G-8 and His Battle Aces are coming...

One of the major pulp heroes of the 1930s-40s...

...Popular Publications' G-8 and His Battle Aces was a bit of an anachronism since the series was set during World War I!

While such titles about aviators from "The Great War" were not uncommon during the pre-World War II period, they were mostly typical wartime adventures.

But only G-8 featured a near-superhuman hero with a team of diversely-talented pilots and aides battling fantastic foes over the skies of Europe.

Running 110 issues from 1933 to 1944, all written by creator Robert J Hogan, the series had both sci-fi and horror-fantasy tales, mixing genres as the author saw fit!

In 1970, due to the success of Bantam Books' Doc Savage reprints, Berkley Books reprinted the first eight G-8 tales, with the first three reprints using new Jim Steranko art, which we're presenting here.

Unfortunately, G-8 met the fate so many other pulp reprint series (except for Doc and The Avenger) experienced during this period...cancellation!

The story we'll be running starting tomorrow was published before the paperback reprints hit the stands.
In the mid-1960s, Gold Key did a number of one-shots to "test the waters" for reviving classic properties.
Besides a Doc Savage comic adapting the pulp/paperback novel a proposed movie was based on, GK also did Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers...and G-8!

Written by Leo Dorfman, penciled by George Evans, and inked by Mike Peppe, with a kool painted cover by George Wilson featuring actor/model Steve (Doc Savage) Holland as G-8, the tale is AFAIK, an original story based on the characters...

Be Here Tomorrow as the Saga Begins!

Reading Room DOC SAVAGE "Polar Treasure"

The Polar Vortex reminded me of an early Doc Savage novel...

...which was condensed into the shortest comics adaptation I've ever seen of a novel!

Two notes:

1) the flying man on the cover is Ajax the Sun Man, who had his own strip in the book.

(Ajax is not in the Doc Savage tale.)

2) the story may be NSFW due to racial stereotypes common to the 1940s.

The first few issues of the 1940s Doc Savage Comics condensed and adapted Doc pulp novels.

This issue (#3 from 1941) took the 1933 pulp tale "Polar Treasure" and fit it into only eight pages!

Both writer and artist of the adaptation and cover are unknown.

Lester Dent wrote the original novel under the "Kenneth Robeson" house pen-name.

Trivia: both the original and paperback editions of the novel are #4 in their respective series.

(After the first novel, "Man of Bronze", Bantam Books reprinted the stories out of order, going with what they felt were the most exciting tales first.)

Paperback art by Jim Aviati or Lou Feck. Pulp art by Walter M Baumhofer

Bookmark us (if you haven't already) since we have a lot of cool never-reprinted material coming up this year!

Reading Room: DOC SAVAGE "Television Peril"

Doc Savage, though incredibly-popular in pulps, never made it big in comics.

But it wasn't for lack of trying, as this never-reprinted tale from Shadow Comics #91 (1948) shows!

Oddly, Doc, who doesn't hesitate to utilize captured equipment (like the HellDiver submarine*) in his fight against evil, doesn't adapt this teleportation device in later stories to enable him to reach distant locales faster than otherwise possible!

The writer is unknown, but the art is by Bob Powell's art studio, which was "packaging" (providing editorial and art services) for several titles for the publisher.
Doc Savage went thru a couple of incarnations in the 1940s.
He started out as a backup in Shadow Comics for three issues before receiving his own 20-issue book featured a bare-chested version wearing a hood with a mystic jewel from Tibet that gave him various powers as needed by the scriptwriter.
After the title was cancelled, Doc returned to the back of Shadow Comics, where he was portrayed as a better-than-normal (but not superhuman) investigator battling weird threats, staying to the end of the title in 1949.

Note: there's lots of currently-available Doc Savage material (pulps, comics, movies, and even radio shows), all well-worth picking up (most of them are in my personal collection), but we're be showing only the stuff not included in those volumes!

*The HellDiver was captured by Doc in The Polar Treasure.

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Reading Room: DOC SAVAGE & THE SHADOW "Case of the Shrieking Skeletons" Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Heroes...

Art by Stan Manoukian and Dave Stevens

The plot's a bit convoluted, but you can re-read it from the beginning with Part 1 HERE, Part 2 HERE, and Part 3 HERE.

Right now, all you need to know is that Doc Savage and The Shadow have been taken prisoner by an alliance of Nazis and gangsters who are using genetically-modified humans turned into giant monsters who then deteriorate into shambling skeletal zombie-like creatures.

But holding the Man of Bronze and the Master of Darkness is another matter...

Writer Steve Vance tossed in a kool Easter Egg...Professor Reinstein himself, and the "secret government project"!

If you're a fan of a certain Star-Spangled Avenger, you'll recognize the scientist's name!

Professor Reinstein did receive a position at a government facility where he perfected his formula...

 But Professor Reinstein's legacy lives on...

Reading Room: DOC SAVAGE & THE SHADOW "Case of the Shrieking Skeletons" Part 1A

It's the team-up tale too big for just one blog to host...

..combining the two greatest heroes of the 1930s in a horror-themed story just right for the Halloween season!

And who would know more about shadows...than Lamont Cranston?

The tale continues tomorrow, at our "brother" blog Crime & Punishment™!

This never-reprinted tale from Dark Horse's The Shadow & Doc Savage #1 (1995) came out just as the ill-fated Shadow movie starring Alec Baldwin hit movie theaters.

Written by Steve Vance, penciled by Stan Manoukian, and inked by Vince Roucher, it's actually a pretty good combo of the two series' characters and storytelling styles.