Number 48


Jack Bradbury's Spencer Spook


After the unintentionally silly story in Pappy's #47, here is a story that is intentionally silly.

This is a Spencer Spook story, originally published in Giggle Comics #54, June, 1948. Jack Bradbury drew it.

Bradbury (1914-2004), was originally an animator and turned into a fine comic book artist. He worked on funny animal comic books for Richard E. Hughes, the same writer/editor who turned out Adventures Into the Unknown, Forbidden Worlds, and many other comics over the years. Later on Bradbury went to work for Western Publishing and did many Mickey Mouse and Disney stories for Dell Comics.

Personally, I thought his Disney stuff seemed stiff compared to the freedom his line showed in the old Giggle and Ha-Ha Comics.

This story contains a stereotyped African-American woman, a maid, who may be offensive to some readers. I'm presenting this story as it originally appeared 58 years ago, when this sort of racist caricature wasn't that uncommon.

Several artists over the run of the Spencer Spook strip worked on the character, but I liked Bradbury's version the best. The character was revived in the 1980s, with new stories illustrated by Pat Boyette. I appreciated Boyette's skill, but in my mind no one could top Jack Bradbury.

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The Atom Man

Marvel was not the only comics company to notice the success DC was having with its Silver Age heroes. Gold Key Comics decided to try their hand at the superhero biz with an entry called Dr Solar, Man of the Atom, which debuted in October 1962. Dr Solar was a research physicist working on project that attempts to convert energy into matter. Unknown to him, Rasp, another scientist working at the same facility, is secretly an agent for a villain named Nuro. Rasp tries to get on Solar's project, but is rejected in favor of Dr Bently. After trying to kill Solar and failing, he sabotages the nuclear reactor so Bently is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation. Dr Solar finds Bently dying, but apparently survives the radiation himself. However, it is later discovered that he had not survived so much as transformed:



Note the green color; the Hulk had debuted about a half-year earlier. Not sure if changing color is really a side-effect of radiation poisoning or if this is just a little copying.

The action takes place in Atom Valley and there is a love interest; a pretty blonde Gail Sanders whom Dr Solar had known back at college. Oddly, although she does not know what happened to Dr Solar (who now must stay in a lead-lined office), when talking to him through a lead window she makes no remarks about his green skin.

Meanwhile, we discover that Dr Solar has the ability to generate enormous heat, like a miniature sun. However, this rapidly drains him of energy and he must expose himself to the atomic pile to regenerate. Dr Clarkson, head of the laboratory where Dr Solar works, is the only person who knows his secret.

By the second issue, they had mostly dropped the green coloring, although it does appear occasionally. We learn of new powers; Dr Solar is capable of generating "lightning-like rays" with his eyes. He is also capable of changing his body into a wave of energy and flying through the air.

In the fourth issue we learn that he has "radar-like vision". In Dr Solar #5, he gains a superhero costume:



It actually looks a little more red than pink on the covers.

Dr. Solar lasted for 27 issues before finally folding in 1969. He made a brief comeback in the early 1980s for another four issues under the Whitman Comics line.

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Number 47


The Tomb Of Terror




This is an enjoyable but hokey story from Forbidden Worlds #5, March-April, 1952. It's drawn by Lou Cameron, about whom I know very little. About all the biographical information gives is that he was born in San Francisco in 1924. He was a good artist and his work is collectible. He drew one of the best-loved issues of Classics Illustrated, The War Of The Worlds. He left comics some years ago to pursue a successful career as a writer of paperback novels.

I said this story is hokey, and it is. The plot is straight out of a pulp magazine. A doctor and his fiancée visit a town with a sinister castle, "Stormway Hall." The ghost of a girl leads the doctor into a supernatural situation involving a green sorcerer, some "fiends," and a ghost, all in a place the sorcerer refers to as The Tomb Of Terror. It was most likely written by the editor, Richard E. Hughes, who seemingly and single-handedly, wrote and edited the American Comics Group line until his death some years ago.Forbidden Worlds, and its big brother, Adventures Into The Unknown, were successful comics that ran for many years.

This is the cover for the issue Tomb Of Terror appeared in.

Hughes wasn't real big on story structure in the early years, and sometimes logic got lost. He got better as he got older, and some of his later stories, from his code-approved books, are very good.

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The Avengers Part II: Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

One advantage that DC had over Marvel in the early 1960s (although it would change by the end of the decade) was that their characters seemed frozen in time. Thus it was no great challenge for writers and artists on different mags to portray Batman.

Not so with Marvel's characters, and the Avengers demonstrated this as early as their second issue. Hank Pym's Ant-Man was replaced in this story by Hank Pym's Giant Man. In addition, the Hulk decided to leave the team.

By the third issue, Iron Man had exchanged his all-gold outfit for the gold and red combination which has mostly endured (with minor changes) to this day. And in the fourth issue.... well, let's just say that things changed for good.

