Reading Room: THE SHADOW "Shiwan Khan's House of Horrors" Part 1

In the 1960s, many classic comic and pulp heroes were revived...

...some not quite as successfully as others!

Be here tomorrow for the campy conclusion,

and, as they used to say on Batman...

"The worst is yet to come!"

Penned by Jerry Siegel and illustrated by Paul Reinman, this tale from Radio Comics' The Shadow #3 (1964) is easily one of the low points of the career of He Who Knows What Evil...!

Apparently seeing The Shadow adapted to a high-adventure/spy format was not selling in comics as well as it did in paperbacks like this...

...the staff at Radio Comics (Archie Comics' 1960s superhero line) decided to go into full campy superhero mode instead, dumping the cloak and slouch hat and giving him a hideous costume and some gimmicks, while retaining the ability to "cloud mens' minds".
Unfortunately, we still remember these never-reprinted stories...

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Reading Room: PHANTOM LADY "Old Shell Game"

Here's a story with our favorite heroine that has a surprise ending...

...because, this time, she's not the only one in an identity-concealing costume!

Transvestite characters weren't a new concept in comic books.

One of the earliest heroes was the first Cat-Man, who dressed as a little old lady to battle crime over fifteen years earlier, as seen HERE and HERE!

By the time of this tale in Phantom Lady #2 (1955), the stories had become a mix of existing unused Fox Comics material and totally-new stories.

The artist (or artists) are unknown, but the writer is probably editor Ruth Roche, as usual.

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Reading Room: SPITFIRE SAUNDERS "Whip"

Yesterday, you read the second version of this story, starring Phantom Lady...

...here's the original (and longer) version of the tale, starring a totally-different heroine from Spitfire Comics #132 (1944)!

Spitfire Saunders made only two appearances, in successive issues of Elliot Comics' Spitfire Comics, which despite the high numbering of this issue (#132), only had two issues!
The art on this story about an extremely competent female spy is by journeyman artist Paul Cooper, working for the Iger Studios, who also supplied art to Ajax/Farrell (where the re-worked version appeared) and Fox Comics.
It's unknown who did the art modifications on the Phantom Lady version of the tale, but odds are Ruth Roche did the extensive editing and re-scripting.

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Reading Room: PHANTOM LADY "Satan's Seal"

This is one of the most unusual Phantom Lady tales you'll ever read...

...because it wasn't meant to be a Phantom Lady story!

In fact, this story in Ajax/Farrell's Phantom Lady #1 (1954) originally appeared a decade earlier, featuring a different character battling Nazis (not Commies), in another publisher's magazine!

The first version was published in Elliot Comics' Spitfire Comics #132 (1944), starring female spy Spitfire Saunders in the first of only two appearances...

...but we're out of room (and time), so you'll see the complete Spitfire Saunders story tomorrow!

Besides, you'll probably want to open both entries in side-by-side tabs or windows so you can compare the stories!

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Reading Room: BLUE BEETLE "UnMasked"

We start our original Blue Beetle run with his final tale...

...where he does a credible Superman imitation, complete with nosy girl reporter!

Gee, Clark...I mean Dan...to think that crook thought you were Super...I mean the Blue Beetle...

Yeah, it's pretty lame.

You'll note the Blue Beetle has pretty much the standard range of super-powers at this point, including strength, flight, and limited invulnerability, all apparently due to the Vitamin 2-X he had been taking since Mystery Men Comics #1 (1939).

Though the art is credited to Charles Nichols (pencils) and Sal Trapani (inks), I seriously doubt Trapani did the inking.

This story in Charlton's Nature Boy #3 (1956) was the last appearance of Dan Garret, the Golden Age Blue Beetle.

The next appearance (with totally-new origin) of any Blue Beetle, would be eight years later in Blue Beetle V2 N1 (1964) with the debut of archeologist Dan Garrett (note the extra "t"), who would discover a mystic scarab that transformed him into The Blue Beetle!

Garrett passed his Blue Beetle identity (though not the scarab-based powers) on to student Ted Kord only two years later.

But when you next see the Blue Beetle here, it'll be his first appearance, from Mystery Men Comics #1, with a radically-different costume and modus operandi!

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