Monday, January 22, 2024

Russkie-Smashers BLACKHAWK "Threat from the Abyss!"

For a bunch of aviators...
...Blackhawk and his team spend a lot of time underwater, as this adventure from their first DC issue demonstrates!
In fact, all three of the stories in this issue, DC's Blackhawk #108 (1957), feature aquatic, not aerial, action!
DC didn't miss a month when it bought the rights to Blackhawk from Quality Comics, which was closing their business.
Quality's final issue, #107, was published in December, 1956!
DC's premiere issue, #108 rolled off the presses one month later, January, 1957!
Quality had several completed and almost-completed stories ready to go, and DC used them in this issue to meet the already-established deadline with the printer!
Trivia: those "inventory" tales were the last ones featuring the Blackhawks singing triumphantly at the end of the story!
DC dropped that, along with almost all Communist-clobbering plotlines until the final issue of the original run, as we showed HERE, HERE, and HERE!

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Monday, January 15, 2024

Russkie-Smashers DANGER Duke Douglas in "Khyber Incident"

He's a hard-hitting, hard-drinking, hard-loving, Russkie-smashing secret agent...

...who could be played by Daniel Craig (who hadn't been born at the time this tale was told) if there was a Duke Douglas: Secret Agent movie!
Not only is he a Russkie-Smasher, Duke Douglas is a Russkie-Kisser!
What is it about Good Guys and Bad Girls in genre fiction?
Our Hero's premiere tale from Comic Media's Danger #7 (1954) was written by Ken Fitch and illustrated by Don Heck.
Note I emphasized "tale", since he actually premiered on the cover of the previous issue...
...without having an actual story inside the book!
Neither of the stories promoted on the cover feature him!
But every issue after that until the end of the book's run featured two or three stories starring the Agent with a Vest...and you'll be seeing them here!

Monday, January 8, 2024

Russkie-Smashers SUB-MARINER (and Namora) "Unseen Invaders"

Let's celebrate the New Year enthusiastically with even MORE Russkie-Smashing...

...featuring Marvel's (retroactively) first mutant, Prince Namor and his cousin, Namora!
Written and illustrated by Subby's creator, Bill Everett, this tale from Atlas' Sub-Mariner V1N37 (1954) shows that, while Namor is as anti-Russkie as he was anti-Axis in World War II, Americans still don't trust him!
Marvel Multiverse note: the aliens resemble the Badoon, officially-introduced in Marvel's Silver Surfer #2 (1968)...who also used invisibility and flying saucers!
Bill Everett brought the Badoon into his final run on Subby in the 1970s...as allies of Namor's evil cousin Prince Byrrah!
Coincidence?
I think not!

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Monday, December 18, 2023

Russkie-Smashers MARVEL BOY II "Phantom Pen"

...and we're going to close out the year with one more action-packed tale starring him!
Illustrated (and likely written) by Bill Everett, this tale fom Atlas' Astounding #6 (1951) was the next-to-last appearance (and final Russkie-smashing story) starring the character in any form until his revival as The Crusader in the pages of Marvel's Fantastic Four #164 (1975).
Note: due to constant reboots of Marvel Universe continuity since the late 1990s, this is now in dispute.

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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