They Might Be Giants! (1967-1969: The Wrap-Up!) ~~ A "Comical Wednesday" Post!

Here it is, fellow babies: The final installment in this lengthy "They Might Be Giants" series. (Okay, okay, which one of you just yelled "Yay?")

Oh, and by the way, are any of you familiar with the 1971 film and/or the alternative rock band which share that same name? I'm assuming you are.

In Fantasy Masterpieces #7 (cover-dated February, 1967), Marvel began reprinting one Golden Age story each of the original Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner, and Captain America per issue.

In late 1939 and in the early 1940s, Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, was more of an anti-hero, fighting a one-man war against the "surface world." He fought the Human Torch a handful of times before finally deciding to help the "good guys" against the Nazis. One of those battles was reprinted in Marvel Super-Heroes #1, as shown in my last post. Fantasy Masterpieces #8 reprinted another Torch/Subby clash, a 22-page epic!

Also mentioned last time was Fantastic Four Annual #4, which featured the return (and death!) of the original Human Torch. There was even a brief re-cap of the Torch's origin, shown below, as drawn by the ever-popular Jack Kirby:

By mid-1967, however, Marvel decided to reprint the initial outing of the Human Torch, from late 1939's Marvel Comics #1. And here 'tis, as touted on the cover of Fantasy Masterpieces #9!

And if you'd like to compare the above Kirby page to a page from the premiere Human Torch story, written and drawn by Carl Burgos (1916-1984), here ya go! However, this is not a page from Fantasy Masterpieces #9, it's actually a scan of page one of Marvel Comics #1!

The last issue of Fantasy Masterpieces that made an impression on me was the tenth issue. By then, I was very familiar with the fact that DC Comics had teamed up several of its superheroes in the '40s to form the Justice Society of America, but in 1967, I learned that Timely Comics had tried combining a handful of its heroes into a super-team with the unfortunate name of the All-Winners Squad!

The main reason that this team -- which only appeared twice during the Golden Age -- was called the All-Winners Squad was apparently because the group appeared in an ongoing Timely title called All Winners Comics. The first All-Winners Squad story, written by famed comic author and Batman co-creator Bill Finger, featured Captain America, his sidekick Bucky, the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner, the Whizzer (a super-speedster like the Flash, who got his powers when his father injected him with mongoose blood), Miss America, and some kid in bathing trunks whom I assumed was a sidekick for the Sub-Mariner... at least, until I opened the comic.

The "kid in bathing trunks" was actually a younger version of the Human Torch, named Toro. Thus, obviously, Toro was the Torch's sidekick, regardless of the fact that he looked like a junior version of the Sub-Mariner on that damned cover! And why they named him Toro in the first place is beyond me, and why he wasn't in his flaming form on the cover of All Winners Squad #19 (reprinted on the cover of Fantasy Masterpieces #10) escapes me as well!

As it happened, the next issue of Fantasy Masterpieces reprinted Toro's first appearance... but I missed it. And with issue number twelve, Fantasy Masterpieces was renamed Marvel Super-Heroes, just like last year's 1966 one-shot. MSH became a title featuring a different "star" every month, and although it still contained reprints, too, the thrill was gone.

I was still reading and enjoying comics, but something was changing. I don't recall feeling the same level of excitement I'd felt during all of the last four or five years. Could it be that by 1967, I was already becoming jaded at the tender age of not-quite-eleven? (I didn't hit eleven until mid-November, y'see, so this 1956 birthday baby was actually ten years old throughout most of '67.)

Maybe it was the fact that so blasted many of the monthly Marvel titles -- and DC's, too, only not (yet) as much as Marvel's -- had storylines that continued endlessly. Or so it seemed to me, as a victim of the shitty spotty distribution of the newsstands, variety stores, and other odd vendors that carried comics in those days, long before the dawn of the comic shops we now take for granted.

Anyhoo, for whatever reason(s), the thrill of the "giants" was waning for me. 1968 only delivered two issues in DC's 80 Page Giant series that made a real impression on me.

The first was 80 Page Giant #43, or Batman #198, if you prefer. The comic contained a handful of fair-to-middlin' Batman stories featuring the Joker, Catwoman, and the Penguin (among others), but the book cover-featured a reprint of a story from 1948's Batman #47, "The Origin of the Batman!"

