CosmoCat & SuperDuper Mouse

When you think of Atomic Kommie Comics™, you don't usually think of funny animals.
Well, it's time you did...
We're reintroducing two more long-lost superheroes from the 1940s. We've done that many times before in our Lost Heroes of the Golden Age of Comics™ line.
This time, there's a twist...
They're funny animals, and they're for kids only!
Cosmo Cat, like many other superheroes, was created by an accident that would kill most normal people (or animals).
In his case it was dropping a bomb on his foot.
The fact that he was standing in an atomic power plant at the time might have had something to do with his survival. (Scientific accuracy was not one of the strong points of Golden Age stories...)
After gaining the usual super-powers of invulnerability (which all animated animal characters have to an extent, Ask Wile E. Coyote!) super-strength, and flight, he renewed his powers by taking Cosmic Catnip Capsules!
Despite having the power of flight, he rode in a cat-rocket when traveling from his base on the Moon to battle crime on Earth.
He was one of the last of a wave of 1940s super-animals including Super Rabbit (ironically from Timely/Marvel) and Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, the animal surrogate of the Golden Age Captain Marvel.

We're also offering the FIRST of that wave...Super Mouse (although we're calling him "SuperDuper Mouse" to avoid wrath of the owners of the Big Man in Blue! (and, no, Super Mouse was not a DC character!)
Super Mouse also took a controlled substance to maintain his powers; in his case cheese produced from the milk of a "super-cow"! (We won't dwell on the implications of chemical/radiation-enhanced animals, at least not while chewing on our genetically-manipulated cheeseburger...)

At any rate, we're offering several images of each furry hero (plus SuperDuper Cat and other funny animals) at Tykes, Toddlers & Tiny Tots™.
Please note: while we offer the usual assortment of mugs, mousepads and other tchochkies, the clothing is infant, toddler, and kid sizes only!
And, they make great Christmas gifts (hint, hint)

Video Fridays: THE GREEN HORNET in "The Preying Mantis"

Continuing our weekly feature "Video Fridays"...

The spotlight is on Kato, as he and The Green Hornet battle a normally-benevolent Chinese secret society whose younger members are extorting "protection" money from helpless Chinatown business owners.
In addition, the society (or "tong") is being secretly manipulated by white gangsters using one of the tong members, Low Sing, as a cats-paw.
The Hornet wants to end the protection racket by removing Low Sing from his position of power by exposing the gangsters' influence on him.

Side Notes: When people mention The Green Hornet tv series, this is the episode they usually refer to. It was the featured episode (due to it's emphasis on Chinese martial arts) in a compilation movie released theatrically shortly after Bruce Lee died.
This is the ep for Bruce Lee fans as he finally gets to strut his stuff in solo combat against multiple foes! Lee choreographed the fights, including the one-on-one finale with Low Sing. Rumor has it that most of the tong members participating in the climactic fight scene were students from Lee's dojo.
It's the only episode where Kato is defeated in hand-to-hand combat as a masked Low Sing attacks him from behind early in the ep.
Besides blasting a door and a tommy-gun with it, The Hornet uses the Hornet Sting extended to full-length as a fighting staff several times in this episode.
There are things in this ep that beg the question; what's Kato's ethnicity in the tv series? On the radio show he's said to be "Oriental", which became Filipino after World War II began. In the two 1940s movie serials, he was Korean. In the 1980s comic and the current "graphic novels", he's Japanese. In this episode, he's familiar with Chinatown and many of it's residents, especially the lovely Mary Chang. He speaks Chinese, and translates conversations between tong members for the Hornet's benefit. Plus, he's well aware of social conventions and procedures of the tong itself. Of course, he's well-versed in the Chinese martial art of gung-fu. Is he Chinese? It's never specifically stated.
Curiously, at the end of the episode, when Britt Reid, Lenore Case, Mike Axford and the previously-blackmailed businessmen celebrate over dinner at one of the businessmen's restaurant, Kato is nowhere to be seen!
Weird Trivia: the toy company that resurrected the 1960s Captain Action action figure line 10 years ago with both a reissued Green Hornet costume and a never-before done Kato costume was called "Playing Mantis"!
Here's the tenth episode produced and aired; "The Preying Mantis".

The Doctor is IN...and he's STRANGE!

Initially called "Doctor Strange" scientist Hugo Strange became a superhero in Thrilling Comics #1 by ingesting a substance he created called Alosun, obtained by distilling the atoms of the Sun, which gave him super-strength and near-invulnerability.
He couldn't actually fly, but could leap great distances like the Hulk and the Golden Age Superman.
Like his inspiration, pulp hero Doc Savage, he initially wore a standard business suit, which would become shredded during the course of that issue's adventure,
But within several months, this became dark jodhpurs, riding boots, and a red safari shirt, which quickly became a faster-to-draw red t-shirt.
Again, like Doc Savage, he didn't have a secret identity, so there was no need for a mask, but Strange did have an unusually-large pompadour to give him obvious visual distinction.
When kid sidekicks became a trend, Doc introduced Mike, who wore a similar outfit. Reports conflict as to whether Mike received Alsoun or not, and since the Thrilling Comics I've scanned are all slabbed, I have no way of confirming if Mike was super-powered or not.
While he never received his own title, Doc not only ran in Thrilling Comics, but as one of the features in the anthology America's Best Comics, where the covers showed him interacting with other Nedor Comics heroes like The Black Terror and Fighting Yank. (Though inside, the heroes all had separate strips and didn't work together!)

