Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Reading Room: HELL-RIDER "introducing...the Hell Rider" Part 1A

Art by Ross Andru (layout) & Harry Rosenbaum (painting)
A black leather-clad biker breaks into a drug den to rescue a captive woman.
After announcing himself as "Hell-Rider", he tosses around burly cat-costumed criminals like they were action figures, and seems on the verge of victory when suddenly his superhuman strength dissipates and he is easily captured.
Trapped in the fiends' reinforced cellar, the dazed biker reflects on how he ended up in this sorry situation...
Graduating from law school, Brick Reese took a motorcycle trip across America to "find himself" and linked up with a group of bikers called "The Wild Bunch"...after beating the $h!t out of the whole gang, lived a life of hard-riding, hard-drinking, hard-screwing fun!
Being drafted into the Army ended that, and being badly wounded in a Viet Cong attack almost ended his life.
But an army surgeon offered the now-crippled Brick a chance to test Q-47, an experimental drug that could enhance the healing process.
Q-47 worked beyond anyone's expectations, not only healing Brick, but enhancing his strength and reflexes!
Honorably-discharged from the Army, the now-rejuvenated Brick Reese returns home...
You'd think we'd go immediately to Part Two, right?
Nope, because the next chapter in this tale can be found HERE and HERE,starring comics' first Black super-heroine!
After reading that tale, be here tomorrow when we introduce another piece of the puzzle...
Then, we'll run Part 2!
This story from Skywald's Hell-Rider #1 (1971) was written by Gary Friedrich and illustrated by Ross Andru (pencils), Mike Esposito (inks) and Bill Everett (greytones).

Monday, August 13, 2012

Reading Room: HELL-RIDER "introducing...the Hell Rider" Part 1

He's the hard-riding NOW Super-Hero of 1971...
...who, while he had his own 2-issue title, never appeared in a comic book!
Confused, true believer?
Read on...
Tomorrow: 
Home is the (Super)Hero!
As we mentioned earlier, Hell-Rider had his own title, but it was a b/w magazine, not a comic book!
As a result, it wasn't censored by the Comics Code Authority, so things like drug use, extreme violence and near-nudity show up in the story from Skywald's Hell-Rider #1 (1971) written by Gary Friedrich and illustrated by Ross Andru (pencils), Mike Esposito (inks) and Bill Everett (greytones).
We'll be presenting additional information as we go through both issues of the "Now Super-Hero's" saga!

Friday, August 10, 2012

Reading Room: THE OWL "Attack of the Diabolical BirdMen" Conclusion

Before we begin tonight's episode of The Owl, a musical interlude...
Written by Jerry Siegel, illustrated by Tom Gill
If you haven't fled screaming in agony from your iPad, laptop or desktop, we'll continue...
The criminal gang calling itself the Birds of Prey is stopped during an attempt to hijack an armored car by The Owl and Owl-Girl.
The next day, The Owl, in his secret identity of Detective Nick Terry, saves the Chief of Police from a murder attempt by a trained blackbird with poison claws.
Meanwhile, enraged by an editorial mocking them by newspaperwoman Laura Holt, aka Owl-Girl, the evil avians lay a trap for the girl reporter...
Along with DC's simultaneous attempt to turn the military-themed Blackhawks into superheroes, this was probably the worst "updating" attempt of the Silver Age.
Scripted by Jerry Siegel, and illustrated by Tom Gill, this never-reprinted adventure from Gold Key's The Owl #1 (1967) was the first of only two issues of the Golden Age hero's short-lived revival.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Reading Room: THE OWL "Attack of the Diabolical BirdMen"

In 1967, if you couldn't do Batman, do the next best thing...
...and up the "camp" quotient to the MAX!
Actually, dear reader, you'll have to wait until...
Same Owl-Time!
Same Owl-Blog!
 (Sorry, couldn't resist)
Scripted by Jerry Siegel, and illustrated by Tom Gill, this tale from The Owl's premiere issue in 1967 is a perfect example of a viable concept gone horribly wrong.
Siegel had been doing similarly-bad pseudo-campy work for Archie's Mighty Comics imprint (including their revival of The Shadow from #4 to #8), with mediocre art by Paul Reinman.
But taking Lone Ranger artist Tom Gill, and making him do a pseudo-Bob Kane/Sheldon Moldoff pastiche instead of his usual clean storytelling was truly the last straw.
This revival of a Golden Age character would last only two issues!