This may be rather hard to believe in modern times, when it seems like someone's retelling "The Legend of the Batman and How He Came to Be" every half hour or so, but while Superman's Kryptonian roots were a constant story point throughout most of the earlier years of the Silver Age, Batman's origin wasn't referred to often at all. I'm not sure why.

The only reason I knew of Batman's beginnings was that in 1966, not long after ABC's Batman TV show hit the airwaves, Signet Books released a collection called -- take a deep breath, here -- Batman, The Best of the Original Batman--the Caped Crusader's greatest adventures. And by the way, all of the upper-case and lower-case letters in that lengthy title were chosen by Signet, not by me.

This book reprinted a bunch of Batman stories in black & white, mostly tales from the 1950s. And one of those stories was the two-page version of Batman's origin that was originally shown in 1940's Batman #1.

But the 1948 classic, "The Origin of the Batman," gave a slightly expanded version of how Bruce Wayne became Batman, and how years later, he actually caught up with the robber who killed his parents! Pretty cool stuff.

Only a couple of months later, 80 Page Giant #45 (or Action Comics #360) gave us a Supergirl-themed issue which had a cover made to look like a board game! Basically, the giant told how little old orphaned Supergirl finally was able to "prove" to her arrogant super-cousin that she didn't need further training, she no longer had to keep her very existence secret from the world, and that she, in her secret identity as "Linda Lee," no longer had to thwart the efforts of any couples who wanted to adopt her!

Yeah, that last one was a rather cruel stipulation of Superman's. Until he could declare her "good enough" to operate in the open as Supergirl, she couldn't even be trusted to live with adoptive parents. She was forced by "cousin Superman" to stay an orphan. What a mean thing to do to a teenage girl!

Most of Supergirl's solo adventures were drawn by the talented Jim Mooney (1919-2008). A self-portrait of Jim -- with Streaky the super-cat perched on his shoulder -- immediately follows this paragraph.

And speaking of Streaky, fellow babies, I should probably point out that during this series (and occasionally in other Comical Wednesday posts as well), I refer to characters such as Streaky, Comet the super-horse, Ace the Bat-Hound, Bat-Mite, Beppo the super-monkey and the like as being relics of the Silver Age that have never seen the light of day since. Well, here's a disclaimer: The existence of these characters has in relatively recent years been referenced here and there. Some new stories featuring these characters have been crafted, dealing with the characters' "reality" in different ways. But in terms of my childhood, these characters' "lives" ended for me years ago!

I threw that in here primarily because I couldn't think of a better place to put it. Heh.

1969 was worse. First of all, in the middle of the year, the price of the standard, thirty-two page comic book went from twelve cents all the way to fifteen cents! Three cents more! What, did these greedy buzzards think I was made of money?!?

The very last eighty-pager that gave me that old feeling was Batman #213. All sorts of origin stories. The origin of the Silver Age Clay-Face (using a name "borrowed" from a Golden Age Batman villain), the first appearance of Alfred the butler, an all-new retelling of Robin's full origin, and a 1951 story about a villain called the Red Hood, which -- SPOILER WARNING! -- actually ended up being the origin of the Joker!

Yep. One giant-sized comic of note that year. By the end of 1969, believe it or not, I'd turned my back on most of the comic books and characters that I'd once slavishly followed. But continued stories (and missed issues), plus that outrageous three-cent price hike, had soured me somewhat on the medium. For a relatively long while (i.e., two or three years, or even four), the only title I seemed to be buying on a regular basis was Marvel's Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos!

Maybe someday, folks, I'll tell you about when and why I got back into reading comics en masse again.

But if I do, it won't be for a lonnnng while now.

Thus, the mighty saga dramatically (and oh-so-pompously) entitled "They Might Be Giants!" ends, "not with a bang, but a whimper."*

Thanks for your time.

*With apologies to T.S. Eliot!

They Might Be Giants! (The REST of 1966) ~~ A "Comical Wednesday" Post!

The illustration above is of the only giant-sized title in this Comical Wednesday series that wasn't from Marvel or DC! Issue #1-and-only of Fighting American was published by Harvey Comics, better known during the 1960s for such "kiddie" titles as (take a deep breath, here) Casper the Friendly Ghost, Playful Little Audrey, Spooky, Hot Stuff the Little Devil, Baby Huey, Little Lotta, Wendy the Good Little Witch, Sad Sack, Little Dot, as well as many others, including that horrifying example of capitalism-gone-wild, Richie Rich, who eventually (meaning, in the course of approximately thirty years) spawned over four dozen different titles!

