Redartz: Greetings, comics fans! We talk frequently and at length here at BitBA about our favorite heroes, titles, and companies. And mainly those discussions center around The Big Two, Marvel and DC. But those guys certainly don't have a total lock on heroic comics. In the Golden age, of course, there were many companies churning out comics with heroes and heroines, costumed and otherwise. Indeed, some of those vintage characters ended up being absorbed by Marvel or (more likely) DC, such as Blackhawk and Captain Marvel.
But we're talking Bronze age, so I'm going to narrow the focus to the Silver and Bronze (I doubt many of us were buying Doll Man or Lady Luck off the stands). Even with that limitation,there are still many many characters whose adventures were told in beautiful newsprint over those fine eras. Charlton (Hong Kong Phooey, E-Man), Gold Key (Dr. Solar), and even Archie Comics (The Shield, Superteen and Pureheart the Powerful) offered numerous heroic titles. Some of those you will see in our cover cavalcade below. And not to ignore the 80's, when the indies started making some noise: several fine examples from those producers are represented as well (Joshua Quagmire's "Cutey Bunny" was a guilty pleasure of mine). Actually, pretty much every company making comics dipped a toe into the adventure hero pond (with the possible exception of Harvey Comics, unless you count Casper).
So here's some familiar and not-so-familiar books from 'the other guys'. How many others can you come up with? Did you actually read / collect any of these? Which would you recommend, and which were best left for the dime bin (not even good enough for Marti's Quarter box)? Have at it, all!
15 comments:
I tried out most of the Atlas titles off the rack in '75.
My favorite was The Phoenix, was a bit disappointed when he became The Protector.
Guess it didn't really matter as it would be the last issue.
A friend did give me a couple of Gold Key Lone Ranger comics, which I enjoyed.
Could never find them to buy at the time though, seems my drug store didn't carry any
Gold Key (or Dell and Charlton for that matter).
Decades later I have got some E-Man with those Rog stories in the back.
Another solid topic, Red.
(Nice research w/ the cover examples, too--)
TBH, through the entire decade of the 70's (my primary youthful comics-aware era), it would be considered outright blasphemy or treachery or paganism-- or something-- within my small circle of comics-loving peers to even pull an "other guy" super-hero book out of the spinner rack for a quick perusal. Derision would be HEAPED. Mightily and relentlessly. It simply Was. Not. Done. Heck, DC's titles were only barely, begrudgingly tolerated, for that matter. We wuz MARVEL to the bone, we wuz. The one brief exception was Atlas Comics' blip on the radar, but they disappeared before they could be much more than a curiosity. (IRON JAW was a book that grabbed me from that group- though I don't have any of them anymore--)
But there are two particular books that I always had to pull my hand away from, lest I be observed perusing their forbidden contents: DOCTOR SOLAR . . . and MAGNUS: ROBOT FIGHTER. Those consistently lovely painted covers never failed in their mission to nearly "make me buy this book"-- although I still abstained to the very end. And the last time I was in an LCS, there were, like, a zillion issues of DR SOLAR in the 5 for $1.00 bin-- and they still grabbed me-- but I put them back in favor of picking up most of the reprint run of E-MAN instead, from the same bin.
Glad you brought late Bronze offerings into the conversation, though. If we do get into that early/mid 80's explosion of independents, it's just a flippin' gold mine. I honestly like NEXT MEN for the first several issues, although it strikes me as a very example of seriously de-compressed story-telling. Not a fast developer. The parody-heroes of that time were also delightful-- GROO had a home at, what, three publishers before he finally landed at Epic/Marvel? I also acquired a small batch of MEGATON MAN from a departing grad student-- a hoot of a comic as well, although it faded quickly. My far and away favorite from that era, though, as I've oft mentioned was and is THE TICK-- a wonderful labor of goofy fanboy/creator love, that first issue. Which then found its legs over an initial production run that was so sporadic as to be nearly fatal. In fact, I gave my wife a gift-membership in the MOAD (Mystic Order of Arachnid Vigilance) at the time. She's member #1212. The kit is in a framed shadowbox in our downstairs bathroom. . .
As we then move into the so-called Modern Era (does it have another designation now?), I thought INVINCIBLE was an awfully good, albeit sometimes disturbingly gruesome, book. One of the view I sometimes wish I'd kept up with. . .