Doc retained the Thrilling Comics cover spot for most of his run, only losing it for two months to the patriotic American Crusader, before regaining it until #60, when a jungle heroine named Princess Pantha replaced him. (Ironically, his final cover on issue #59 showed him rescuing a jungle girl, but not, as reported, Princess Pantha!). Doc stayed as a backup until #65, when he disappeared.

But you can't keep a good hero down.

In the 1990s, Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Swamp Thing) revived Doc as one of the Terra Obscura heroes in his Tom Strong series. (He had already used Doc as the visual template for the Tom Strong character.)

Working off the Earth-One/Earth-Two alternate-Earth concept made popular at DC Comics, Alan remade Doc Strange into Tom Strange (changing his name from "Hugo Strange" to "Thomas Hugo Strange" and making him into a Golden Age variation of Tom Strong!)

The concept proved popular enough that a spin-off book entitled Terra Obscura, starring Tom Strange and his new crime-fighting companion/wife, Princess Pantha (who had replaced Doc in Thrilling Comics!) ran for 12 issues!

Doc has also appeared in Alex Ross' Project SuperPowers series, though simply called "Doc", to avoid confusion (and potential trademark conflict) with Marvel's Doctor Strange.
We at Atomic Kommie Comics™ have also revived Doc as part of our Lost Heroes of the Golden Age of Comics™ line!
There are four classic covers (including his FIRST appearance) on a variety of collectibles including t-shirt, mugs, messenger bags, and other cool stuff as well as a Classic Doc Strange 2010 12-Month Calendar with a dozen different covers including his first and last!
Any of them would make great Christmas gifts, especially in conjunction with the trade paperbacks of the Project SuperPowers Golden Age revival series or Terra Obscura! (Hint, hint!)
The Doctor is in, and he's ready for action!

Video Fridays: THE GREEN HORNET in "The Ray is For Killing"

NOTE: Fixed the YouTube links to provide bigger images.
Continuing our weekly feature "Video Fridays"...

The Green Hornet and Kato face art thieves armed with a laser rifle!

Except for the two-part series finale, "Invasion from Outer Space", this was the most outlandish episode of the series.
Usually, the show was a straight "detectives with masks" format, dealing with gangsters, extortionists, etc.
No flashy costumed villains.
No super-weapons (except The Hornet's, of course).

Curiously, there's no explanation as to how these criminals got their hands on a laser, who taught them how to use it (or who's gonna fix it if it breaks), or why they're not using it for more lucrative crimes.
SideNotes:
We don't know who built the laser. These guys didn't have the scientific background to do so. Was there a mad scientist running around the city?
Why didn't The Hornet take the laser and incorporate it into his weaponry? As it is, leaving it for the police left open the possibility that they could adapt it and use it against him and Kato!
The laser itself is shown to be powered by simply plugging it into an electrical outlet! 110 or 220 volts? It also conveniently fits into a suitcase.
There's location shooting in the Los Angeles storm drain system, both inside the tunnels (where the Black Beauty's green headlights really glow with an eerie effect unseen any other time in the series), and outside using some of the same viaducts seen in Terminator 2 and THEM.
Though it's the ninth episode aired, this was the second episode shot, after "Programmed for Death".
We're using a new YouTube provider, HornetNest1000, so you'll notice a slight difference in the openings of the individual segments, though the picture and sound quality are equal to Michelle66's work.
Enjoy.

Call Her Miss Masque...Call Her Masquerade!

Debuting in Exciting Comics #51, Miss Masque was another of the line of rich socialites-turned-masked crimefighters in the Golden Age which included The Shadow, The Batman, and The Green Hornet!
Diana Adams had no superpowers or abilities, just her keen deductive mind and a pair of .45 automatics. And, unlike her male contemporaries, she didn't have a sidekick or aides!
Clad in bright red cape, mini-dress, gloves, and slouch hat, she pursued criminals and saboteurs thru several issues of Exciting Comics, appearing on the cover only once (#53) during her run, before transferring over to America's Best Comics, where she teamed up (on the covers) with other heroes, most notably The Black Terror, even though they didn't appear together inside the comic! (They all had seperate strips!)

Also, she seemed to lose parts of her wardrobe when she changed homes, as her fedora disappeared along with the midriff of her costume (see left), making her predate the trailer-trash look of Britney Spears by decades! (Maybe it was her summer ensemble!)
When superheroes faded away after the end of World War II, so did Miss Masque.
Since the 1990s, she's been revived by several publishers, most notably, by writer Alan Moore (of Watchmen fame) in DC Comics' America's Best Comics imprint (ironic, eh?), and artist Alex Ross in Dynamite Entertainment's Project SuperPowers series as well as a mini-series under her new code-name of Masquerade!
In this revival, she's part of a trio of  psychically-linked, red-garbed superheroines (including The Woman in Red and Lady Satan) called The Scarlet Sisters!
We at Atomic Kommie Comics™ have also "revived" Miss Masque / Masquerade by digitally-restoring and remastering several of her best Golden Age cover appearances (including her first) on a line of t-shirts, mugs, and even calendars as part of our Lost Heroes of the Golden Age of Comics™ line of kool kollectibles!

She was a woman ahead of her time...but her time has finally come!

PS: Pick up the Project SuperPowers and Masquerade comics! They're the best Golden Age revival books out there!