Reading Room: NOT WHO YOU THINK "Green Giant"

This is a "lost" tale I've been waiting a long time to see...

...ever since I held a "slabbed" copy of Green Giant Comics #1 (1940) in my hands and wondered what was inside!

When I did a profile of the character,  I emphasized that the info about the story was second-hand, as I had not actually read the tale!

Well, we can now read the one (and only) adventure of the Green Giant...

OK, several things cleared up, including...

His last name is Brentwood with no first name given!

The costume controls his growth (much like the Silver-Age Atom), not pills, gas, or a serum (like Ant-Man/Giant-Man/Goliath/Yellowjacket/whoever Hank Pym is this week).

Elements of the costume are different. (Bare legs and no gloves in the story)

And one big mystery is presented...

He's a stockbroker?

How the hell did he become the Green Giant and end up with that size-changing garb?
Did he acquire controlling stock in a laboratory?
We'll never know the answers...

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3-D: CAPTAIN 3-D "Man from the World of 'D'"

Get out the red/blue 3-D glasses (red on the left, blue on the right)...

 ...cause it's 3-D Week at all the RetroBlogs™!

Script by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, Art by Jack Kirby (pencils) and Joe Simon, Mort Meskin and Steve Ditko (inks).

In the early 1950s, "3-D" using red and green prints of simultaneously-shot movie footage from cameras a couple of feet apart. (note: sometimes blue was used instead of green, but the stereotype of 3-D is a red / green lens juxtposition.)

When a viewer wore glasses like these they would perceive the two projected images as a single 3-D image!

Taking comic book line art and modifying it to produce a similar 3-D effect was technically simple, so almost every company attempted at least one 3-D book between 1952-55.
Most were 3-D versions of existing comics including Superman, Batman, Tales from the Crypt, even Katy Keene.
However, Captain 3-D was the Simon & Kirby team's attempt to jump on the 3-D bandwagon with NEW material.

As you've just read, Captain 3-D had both a cool premise and nice set-up, playing up the use of glasses to both empower the hero and perceive villains. (The John Carpenter movie They Live! used a similar gimmick)

Unfortunately, a legal battle involving the 3-D process all but killed the financial viability of producing 3-D books, and, though material was already finished, there was never a second issue of Captain 3-D!

Special treat: If you want to see this story in traditional full comic book color (but 2-D), go to Atomic Kommie Comics™ now.

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Reading Room: PHANTOM LADY "Indian Tiger Murders!"

Here's a Phantom Lady story that gives new meaning to the phrase "catfight"!

Despite the caption above, this issue (#23) of Phantom Lady was her last one at Fox Comics.

I find it amazing that Senator Knight doesn't realize his daughter is Phantom Lady.

(I'd given up on Don Borden having more than a couple of functioning brain cells long ago.)

Story probably by Ruth Roche, art likely by Jack Kamen.

This is the first of three stories from the final Fox issue of Phantom Lady.

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Reading Room: PHANTOM LADY "Man Who Lost His Stuff!"

Spring Training is about to begin for Major League Baseball...

...but, no matter the season, the pulchritudinous Phantom Lady always hits a home run with us!

This tawdry tale from Fox's All Top Comics #16 (1949) was probably written by Ruth Roche, definitely penciled and partially-inked by Jack Kamen, and partially-inked by Matt Baker.

Oddly, though the Phantom Lady is based in Washington DC (her dad is a US Senator), the writers didn't use the existing Washington Senators or a surrogate like the "DC Representatives" or the "Washington Congressmen" or somesuch.

For those keeping chronological score, we skipped the second story from Phantom Lady #22, since it featured our heroine traveling to London and getting involved in the 1948 Olympics.

We'll be running that one in late July, around the time the Olympics open.

Next up will be the final Fox Comics issue of Phantom Lady, then her final All Top Comics appearance.

After that, we'll present her Ajax/Farrell stories from both her own title and her back-up tales in Wonder Boy!

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Reading Room NOT WHO YOU THINK: FireBird and Valkyrie

Nope, he's not the female Mighty Avenger, (obviously)...

...and she's not another Mighty Avenger (and former Defender)...

...nor AirBoy's aviatrix nemesis from the 1940s...

...but they are a one-shot hero from the 1940s and his female nemesis in a tale from TailSpin #1 (and only), published in 1944.

I think you'll be able to tell who's who...

"In all his checkered career..."

What "checkered career"?
This was FireBird's only appearance!
The "aviator goggles-helmet and cape" ensemble was used by several heroes including Spy Smasher and the original Phantom Eagle, so it could be a reworked version of one of their tales.

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