HB
Man Red, you hit a fond memory! I put a lot of miles in my bike hitting the little drug stores in Crown Point Indiana when the news agency with two spinner racks would go stale!
I found odd things like EMan and such and grabbed them! Atlas preceded eman by a few years as I recall and they were all front and center on the spinners with a major presence! Man what a joy!
Sad story: I am cleaning out my collection to make space. I currently have a few Atlas I am probably going to take to Goodwill. The eBay is just essentially a give away on these cherished memories. If anyone out there wants to pay the postage.,, I am happy to forward :)
I was a 100% Marvel fan with zero interest in anything else.
If Humanbelly reads this...
...HB, thanks very much for taking the time in the previous comments section to explain the difference between a remake and a reboot. What you said made complete sense :)
Colin: Yep, you would have fit right in with our circle. There is no soul more certain of what's The Best (and less willing to entertain alternatives) than an adolescent boy, I'm thinkin'. . .
And my pleasure-- it was a darned good question. Worth thinking through an answer very clearly before trying to put it into words.
HB
HB, et al. Are you able to formulate an answer fairly quickly to BItBA questions? I often find them to be deep, thoughtful, even profound and find myself answering impulsively because I would need days to think them through otherwise!
CH47-- I usually tend to compose as I go-- and then spend WAY more time on it than I can really afford-- ha! 'Cause I sit and ruminate in-process.
I surely wouldn't ramble, wander, over-write, and contradict myself NEARLY as much if I took more time to think through most of these replies, I betcha. (Yesterday was a happy case where I had an opportunity to compose myself a bit more---)
There's a great quote that's been attributed to a number of writers (Twain, Pascal, Cicero--) that effectively says, "I apologize for writing such a long letter; I didn't have time to write a short one." Man, truer words were ne'er etc. . .
HB
HB - truer words were never written about Gold Key where you write “those lovely painted covers never failed to make me almost buy them!” Huge LOL!
As I sit in the airport I recall really digging Chaykin’s “Flagg”series from the 80s that I read in the 90s LOL. Also he crafted my absolute fav Atlas cover for the Scorpion (before Atlas changed him into a blue uniform superhero).
Also there was a gorgeous, really lush larger-sized hardback put out by Byrne Hogarth telling the origin of Tarzan, in the early 1970s. It is of a style and quality that invokes Michael Angelo to my eye.
Hogarth was truly a gifted illustrator and did the Tarzan strip for years. Get this for like $10 in eBay. You will not regret it! Promise!
Of the titles you have pictured, back in the day I read a smattering of E-man, with Rog 2000 back-ups, thanks to the reprints from the late '70s (I currently have the entire original 10-issue run, which I had bound).
I also had the super-hero digest published by Archie in 1979, which contained either new or reprinted stories featuring the various Red Circle heroes, like the Fly, the Web, Shield, Steel Sterling, Black Hood, etc. The Archie digests at that time also occasionally had Capt. Pureheart stories.
Other non-Big 2 series that I followed back then included a bunch of the initial output published by Pacific Comics, including Kirby's Captain Victory and Silverstar, Grell's Starslayer, Ms. Mystic by Neal Adams (just the first issue), and Groo the Wanderer.
I also had a single issue (#4) of Justice Machine, which I thought was really cool (cool enough that I very recently bought that whole initial 5-issue run published under the Noble Comics imprint).
The mid-1960s saw a boom in both costumed superheroes and in spy-fi. And some attempts to combine both fads.
Harvey did try a few superhero comics in 1966: Spyman, Jack Q. Frost, and Jigsaw. AFAIK, none lasted more than two or three issues.
Tower Comics published T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents from 1965 to 1968 or '69. Basically, the Justice League or Avengers if they had been employees of U.N.C.L.E. or S.H.I.E.L.D. In the early 1980s, there were some attempted revivals by JC Comics and Deluxe Comics, but they never really caught on. Later, DC acquired the rights, and did a reboot in 2010.
Charlton published Captain Atom and Blue Beetle in 1966-'67. DC later acquired those characters, too, and Blue Beetle became a member of the Justice League in the late 1980s "bwa-ha-ha" era.
I never saw E-Man in its 1970s Charlton run, but I remember First's revival in the early 1980s. They did a new series that ran for about two dozen issues, plus a seven-issue mini-series that reprinted the 1970s stuff.
