CoronaVirus Comics CAPTAIN AMERICA "Attack of the Asthma Monster" Conclusion

When Last We Left the Star-Spangled Avenger and His New-Found Friends...

...the Asthma Monster attacked a school, using a spray to cause everybody to display symptoms of the medical condition!

The only two people unaffected are two asthmatic students, John and Ruth, who had just taken their meds when the villain attacked!

Captain America, who has yet to encounter the fiend, takes the two eyewitnesses along as he tries to figure out where the criminal will strike next...

HE DID???

Read on, True Believer...

Written by Louise Simonson, penciled by Alex Saviuk, and inked by Fred Fredricks (except the cover which Al Milgrom inked), this never-reprinted 1985 one-shot promotional comic by Marvel and the pharmaceutical company Glaxo spawned a sequel after the Asthma Monster escaped from custody!

You'll see it after we present Hero History's contribution to the annual RetroBlogs Summer Blogathon...

...a never-reprinted multi-part tale of another iconic hero laid low by disease!

Bookmark Us and Watch for It!

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Captain America

75th Anniversary Vibranium Collection

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...

Next Tuesday!

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Captain America

75th Anniversary Vibranium Collection

CoronaVirus Comics PLASTIC MAN "Fight Against Germ Warfare!"

Perhaps the least-likely superhero to deal with either the Korean War or biological warfare...

...was the usually light-hearted Ductile Detective, Plastic Man!

As you can see, this never-reprinted tale from Quality's Plastic Man #38 (1952) is a loooong way from his usual surreal antics.

After World War II, while most surviving superheroes were going from serious to light-hearted, Quality's characters took a dive into the Dark Side of the pool, following whatever trend was popular at the moment!

Monsters (including vampires, zombies, and werewolves), Korean/Russkie/Chinese Communists, and aliens from outer space became their primary opponents!

For other characters like Blackhawk and Kid Eternity, it wasn't much of a transition since they had battled fairly realistic Nazis and Japanese both on the battlefield and on the homefront, but the usually-fun Plas went through a particularly-jarring change as writer/artist Jack Cole departed his creation early in 1950!

The decidedly non-humorous trend continued until Plas was laid to rest in 1956.

Though DC bought up the Quality Comics line that year, the only titles they continued were Blackhawk, G.I. Combat, Heart Throbs and the short-lived Robin Hood Tales.

Plas languished without even a reprint until he was revived in 1966 in all-new stories in a short-lived series!

(Note: around the same time, IW/Super Comics reprinted several issues of Plas's Golden Age book since they had purchased the actual printing plates from a facility where they had been abandoned by Quality.

The timing appears to have been a coincidence.)

Since then, he's been revived and revamped several times under a variety of creatives including Kyle Baker and Phil Foglio, and eventually incorporated into the DC mainstream universe.

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Plastic Man 80-Page Giant

Featuring classic tales from each of his eras (Golden Age/Silver Age/Bronze Age)