The second issue featured the Space Phantom, a shape-shifter who could banish any human that he imitated to a place called limbo. He imitates all of the Avengers in turn, but eventually he makes the mistake of trying to mimic Thor, the Thunder God, and is banished to limbo himself as a result.

One oddity about Avengers #2 is that it contains an obvious boner. Rick Jones, who is shown living in the Southwest in both Avengers #1 and #3, appears on the streets of New York and confronts the Hulk (really the Space Phantom).

In Avengers #3, the Hulk teams up with the Submariner to fight the Avengers. Obviously this is a major comic, and yet it is dwarfed by the following issue.

Captain America returns! It is one of those interesting coincidences that in Fantastic Four #4, Stan Lee brought back the Submariner, a major Marvel character of the Golden Age, and in Avengers #4, Captain America, the biggest Marvel character of that era returned.



Cap helps the Avengers in another battle against the Submariner and in the end was offered and agreed to join the team. We learn that Bucky, Cap's sidekick, had died at the end of World War II, although we don't learn the identity of the man responsible for his death (yet). He seems interested in pursuing a friendship with Rick Jones much like that he'd had with Bucky back in the Golden Age.

Avengers #5 featured a pedestrian one-off battle with a former foe of the Mighty Thor, the Lava Men. But in Avengers #6, we first meet Baron Zemo, who is responsible for Bucky's death. He had been working on a super adhesive for Hitler's war machine when Captain America destroyed the factory. In the process, Zemo's mask, which he'd worn to prevent reprisals against him from the common folk, became permanently glued to his face.

Zemo returns in Avengers #7, this time assisted by the Enchantress and the Executioner, a pair of immortal villains who had previously appeared in a Thor story in Journey into Mystery. Banished from Asgard, they hook up with Zemo for different reasons. The Enchantress convinces Thor that the Avengers have gone bad and they are his enemy.

Up to this point, the Enchantress has seemed like a character caught between good and evil, much like other Marvel characters who eventually reformed. But we can sense the evil coming to the fore in this sequence:



Is this the first genuinely evil female in the Marvel universe? I can't think of another one.

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Number 46


Bats #1


Yeah, yeah…so this comic is from 1961...so that means it's a Silver Age comic, not Golden Age. It's Halloween, so I'm allowed to keep with a theme. Tales Calculated To Drive You Bats #1 was published to cash in on the popularity of Famous Monsters of Filmland and its imitators.


Longtime Archie writer George Gladir was the writer, and gag cartoonist Orlando Busino the artist.

The comic had a seven-issue run, although I think Busino departed early. I have only this issue of #1, which I bought off the stands about the same time I bought the first issue of The Fantastic Four.

Busino had a wonderful, clean style, perfect for this type of comic book. He used some techniques gleaned from Jack Davis. Notice the legs and shoes, especially. I'm including two pages from a section parodying advertising. Click on the pictures for full-size images.
Of course, "Tales Calculated To…" is a rip-off of Tales Calculated to Drive You Mad, the Mad comic book version from just a few years previous. Archie had been well, mad at Mad for the juvenile delinquent parody of their main character as Starchie, but it didn't stop them from appropriating the Mad comics tagline.
I can't put the whole comic up, regrettably, because Archie Comics is still in business and might send lawyers to suck my blood.

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Number 45


Frankenstein Friday: Frankenstein's Ark


This is the third and final story from Frankenstein #2, written and drawn by Dick Briefer, published in 1945. Check Pappy's archives for other Frankenstein Friday entries by Briefer and other artists.

The gag twist at the end of Frankenstein's Ark depends on knowing about ration stamps during World War II. Just about all essentials were rationed: gasoline, tires, sugar, meat…you name it, you probably had to have a ration coupon for it. Even magazine and book publishers had their paper for printing rationed. Because of reduced paper supplies, many comic book publishers were able to sell out entire print runs of their more popular titles. When the war ended, so did rationing.

The story itself seems stream of consciousness, like Briefer had an idea for a story that would end up as it did, but in order to get Frankenstein to that point the artist meandered about with various plot elements. He could have conceivably built a story out of any one of these elements, but chose to string them together in this episodic story.

 

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Number 44

COVERING IT: Classic Golden Age comic book covers: Archie Halloween.

Poor Archie. When I was a teen I should've had his problems.

Archie didn't seem to have to work; none of his friends did. They just hung out at Pop's Choc'lit Shop, drank sodas, drove their jalopies (how long has it been since the word "jalopy" has been used, anyway, and where the hell did it come from in the first place?), and went on dates.

Archie had a problem of too many girlfriends. He also had the problem of a smooth hustler, Reggie, liking one of his girlfriends and making plays for her.