First inherited Badger and Nexus from Capital when that company went under. Badger was sort of a spoof of the superhero concept; it was based on the premise that only a mentally ill person would put on a costume and try to go out and fight crime.
And, of course, Archie Comics/MLJ/Red Circle tried their hand at superheroes each time the genre seemed to be booming: ca. 1940, then in the mid-1960s, then again in the early 1980s. The Shield, The Fly, The Black Hood, et al.
I remember having that Archie as Pureheart comic shown above (with the cover showing him smashing through Mr. Lodge's wall). I would have thought that those "Archie and his friends as superheroes" stories started in 1966, when the Batman TV show popularized the superhero genre. But, as it turns out, Pureheart (and Evilheart, Super Teen, and Captain Hero) first appeared in 1965, several months earlier.
I believe some of the "Archie Super Teens" stories still get reprinted occasionally in Archie digests.
I really liked some of the Archie Superhero stuff, especially Jughead as Captain Hero. I was buying off the rack, so the 80s Indies were completely unknown to me. I remember Charlton and Gold Key being on the racks in the late 70s, and I may have even read a few, but I can't remember which ones.
I did end up reading Jon Sable later on and loved it; great writing/art by Mike Grell and an interesting character, whose story was set in real time. (And the supporting characters were no slouches either.) I haven't read many other Indies from the 80s, though I've been meaning to check out American Flagg. Rocketeer was pretty cool, with its 1930s trappings and great Dave Stevens art ... not to mention Bettie Page as Cliff's girlfriend.
I was all about Marvel till 1986, then started collecting DC. My big foray into the independents was Miracleman #! from Eclipse (I had become an Alan Moore fan at that point and was buying whatever I could find that he wrote).
That little exploration into alternate companies made me want to check out more. I ended up liking a lot of First stuff, notably Jon Sable, American Flagg and Grimjack.
I recently found trades of the Concrete series that Dark Horse was putting out around that time and it is great. Very dry and slow for my young teen self, but very entertaining for me in this day and age!
-david p.
HB and david p.- you both mention the overwhelming appeal of Marvel; I can't argue with that. Marvel was my first choice, and first love. But I did like to 'sample the buffet' a bit. Also, you both praise the 80's indies; and quite rightly. Megaton Man was fun, and Flagg was excellent. Say, HB, did you ever take a look at Normalman? Another superhero parody, this one by Jim Valentino. Each issue tackled a particular comics genre; great stuff.
Charlie- glad to hear that our topics can be a bit thought provoking! Sometimes it takes some brain provoking to come up with one, especially if a deadline is looming; lol!
TC- nice overview of some of the many alternatives available 'back then'. And I too enjoyed those Archie superhero tales; how can you not love Jughead with a burger on his chest? Also, good call bringing up T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. Some nice Wood art in there...
I definitely remember Normalman, Red, but I never picked up an issue. The bulk of that Independent boom was happening while I was in grad school, and Geppi's Comic World in Silver Spring, MD was at the height of its popularity as a major LCS-- so they had ALL of the Independent titles out there on the display shelves tucked in amongst the vast Marvel and DC offerings. But since Marvel and DC were both producing a ton of books at the time (leave us not forget about the daggone NEW UNIVERSE mixed in there, eh?), I felt like I needed to prioritize my spending on "regular", familiar titles. Much regret with that now, mind you.
Megaton Man I picked up from a fellow who was graduating with his Directing degree, and couldn't take his two big contractor bags (!!) of comics with him, even though they contained items old, new, and in-between. He wanted to give them to someone that would appreciate them (which I did-- I still have all of them, of course). THE TICK I did pick up from Geppi's simply as a throwback to my old, old "three-issues-on-the-rack, you-buy-them" rule. It was the first three issues (last copy of #1!), and it was a just a whim. . .
Who knew?
Now-- am I safe in assuming that there had to be a lot of less-than-great stuff being produced as well? Other than by the Big Two, I mean? (See Earlier Reference to: The NEW UNIVERSE. . . )
HB
HB
OK,they weren't exactly heroes per se but my favorite book through the Bronze Age outside of Marvel/DC was definitely the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. Their books came out so infrequently,it was always exciting to find a new one.
Fat Fredy's Cat was one of the few comic characters who could rival my affection for Ben Grimm, Scott Free and Kirby's Thor.
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