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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The Mystery of the Spitfire who Became a Phantom!

Phantom Lady will be back next week, when we show you how this story...

...was altered/transformed/morphed into this story...

...in a tale of publishing, print production, and paste-ups!

It's a two-day, two-for-one deal you won't want to miss!

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featuring goodies emblazoned with cover art that Fredric Wertham railed against in Seduction of the Innocent.

Before Katniss was...Diana the Huntress!

Long before Katniss Everdeen strung a bow, there was another archer-heroine...

...an ancient Greek/Roman deity who received her own comic series in 1944...Diana the Huntress!

While the unknown writer/artist confuses Greek and Roman mythology (The Roman goddess "Diana" should be the Greek goddess "Artemis". "Mercury" should be "Hermes", etc.), his heart was in the right place, and, admittedly, "Artemis" was a less-familiar name to kids of the 1940s than "Diana".

The series debuted in Yellowjacket Comics #1 (1944), ran in all ten issues of the title, then disappeared!

It's never been reprinted, but we'll be running all ten segments over the next few months!

Watch for them.

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Reading Room: PHANTOM LADY "Ringside Racket"

It's a new decade and a new publisher for Phantom Lady!

But, the stories are still being edited (and probably written) by Ruth Roche with art from the Iger studios!

Though the Comics Code had not yet been instituted when Phantom Lady #5 came out in 1954, it's effects were being felt throughout the comics business.

(BTW, though it's #5, this is the first issue of Phantom Lady by Ajax/Farrell.

It carried over the numbering of the short-lived teen-humor book Linda since the publishers didn't want to pay for a new second-class postage license, which was required for each periodical!

It gets even weirder when the next issue of Phantom Lady is numbered as #2!)

Horror and crime comics, which had become the best-selling genres after World War II, were being cancelled en masse due to public pressure provoked by Dr Fredric Wertham and his crusade against comic books, which he claimed were the primary cause for a wave of juvenile delinquency sweeping the nation!

With over half their lines canceled, publishers looked for safe, even innocuous, material to publish.

Ajax/Farrell went with material from Iger Studios, who had an assortment of Fox Comics character stories that were in various stages of production when Fox went out of business in 1950.

While they wanted to use the name value of Phantom Lady, the publishers were aware that she had been one of the primary targets of Dr Wertham's scandalous screed Seduction of the Innocent.
So, the existing art was modified to cover up her exposed cleavage and replace her short skirt and oft-exposed panties with gym-type shorts.
All-new art also followed the modified costume design.
The artist is unknown, but the style is clearly the same as the later Fox stories, so it's probably at least Jack Kamen pencils.

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Reading Room: NATURE BOY "Origin of Nature Boy"

Long before pro wrestler Ric Flair usurped the name...

...Nature Boy stood for truth, justice, and ancient gods (Huh?) as seen in his first appearance.

Rescued by "gods" who control various aspects of nature, he's given a portion of each of their powers, ala the Golden Age Captain Marvel...
Neptune--water
Gusto--wind
Furo--fire
Eartha--earth
Electra--lightning
Allura--love
Azura--skies
Friga--cold
...and he didn't have to say something like "SHAZAM!" to do it!
(Yeah, I know a couple of the deities overlap, and only one was an actual mythological god, but why quibble?)
Nature Boy only had three issues of his own title (which started with #3) at Charlton Comics before he disappeared from the comics scene..until now!But, within those three issues, the seeds were planted for an entire superfamily of Nature-heroes including Nature Man (an adult version of the hero from the future) and female counterpart Nature Girl.
This isn't surprising, since he was conceived by Jerry Siegel (co-creator of Superman) who knew a thing or two about that sort of thing.
To add to his hero cred, Nature Boy was drawn by John Buscema, who later did Conan, Avengers, and damn near everything at Marvel from the late 1960s thru the 1990s, so even if the stories were a bit silly, they looked damn good!

Nature Boy should be considered one of the first Silver Age heroes since his premiere was in 1956, just a couple of months before The Flash re-emerged in Showcase #4!
On that basis, we at Atomic Kommie Comics™ have revived Nature Boy as part of our Lost Heroes of the Silver Age of Comics™ line, on t-shirts, messenger bags, mugs and other kool kollectibles!
He was one of the first, but hardly one of the worst...