Archie reminds me of the son of a woman I know. The woman told me, "My son is in love with a beautiful girl who treats him bad, and another girl who isn't quite as beautiful loves him very much, and would treat him great. Of course he goes for the beautiful one who treats him bad." I told her it sounded like the triangle of Archie, Betty and Veronica and she gave me sort of a look as if to say, "You're reducing my son to a comic book character." Well, of course, comic books are real life, and our real lives are just lines on paper. At least to an old comic book fan, anyway.

It's amazing how many stories can be gotten from a simple triangle. Maybe Archie should have joined a polygamy cult and had both Betty and Veronica, or they could have some sort of kinky arrangement they couldn't mention in Comics Code approved comic books.

I'm sure that Archie comics were aimed at pre-pubescent girls. Or were they? Why would a girl want to read about a guy's problems with two girls? Would she identify with that? Was it aimed at young boys? Why would they want to read about a guy and yuchhy girls anyhow?

I read Archie when I was a kid, but I was a comics fan, I read everything (but no westerns and no love comics; I had my limits). I don't remember thinking this was anything like real life, except to wonder how two beautiful and desirable girls would go for a dorky-looking guy like Archie. You've got to admit, he wasn't drawn to look like a stud that girls would fight over.

Archie has been popular enough on the newsstands to keep going continuously for over 60 years. That's a long time to have a triangle going, and if it were real life by now the once beautiful teenage girls would be fighting over an equally elderly Archie at the Senior Citizens' Center.

I like this old Halloween cover from a 1940s issue of Archie, but in the opposite way from how it was intended. I can't imagine why anyone thought putting Archie on a broomstick with a witch's hat was funny. I see some hidden symbolism is the long broomstick with the pumpkin head between Archie's legs. If you had a couple of babes like Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge fighting over you your broomstick would be long, too.

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The Avengers

It is well-known that Marvel started the Fantastic Four as a way to cash in on the superhero team craze that the Justice League of America was creating over at DC. However, the team that actually seemed more like a knockoff of the JLA were the Avengers. Consider that the the JLA and the Avengers both featured existing characters in their respective universes, while the FF featured three new characters and one revival of a Golden Age superhero (the Human Torch). Both the Avengers and the JLA included a teenaged "honorary" member (Rick Jones and Snapper Carr).

In Avengers #1, Loki wants to get revenge against Thor for getting him banished to a barren isle as ordered by Odin. He decides to utilize the Hulk in this effort. By faking a bomb on a train trestle, Loki deceives the Hulk into destroying the trestle. Fortunately for the train, the Hulk rectifies his mistake in time, but the humans still believe that the Hulk was responsible for the near accident.

Rick Jones, the Hulk's only friend, sends a shortwave message intended for the Fantastic Four, asking for their help, but Loki diverts it so that Dr. Don Blake receives the SOS. Unknown to Loki, though, the Ant-Man and Iron Man have also received the summons, and they independently make their way to the Southwestern United States.

Thor realizes that Loki is behind the illusions and heads to Asgard. Meanwhile, the Ant-Man and Iron Man have located the Hulk, who is disguised as a circus strongman. Thor battles Loki and eventually subdues him, returning to Earth. He interrupts a fight between Iron Man and the Hulk, proviing that Loki was responsible for the near accident involving the train.

As they are about to leave, Ant-Man suggests that they form a regular fighting team, and the others agree:



The Avengers would undergo the most dramatic changes over the next few years of any superhero team in the Silver Age. Stay tuned for more!

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Number 43


The Werewolf's Victims


What's Halloween without a werewolf story? I'm partial to werewolves. They get to run around and bite people. Baaahahaha!

This story is from Atlas Comics' Mystic #31, June 1954. It's by an artist of the Wally Wood school, Sid Check. I only know of a few Sid Check comic book stories from the Golden Age. He must've hung out with the EC gang, though, because some of the stories were published by them.

Doing a search of Sid Check's name came up with this page from Lambiek.net, but no biographical information, birth date, etc.

The Werewolf's Victims would have been right at home in Creepy or Eerie magazines a decade later. The stories they ran in their earliest issues had stories and endings that were very similar. And the story is both creepy and eerie! The idea of a bunch of men held captive in a cave, being killed off one-by-one by a werewolf is pretty scary...unless you're the werewolf.

 

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The Identity Crisis Superhero of the 1960s

Was the Mighty Thor. While vacationing in Norway, the lame doctor Don Blake discovers an invasion of Earth by the Stone Men of Saturn. They chase him into a cave, where he discovers a cane. When he taps it on the ground it transforms into a powerful hammer while he himself changes into the Norse God of Thunder. Hey, it made for a very quick costume change, which was useful for a comic hero of the 1960s.

