Monday, June 10, 2024

Russkie-Smashers MARVEL BOY II "Blast of Doom!"

Even though he was raised on Uranus, Robert Grayson is as all-American as anyone...
...and he'd defend the good 'ol USA against any and all Commie threats, whether they're Chi-Coms, North Koreans, or Russkies!
Note: the "Astros Invasion" involved an alien race, not Houston's baseball team (which didn't exist when this story was published in Atlas' Marvel Boy #2 (1951)!
Some days you just gotta let your inner nerd out!
Patriotic and a planet-saver!
Whatta guy!
Illustrated and likely written by Bill Everett, an under-appreciated creative who worked in comics from the beginning of the Golden Age in 1938 to the Bronze Age, when he passed away in 1973.

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which includes all of Marvel Boy's 1950-51 appearances as well as the 1953 re-intro of Captain America, Human Torch and Sub-Mariner
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Monday, June 3, 2024

NoKo Crushers SGT FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS "Commission in Korea!" Conclusion

...the Howling Commandos under Colonel "Happy Sam" Sawyer, are sent into North Korea to blow up a secret air base!
With a slightly shaken-up "Happy Sam" stationed outside the base as backup, Sgt Fury and the Howlers attack in their own inimitable style...
Why all the set-up for Nick Fury?
He had recently-appeared in Fantastic Four (V1N21 [1963]) as an eyepatch-wearing CIA colonel (though he's named "Sgt Fury" and wearing ripped Army fatigues on the cover) to help them stop the Hate Monger and reminisce with Reed Richards/Mr Fantastic, whom he'd met during WWII when Reed was an OSS agent.
So we knew the crusty noncom-turned-officer had survived to the (then) present day.
But bigger plans were in store for Nick...
Fury had just replaced The Human Torch and The Thing as Dr Strange's co-feature in Strange Tales as of #135 (1965), making him the first comic character to have two simultaneous strips set in two different time periods!
(Howling Commandos in the 1940s, S.H.I.E.L.D. in the "present day" 1960s!)
Several of the Howlers joined Nick at S.H.I.E.L.D., including Dum-Dum, Gabe, and eventually, Eric Koenig.
Fanboy Trivia:
Eric isn't in this Annual set in the period between World War II and the 1960s because he wasn't even introduced into the WWII-era Howling Commandos comic until six months after the Annual was published (#27 in late 1965)!
And, we finally got to see the only exclusive Sgt Fury-themed Marvel merchandise of the 1960s...a Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos t-shirt (which, unlike most of the other Marvel shirts of the 1960s, had never been reissued by Graphitti!)
Would I love to have a Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos shirt (in XXL, sadly)...
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Monday, May 27, 2024

NoKo Crushers SGT FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS "Commission in Korea!" Part 1

Though Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos were best-known for their World War II exploits...
...many of the current comic readers don't know how they battled Commies in the 1950s!
And, no, this ain't rebooting Marvel history with retroactive continuity like the recent Ben Grimm and Logan mini-series presentation!
This was written and illustrated during the Silver Age of Comics by the original Marvel Bullpen crew and has been officially part of Marvel continuity since!

This tale from Marvel's Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos Annual #1 (1965), gives the details...
We'll observe, Commie...NEXT MONDAY!
In the 1960s, Marvel's Annuals were a mixed bag.
Unlike DC's 80-Page Giants which were all-reprint, Marvel's combined a new lead story with new behind-the-scenes featurettes and pin-ups along with a couple of reprinted stories into a 72-page package for the same 25₵ price as the aforementioned Giants.
This Stan Lee-scripted, Dick Ayers-penciled, Frank Giacoia-inked tale ("Frankie Ray" was Giacoia's pseudonym because he was doing a lot of freelance work for DC at the time.) covered a major, but untold, event in the group's history...their only battle during the Korean War!
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Monday, May 20, 2024

Russkie-Smashers ATOMIC ATTACK! "Tomorrow's War!"

RUSSKIES!
In 1953, we thought we'd still be fighting them in the not-so-distant future...
... of 1972!
Now that's scary!
This wild tale was from the first issue of a "future war" title from the 1950s called Atomic Attack!
(It was called simply Attack for it's first four issues and added "Atomic" to the title as of the fifth issue, so the first issue of Atomic Attack was #5!)
Oddly, only the lead story in each issue was future-based!
The other tales were set in contemporary (Korean War) times!
Sadly, because the publisher, Youthful Publications, is long defunct and left no successor company, there are no records of the writer or artist(s) for this story!

Monday, May 13, 2024

Russkie-Smashers SPURS JACKSON AND HIS SPACE VIGILANTES "Spurs Sees RED!"

...once more with Spurs Jackson and His Space Vigilantes battling Commies...piloting a flying saucer!
(Hey it was the 1950s!)
Sadly, the Russkies didn't even salvage a crashed alien ship and retro-engineered it's tech.
It's just a disguised Flying Wing...which both we and they were working on at the time.
(We were also working on our own flying saucers, but don't tell the Russkies!)
Art was by John Belfi, with a script by Walter (The Shadow) Gibson!.