Reading Room: DOC SAVAGE "Television Peril"

Doc Savage, though incredibly-popular in pulps, never made it big in comics.

But it wasn't for lack of trying, as this never-reprinted tale from Shadow Comics #91 (1948) shows!

Oddly, Doc, who doesn't hesitate to utilize captured equipment (like the HellDiver submarine*) in his fight against evil, doesn't adapt this teleportation device in later stories to enable him to reach distant locales faster than otherwise possible!

The writer is unknown, but the art is by Bob Powell's art studio, which was "packaging" (providing editorial and art services) for several titles for the publisher.
Doc Savage went thru a couple of incarnations in the 1940s.
He started out as a backup in Shadow Comics for three issues before receiving his own 20-issue book featured a bare-chested version wearing a hood with a mystic jewel from Tibet that gave him various powers as needed by the scriptwriter.
After the title was cancelled, Doc returned to the back of Shadow Comics, where he was portrayed as a better-than-normal (but not superhuman) investigator battling weird threats, staying to the end of the title in 1949.

Note: there's lots of currently-available Doc Savage material (pulps, comics, movies, and even radio shows), all well-worth picking up (most of them are in my personal collection), but we're be showing only the stuff not included in those volumes!

*The HellDiver was captured by Doc in The Polar Treasure.

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Reading Room: ONE-SHOT HEROES Rainbow

Of all the comic characters inspired by other comic characters...

...this one has to be the silliest of all!

...the next issue of...???

As it turns out, this appearance in the back of Centaur's The Arrow #3 (1941) was the Colorful Crusader's one-and-only foray into superhero action.

Face it, it's not much of a gimmick, and the costume doesn't really show a "rainbow" effect, like Holo-Man, for example...

Art by Don Heck and Joe Giella

...but the concept of a character inspired to become a superhero (albeit one without weapons or powers) from reading a comic book is rather cool.

Written by "Ed Herron" (France Edward Herron aka France Herron), who was a writer/editor at several companies, co-created the Red Skull (with Jack Kirby) and Captain Marvel, Jr. (with Mac Raboy), and was a major contributor to various Superman and Batman series of the 1950s-early 1960s.

Illustrated by Alfredo "Al" Plastino, who went on to better things as one of the two primary artists (along with Wayne Boring) for Superman in the 1940s thru early 1960s (including working with Herron again)!

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Reading Room: NOT WHO YOU THINK: THE ARROW "Smashing the Protection Racket"

No, he's not the guy currently on the CW...

...since that character is based on Green Arrow, who was given that colorful name to avoid confusion with this guy, comics' first archer superhero, as detailed HERE!

Ironically, the CW superhero visually-resembles this character more than DC's Green Arrow,  whose back-story has been Smallville-ized for the tv series.

This tale was written and illustrated by Paul Gustavson, who also created another archer hero who predated Green Arrow...Quality's Alias the Spider!

And, as pointed out by reader DarkMark, this never-reprinted tale appeared in Centaur's Funny Pages V4 #1 (1940).
I had listed another appearance, also written and illustrated by Gustavson.
(This is what happens when you drink the last of the holiday eggnog and then keyboard a blog entry...)

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Reading Room: Golden Age CAPTAIN MARVEL "Plot Against Christmas"

He's not a captain in the Kree starfleet (or his son)...

...or even the Silver Age android who briefly bore the name.

This is the original guy, the one who yelled "SHAZAM!", starring in a Christmas tale about a miser who...well read it for yourself...

This Yultide tale from Fawcett's Captain Marvel Adventures #42 (1945) was illustrated by Pete Costanza with touchups by C C Beck.

The writer, who owed a great deal to Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", is unknown.

Merry Christmas

&

Happy New Year

Reading Room: ZORRO "Mark of Zorro" Part 2

When Last We Left Our Swashbuckling Hero...

Art for inside front cover by Bill Ely

Don Diego Vega, secretly the masked man known as Zorro, battles oppression of the middle and working-class citizens of Los Angeles while romancing (as the dashing Zorro), Lolita, the beautiful daughter of caballero Don Carlos!

Art for inside back cover by Bill Ely

Meanwhile, Sgt Gonzales is in search of the man known as El Zorro (The Fox)...

To be concluded, tomorrow, at Western Comics Adventures™, where the previous chapter also appeared!

This book-length tale in Dell's Four Color #228 (1949) was adapted from the novella "Curse of Capistrano" by Johnston McCulley.

(The title "Mark of Zorro" was first used for the 1920 silent film adapting "Curse" and starring Douglas Fairbanks as Zorro/Don Diego.

Since then, when the story is reprinted, the story tends to use the "Mark of Zorro" title instead of "Curse".)

The writer of the comic adaptation is unknown, but the artist is Bill Ely, who has several hundred comic stories covering every genre from 1937 to 1967 to his credit.

This entry is part of our Retroblogs™ Masks Marathon, celebrating the new Dynamite comic series Masks which combines, for the first time, the major masked mystery men of pulps and comics including The Green Hornet, The Shadow, The Spider, Zorro, The Black Terror, The Green Lama, and Miss Fury (ok, a masked mystery woman), among others.

We'll be presenting more never-reprinted stories featuring these characters throughout the month of December.

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...for duds and provisions!