Showing posts with label vintage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vintage. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 23, 2025

Russkie-Smashers SILENT INVASION "The Stubbinsville Connection Part 1: Atomic Spies!" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

In the paranoid America of the 1950s, newspaper reporter Matt Sinkage discovers...
Lots of questions, but few answers.
Here's a little background from the authors...
Silent Invasion will return...
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Monday, September 22, 2025

Russkie-Smashers SILENT INVASION "The Stubbinsville Connection Part 1: Atomic Spies!"

Here's a long-lost series that deserves to be revived...
..with it's weird n' wild genre-mixing that's back in vogue in pop culture!
Do We Have to Tell You?
TO BE CONTINUED...TOMORROW!
Writers Larry Hancock & John Ellis Sech and illustrator Michael Cherkas start the saga off with a bang, eh?
Renegade's Silent Invasion #1 (1986) came as a surprise to comics fans at the tail-end of the 1980s b/w explosion.
It wasn't a spoof or rip-off, as most of the era's title's were.
The creative team's only credit before this was a detective strip; Dick Mallet; that appeared in the back of Cerebus for several months!
But publisher Deni Sim saw potential in the presentation they made to her, and gave the go-ahead for a bi-monthly book.
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Monday, June 16, 2025

Russkie-Smashers CAPTAIN ATOM II "Crisis"

Remember the Good Ol' Days...

...when we would negotiate with other countries, and they were the ones who were untrustworthy?
I miss those days...






Written by Joe Gill and illustrated by Steve Ditko, this is a short-but-sweet tale from Charlton's Space Adventures #40 (1961) about beating the Russkies at their own game of deceit and deception by utilizing something...or rather someone...they don't expect!

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Monday, March 31, 2025

Nazi-Punchers / Twice-Told Tale FIREBIRD / BLACKOUT "Secret of the Valkyrie!"

He's a Colorful Nazi-Puncher...

...facing a Nazi woman warrior in a story that's both his first..and final...but not only...story!
Confused?
Keep reading!
"In all his checkered career..."
What "checkered career"?
This tale from Spotlight's Tailspin Comics #1 (1944) was FireBird's only appearance!
But it wasn't this story's first publication!
It's a "twice-told tale", which originally was the final appearance of an ongoing strip about a hero named BlackOut! in Holyoke's Cat-Man Comics #24 (1942).
Berlin-based American newspaper reporter Jack Wayne was arrested on Dec. 9, 1941, when the US declared war against Germany.
Tortured and blinded by the Gestapo, Jack was rescued by the German Resistance and brought to a doctor secretly aiding freedom-fighters, who provided him with a pair of experimental glasses which enabled him to see!
Though not an aviator, the multi-talented ex-reporter operated throughout Germany in Cat-Man Comics #10 through #24, proving equal to any challenge presented!
You'll note the last page of FireBird dropped the original final caption about the character's next appearance.
(Ironic since there weren't any BlackOut tales after this one!)
Plus, the story's splash page was considerably-modified to reflect the character's new phoenix-like name and motif by Spotlight Publications' art director LB Cole, who was noted for his use of color against solid black backgrounds!
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Monday, February 24, 2025

Russkie-Smashers PHANTOM LADY "Television Spies!" 2.0

The Phantom Lady Usually Punched Nazis, but in This Case...
...she did so in a totally-redrawn version of a previous Phantom Lady tale! which now has her taking on Russkie spies!
In the original 1948 version of this tale, the tv images were in full glorious color, and television was just beginning to enter American households, so few people had actually seen a tv screen!
But, by the time of this story in Ajax/Farrell's Phantom Lady #3 (1955), almost half the households in America had tvs, but they were almost all b/w sets.
As a result, the tv screens shown in this version of the story were b/w, the way most Americans experienced video at the time.
Plus, in the original tale, it wasn't made clear if it was industrial spying or international spying!
The artist (or artists) of this tale are unknown, but the writer is probably editor Ruth Roche, as usual.
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Crime Never Pays!
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