Hero Histories

Thursday, August 9, 2018

MONSTER SOCIETY OF EVIL "Chapter IV: Glaciers Over America"

When Last We Left Our Hero...

...why do I even bother?

The comic does the work for me!

Unless global warming kicks in quickly, this could be a really short serial!

The excitement continues right here on...

FRIDAY

Before TV invaded Amercan homes in the late 1940s, movie serials were used by theatre owners to lure audiences back week after week!

And one of the most succesful ones was...Republic's Adventures of Captain Marvel!

Starring weightlifter-turned-Western star Tom Tyler (who also played The Phantom) as the Big Red Cheese, it was a non-stop thrill ride as Republic's legendary stuntmen performed feats today's wimps need CGI to pull off!

BTW, their SFX crew, the Lydecker Brothers, were no slouches, performing miracles on a shoestring budget!

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Adventures of Captain Marvel

Monday, August 6, 2018

MONSTER SOCIETY OF EVIL "Chapter I: the Pearl of Peril"

Writer Otto Binder and artists CC Beck & Pete Costanza created the first long-form serial for comic books...

...spanning 25 chapters in Fawcett's Captain Marvel Adventures 22-46) over two years (1943-1945)!
So, what are you waiting for?

An obvious question...why is Princess Rajabuti, a victim in this story, listed as one of the villains?

(Look at the list on the double-page spread...)

To Be Continued...

TUESDAY

NOT SAFE FOR WORK COMICS

(for reasons that'll become obvious when you read it!)

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Monster Society of Evil

OOP Oversized Hardcover Reprint from 1989

Friday, August 3, 2018

Monster Society of Evil: Prologue

Beginning on Monday, we'll present the complete Monster Society of Evil serial from Fawcett's Captain Marvel Adventures!

It's not the first time Fawcett tried a multi-part storyline.
Whiz Comics #15 through 18 (1941) presented a plotline running between the Captain Marvel and Spy Smasher strips in the book featuring a brainwashed Spy Smasher trying to stop the war effort and Captain Marvel trying to thwart him...

...which presaged this generation's Superman vs Batman battles of Brawn vs Brain (and high-tech)!
The re-presentation will switch between this blog and fellow RetroBlog Not Safe for Work Comics, depending on if there's racist content in the given chapter.
(Most chapters don't have racist elements!)

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Monster Society of Evil

OOP Oversized Hardcover Reprint from 1989

Saturday, July 14, 2018

Reading Room MAN-BAT "Beware the Eyes of Baron Tyme" Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Anti-Hero...

...Francine (She-Bat) Langstrom, wife of Kirk (Man-Bat) Langstrom is being mind-controlled by the evil mage Baron Tyme and used to murder his enemies in Gotham City!

This has, of course, attracted the attention of...The Batman...

In best super-villain fashion, Baron Tyme survived and returned to fight Jack Kirby's The Demon in a story arc pencilled and inked by Ditko!
Ditko keeps The Batman's face shadowed most of the time, showing only the eye-slits, giving him a really-kool look I'm sorry other artists haven't followed-up on!

For unknown reasons, the next (and last) issue of the series featured a totally-different creative team (except for cover artist Jim Aparo)!
Ditko kept very busy, doing projects like Stalker and one-off tales for the DC mystery and sci-fi anthologies as well as work for other companies like Atlas/Seaboard and Charlton.
He returned to Marvel in 1977, with the explicit mandate he not illustrate anything involving his co-creations Spider-Man or Doctor Strange!
But anything else was fair game, and he worked on everything from Machine Man and The Avengers to Chuck Norris: Karate Kommando!

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