than the rule.
Marvel, on the other hand, was noted for serialized storylines that could go on for a year or more!

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

CoronaVirus Comics CAPTAIN AMERICA "Attack of the Asthma Monster" Part 1

You knew Steve Rogers was a scrawny guy before he was given the Super-Soldier serum...
...but did you know what disease he had?
You'll learn that today!
He did???
Officially, this isn't canon, but it's not an unreasonable concept...
Technically, asthma isn't a disease, but a "medical condition" brought on by a number of causes, but this never-reprinted Marvel/Glaxo 1985 one-shot giveaway was so interesting, we decided to run it anyway!
You'll see the conclusion to this titanic tale...
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