MAD-DOG "vs. the Truly Amazing Space Creatures from the Omega Galaxy"

We interrupt "Russkie Smashers" for an important announcement...

WE'RE BEING INVADED!!!
FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES!!!

Mad-Dog's Silver Age-era creator/writer/artist Bob McKay doesn't exist, despite receiving credit on the cover...

...as well as the splash page.
He's the title character of the 1992-94 TV show BOB, the final series starring the late, great, Bob Newhart!

McCay was the creator/writer/artist of the Silver Age Batman-esque character Mad-Dog!
Unlike most Golden and Silver Age creators, he managed to hold on to the copyright to the character!
When, in the "present day" of 1992, Harlan Stone, editor of Ace Comics, contacts Bob and offers to publish new adventures of Mad-Dog, McCay is ecstatic...until he sees that Stone wants to reboot the character as a grungy, homicidal vigilante!
Stone proposes this comic (published by Marvel) which will present both versions!
Note that, for the purposes of this story, actual writer-penciller Ty Templeton and inker Jeff Albrecht are identified as McCay's "assistants"!
You can read Stone's overly-violent Dark Age version right now over at our 'brother" RetroBlog Atomic Kommie Comics by clicking HERE!
And you can watch (yes, watch) the series' origin story at another "brother" RetroBlog, Secret Sanctum of Captain Video, by clicking HERE!

BTW, Russkie Smashers will return next Monday!

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BOB

Complete Series on DVD

from Paramount Home Video on Demand

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Russkie-Smashers BLACKHAWK "Winged Menace!"

Better Russkie-Smashing Through Technology!!!

The Dark Knights utilize real-world technology in their final, never-reprinted, appearance from Quality Comics!

When this tale by writer Robert Bernstein, penciler Dick Dillin and inker Chuck Cuidera appeared in Blackhawk #107 (1956), the deLackner HZ-1 Aerocyle was undergoing tests by the Department of Defense!

Sadly, this rather kool-looking device failed the tests, as detailed HERE.

BTW, a "backpack helicopter" had been posited back in the 1940s, but was deemed not feasable as a weapon.

But that didn't stop sci-fi magazine and comic creatives from utilizing it in their stories!

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Blackhawk

by William Rotsler
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Viet-Cong Wallopers TOD HOLTON: SUPER GREEN BERET "The Curtain Rises!"

Never failing to capitalize on a pop culture trend...

...numerous comics publishers, noticing the popularity of the 1966 hit single Ballad of the Green Berets (by Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler and Robin Moore) quickly produced comics series featuring the elite Army unit.
Most were standard war comics, but one stood out from the rest for sheer weirdness...

What do you get when you combine
the Green Berets

with Teenagers and SuperHeroes?

Why,

SUPER GREEN BERET

of course!

Using his new-found powers of teleportation, telepathy, telekinesis, transmutation, time travel, invulnerability, and super-strength, Tod decides to fight Enemies of Our Country, mostly in present-day Asia, but also traveling through time to the American Revolution and World War II, during his two-issue run!
Yes, it's as hokey as it sounds!
Created by writer Otto Binder (who co-created the Golden Age Captain Marvel and the Silver Age Supergirl) and illustrator Carl Pfeufer, who was a busy artist in the Golden Age doing superhero and western strips at both Fawcett and Timely (Marvel Comics' predecessor), the series ran for only two Annual-sized (64-page) issues.

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Tales of the Green Berets

by Robin Moore and Joe Kubert

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Russkie-Smashers CAPTAIN AMERICA "His Touch is Death!"

For the 4th of July, We Decided to Go with the Russkies' Attempt to Create Their Own Super-Soldier...

...Albeit One Powered by Electricity!

BTW, note the difference between how Electro, the Russkie "Super-Soldier" is shown on the cover and inside, even though both cover and interior art are by the same artist...John Romita Sr!

It's likely they were done a couple of months apart.

This cover-featured story from Atlas' Captain America V1N78 (1954) is written by Don Rico and illustrated by John Romita Sr.

Trivia: The name "Electro" was used by numerous heroes and villains at various comics publishers during the Golden Age, including a heroic robot appearing in Timely's Marvel Mystery Comics for several issues, making Ivan Kronov the second Timely/Atlas/Marvel character (and first villain) to use the name.
There have been two unrelated Marvel villains known as "Electro" since; Max Dillon and Francine Frye.

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Decades

Marvel in the '50s

Captain America Strikes!

(Which reprints this story)
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Russkie-Smashers SPACE ADVENTURES "Captain Atom II '...on Planet X' "

Despite the misleading title, Our Russkie-Smashing Hero never leaves Earth orbit...

...as you'll see in this tale from Charlton's Space Adventures #36 (1960)!

WOW!

Writer Joe Gill and illustrator Steve Ditko jammed a lot into just five pages!

These days, that'd be a whole issue, if not a two-parter!

As you saw, "Planet X" was, in fact, an artificial satellite, not another planet!
But the code-name made for a catchy title for an extremely-action-packed tale, eh?

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Action Hero Archives

Captain Atom

Volume 1