THE SHADOW "Who He Is and How He Came to Be" Chapter 1

With the most extensive revamp/reboot to the character since the 1960s Radio Comics version...

...by James Patterson and Brian Sitts (now in bookstores and at Amazon)...

...we hereby present the updated (as of the Silver Age) origin/reboot of He Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men from Radio Comics The Shadow, beginning with this entry from #1 (1964)...

To Be Continued

TOMORROW

This ongoing text feature ran through the entire Radio Comics series (1964-1965).

The writer is unknown, but it might have been either Robert Bernstein (who wrote the first couple of issues of the comic, before it became a "campy" costumed superhero title under writer Jerry (Superman) Siegel...

...or Denys Lynds who scripted the updated, superspy-style Shadow novels being published simultaneously by Belmont Books...

...or somebody entirely different!

Only the Shadow Knows!

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The Shadow

by James Patterson and Brian Sitts

CoronaVirus Comics GIANT-SIZED DOC SAVAGE "Master of the Red Death!" Part 1

When Last We Left Our Heroes...

Adventurer Doc Savage and his five associates, having survived an assassination attempt by a gunman in Mayan ceremonial garb at their NYC headquarters, are proceeding to the Central American country of Hidalgo to investigate the suspicious death by unknown disease of Savage's explorer father.
As they come in for a landing at the airport...

Are Monk's buddies dead?

Did Ham's suit get wrinkled?

And, where's the Man of Bronze when you really need him?

Tune in Tomorrow for both the Astounding Answers and This Titanic Tale's Cataclysmic Conclusion
at our "brother" RetroBlog...
Medical Comics!

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Doc Savage

The Man of Bronze

CoronaVirus Comics GIANT-SIZED DOC SAVAGE "The Man of Bronze" Part 1

Who's the superhero whose origin is tied in to deadly disease?

And, ironically, he's one of the few superheroes who's also a practicing MD!

Doc and his buddies go in pursuit of the would-be assassin...
Tomorrow!

at our "brother" RetroBlog, Atomic Kommie Comics!

In the early 1970s, bolstered by the success of Conan the Barbarian, both DC and Marvel attempted to launch other pulp characters who had successful paperback reprint series as comic book titles.

Hoping that the audiences for them would carry over as Conan's had, Marvel acquired the rights to Doc Savage, while DC snagged both The Shadow and The Avenger.

The Doc title lasted only eight issues from 1972-73, but the license remained in Marvel's hands when the George Pal movie came along and Marvel invoked their right to do a comic based on the movie.

Compare with page 7 above.

Since the flick was an adaptation of the premiere novel "The Man of Bronze", which Marvel had already used as the basis for the first two issues of their previous comic, it was decided to repackage that material as a double-sized one-shot to tie-in with the movie's release.

The art was modified to match the appearance of Doc in the movie, substituting an open-collared shirt for his Marvel-created blue vest and a buzz-cut for the James Bama/Bantam paperback "skullcap" (see left).

(I always wondered why Marvel didn't go with the torn-shirt look of the Bantam paperback covers on the comics.

Maybe they didn't want people confusing Doc with their resident torn-shirt aficionado, Nick Fury.

Thankfully, Marvel returned to the torn shirt "look" on the 1975-77 b/w magazine covers by Ken Barr.)

The original two-issue comic adaptation had updated the 1933 novel to the then-present 1970s.

The Giant-Size Doc Savage "re-mastering" modified the technology back to 1930s levels, except the adaptation's replacing of the Mayan assassin's elephant gun with a laser rifle, which remained!

They also re-did Monk's hair from the incorrect black-with-blue-highlights to the red color it had in the pulp stories (and the remainder of the Marvel run).

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Doc Savage

The Man of Bronze

Reading Room G-8 AND HIS BATTLE ACES "Secret Weapon" Part 3

When Last We Left America's Flying Spy...

...he was hot on the trail to find the base from which a new, potent secret weapon had been used by the Germans to devastating effect!

Disguised as a German soldier, G-8 is about to infiltrate the enemy lines...

Written by Leo Dorfman, penciled by George Evans, and inked by Mike Peppe, this section leads us into the villains' underground lair for a James Bond-esque finale...

To Be Concluded, Tomorrow at

War: Past, Present and Future

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...the OOP & HTF 1970 paperback novel

G-8 and His Battle Aces #3

Ace of the White Death

Reading Room G-8 AND HIS BATTLE ACES "Secret Weapon" Part 1

Now that we've given you some background info...

..let's parachute into the story!

Written by Leo Dorfman, penciled by George Evans, and inked by Mike Peppe, the opening chapter sets up G-8's cred as a master spy and tantalizes us with hints of the German plot!

But he's far more than that, as we shall see!

To Be Continued, Tomorrow at

War: Past, Present and Future

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...the OOP & HTF 1970 paperback novel

G-8 and His Battle Aces #1

The Bat Staffel