Friday, June 1, 2012

Reading Room: BLUE BEETLE "Armored Car Robbery"

The Blue Beetle dons his blue chain-mail costume for the first time...
...and displays the BeetleMobile in it's only appearance, ever!
You'll note Blue Beetle now wears distinctive chain-mail armor, but with short sleeves and no domino mask!
(Lucky for him no one recognized him as policeman Dan Garret!)
Next issue he gains the mask, and by his fourth appearance the long-sleeved look he was to keep for the remainder of his career.
This story from Fox's Mystery Men Comics #2 is credited to the the pen-name "Charles Nicholas", but was written by Will Eisner and illustrated by Charles Nicholas Wojtkoski, who later used the name for all his comic work until he retired.

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Friday, May 25, 2012

Reading Room: PHANTOM LADY "Success is No Accident"

For the final time, if the story seems familiar...
...it's because this is yet another re-write of a story of the Fox Comics version of Phantom Lady published several years earlier!
Both ironically and appropriately, this final Phantom Lady tale in Wonder Boy #18 (1955) is based on a story that appeared, not in Phantom Lady, but All Top Comics #9 (1948), entitled "Killer Clown".
This is the final Golden Age Phantom Lady tale on this blog, but it's not the last one in our archives!
There's one more tale, from Phantom Lady #22 (1948), featuring our heroine at the 1948 London Olympics!
It'll appear in our new "sister" blog, Heroines™, when the Olympics open on July 27th!

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

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Reading Room: JET DREAM "Farmer Brown Fiasco"

It's difficult fitting a team into only four pages...
...so Jet Dream usually had solo action stories or a team-up with one of the Stunt-Girl Counterspies!
Unfortunately, because of the 4-page per story limitation, the individual Stunt-Girls never had any real characterization.
Add Joe Certa's passable art using the same facial features for all the female characters, and the only things differentiating the women were hair color and stereotyped accents.
Script for this tale from Man from U.N.C.L.E. #17 (1968) by Dick Wood, art by Joe Certa.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Reading Room: PHANTOM LADY "Man the Kremlin Applauded"

Though she lost her own title for the second time in 1955, Phantom Lady battled on...
...in new stories as a second feature in Ajax/Farrell's Wonder Boy!
Script for this tale from Wonder Boy #17 (1955) is probably by Ruth Roche.
However, the art is not by Matt Baker, and, while competent, is hardly the classic cheesecake we've come to expect of Phantom Lady!
Be here next week to see Phantom Lady's final Golden Age appearance (not counting reprints)!

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

Monday, May 14, 2012

Reading Room: JET DREAM "Day of Infamy"

Is one of the Stunt-Girl CounterSpies a traitor?
Jet Dream must discover the truth in only four pages before it tears the team apart...or worse!
Didn't Ting-a-Ling do something similar because her family was threatened several issues ago?
Script for this tale from Man from U.N.C.L.E. #16 (1968) by Dick Wood (who also wrote the earlier tale so he should have remembered), art by Joe Certa.
(To be fair, Ting wasn't a member of the StuntGirls at that point...nit-pick, nit-pick...)