Over time, it was explained that Thor actually was the famed Norse god and that he had a family including his father, Odin and his evil brother, Loki. Of course, this made things a bit confusing for readers; wasn't Don Blake the real person and Thor just a superhero identity? Where did Thor go when he tapped the hammer on the ground and changed back into Dr. Blake? Eventually things got so mixed up that Marvel actually asked its fans to help them figure it out, and here, from a letter published in Journey Into Mystery #111 is the explanation that Stan Lee decided to use:

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Number 42

Old Number One

Click on pictures for full-size images.

Occasionally a curious person will ask me, "What's the oldest comic book you have in your collection?"

I think it's a fair question, but my answer is, "I don't know." I'm surrounded by books and comics. Half the time I can't remember what I have. However, Uncle Scrooge #7, September-November, 1954, is the oldest comic book I have that I personally bought off the comic book rack. That I remember.

My first experiences with comics were with two boxes of coverless and otherwise poor-condition books. The first box was in my neighbor Allen's basement. He led me down some wooden stairs.* I sat under a light set up by the furnace and looked at comics his older brothers and sisters had read to pieces. As I recall, they included one with a horror story about a flower turning into a gorilla--or was it the other way around?--and a coverless issue of The Human Torch. I was mighty impressed by that flaming on stuff!

The other box of comics was one given to me by my cousin, Dickie. It included a lot of Dell Comics like Francis The Talking Mule, Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, and many Walt Disney titles.

That was in 1953. I was a first grader, six-years-old. I was bright enough, but up until that point a bad reader, because I didn't have anything interesting to read. Let's face it, the Dick and Janereaders, as collectible as they are today, weren't The Human Torch or a flower turning into a gorilla. "Run, Spot, run!" Oh, yeah. That's just fascinating. Yawn. It took my interest in reading comics, brought on by those boxes of old comics, to put me in front of the first grade reading group.

I bugged Mom until she caved in and let me buy some of my own comic books. At that time there was a lot of publicity about horror and crime comics rotting kids' minds, so she was careful what she let me buy. Years later she said, "I worried you'd be scared by Casper The Friendly Ghost."

In those days my favorite comics were the Disney's, and specifically Uncle Scrooge. I wasn't alone. I believe at the time these comics sold in the millions.

Uncle Scrooge #7 was a special favorite and I have hung onto it for 52 years. As you can see from the scans the book is in real battered shape…the back cover even worse than the front. That was because I read it many, many times. I'm an obsessive-compulsive. I kept my comics by the side of my bed. Being an early riser all my life, I would pick up a comic I'd read the night before and re-read it by the dawn's early light coming in my window. I didn't want to wake my brother, who shared the room. It was just light enough to see, but still so dark in the bedroom that all of the colors disappeared from the pages and I saw them in shades of gray.

For anyone unfamiliar with the story, Scrooge looks for new ways to make money. He already owns everything in town. He finds Donald and his nephews collecting arrowheads to sell and he joins in. Through a series of comic events they find themselves in the Seven Cities of Cibola, where they find a Spanish treasure but also the terrible Beagle Boys, Scrooge's longtime nemeses.

Anyone who read this comic and loved it as much as I did recognized the scene in Raiders Of The Lost Ark where Indiana Jones removes an idol only to set off a booby trap and find himself outracing a large boulder. The gag was set up in Uncle Scrooge #7. The Raiders producer, George Lucas, had a partner, Gary Kurtz. Under the publishing imprint, Celestial Arts, Kurtz reprinted the story in 1982 as one in a deluxe edition of Uncle Scrooge stories, Uncle Scrooge McDuck His Life And Times by Carl Barks.

Uncle Scrooge #7 is not the oldest comic book in my collection by a long shot. It's not the first comic book I bought. But it is the oldest comic book I bought that I still own. Because of its condition no one would ever want to own it but me, and maybe I'll have someone throw it in my casket when they lower me into the ground.

*Whenever I think about descending into that basement Danny Elfman's theme from Tales From The Crypt goes through my head.

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Number 41


Frankenstein Friday: Frankenstein's Job


This is the second story from Frankenstein Comics #2, published in 1945, written and drawn by Dick Briefer.

There is a whiff of kinkiness in this story: Frankenstein on a leash, with a big collar being led around by a beautiful woman. In those more innocent times knowledge of individuals who enjoyed such activities as bondage and discipline was so esoteric that most people never heard of them. Or maybe it was a sly joke on his readership by author/artist Briefer. It's hard to tell from a vantage point of six decades, but I tend toward the former. I think the images of Frankenstein being led around like a dog appealed to Briefer's sense of humor, and not because he was a closet BDSM fan.

The panel where the dog pound boss, feet on his desk, orders the dogs to be led to the gas chamber is jolting. In the short time after a war where millions of people died in gas chambers it seems very insensitive. It also seems cruel in the modern era where many groups remind us we need to treat not only humans but animals in a humane fashion.

All in all, it seems to be a typically bizarre Frankenstein story.

Next week: Frankenstein's Ark

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