Fighting American was a superhero. In fact, he was a very subtle parody of superheroes. And I am really embarrassed to admit that since nine-year-old David almost never read the text pages in comics (except for the DC and Marvel "Letters to the Editor" pages), he -- well, I -- didn't realize that these "Fighting American" stories were reprints from the 1950s! And even more embarrassing than that is the fact that I didn't recognize that these stories were created by the very same team that had crafted the early Captain America tales which I was devouring on a bi-monthly basis in Fantasy Masterpieces, namely Joe Simon and Jack Kirby!

In late 1966, Marvel released a one-shot "special" called Marvel Super-Heroes. This was an all-reprint title featuring the first issue of Daredevil, which I'd searched the newsstand racks for but missed, two years earlier. I almost had a crack at an original copy a few months after it came out, since I often traded various comics with my friend Kevin, and he had one! Unfortunately, the book was ruined because his older brother had... ummm... cut out several pictures of... ummm... half-naked, muscular men working out in a gym.

Marvel Super-Heroes #1 also contained a reprint of Avengers #2. But the best treat for li'l ol' me was a story from the Golden Age, featuring a battle between the Sub-Mariner and the original Human Torch!

And yes, I said "the original Human Torch." The modern-day Human Torch from the Fantastic Four comic, Johnny Storm, is actually the second superhero to have that nom de guerre. The first Human Torch was an android -- hence, not really "human," but why quibble? -- who debuted in 1939 and was a contemporary of Captain America and Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, during the Golden Age.

But Marvel Super-Heroes #1 and Fantasy Masterpieces weren't the only exciting "giants" Marvel churned out in '66. For the fourth year in a row, the Fantastic Four Annual (or, if you prefer, Fantastic Four Special) was another blockbuster issue.

In that issue, Marvel reprinted a two-part story (from F.F. #25 and #26) that I'd only caught the second chapter of when it first hit the stands. This great two-parter featured a knock-down, drag-out battle between The Thing (the most powerful member of the Fantastic Four) and the Incredible Hulk. And the Avengers showed up in part two!

But the lead feature in F.F. Annual #4 was an all-new epic that reintroduced the original Human Torch to the Silver Age!

The final giant/annual/special/whatever that made an impression on me that year was the sixth issue of Fantasy Masterpieces, which again featured three Golden Age Captain America stories by Simon & Kirby, including an original tale of none other than Cap's eternal nemesis, the Red Skull! In this reprint, from Captain America Comics #7, Cap and his young sidekick, Bucky, fought the "real" Red Skull, and not that ineffectual idiot mentioned in my previous post, George Maxon.

Fantasy Masterpieces #6 also had a Captain America tale entitled "The Phantom Hound of Cardiff Manor," which owed a lot, shall we say, to the Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles.

One thing I didn't learn until many years later is that several of the 1940s Captain America stories reprinted in the 1960s had text and/or artwork that was censored to appease the censorship board known as the Comics Code Authority. The following two illustrations show a scene from the original version of "The Phantom Hound of Cardiff Manor" and the censored version which appeared in Fantasy Masterpieces #6.

And don'tcha just love the way they re-drew Bucky's mouth in that first panel? Wonder why they bothered to do that.

Now, to end our look(s) back at 1966 -- finally! -- I'm just going to shut up and present six more pairs of sequences from another story censored and reprinted in Fantasy Masterpieces #6. This was a gruesome little tale called "Meet the Fang, Arch-Fiend of the Orient" which first appeared in Captain America Comics #6. Scenes showing or even suggesting extreme violence were expurgated in '66, plus they deleted one objectionable reference to "China boys."

Pretty thorough, weren't they?

I'll be posting another entry this weekend, for those of you who may be hoping for something other than Comical Wednesday posts, although I must admit, the next post won't be a very cheerful one.

Thanks for your time.

They Might Be Giants! (The BEGINNING of 1966) ~~ A "Comical Wednesday" Post!

Well! Here we are (were?) in 1966, arguably the greatest year in pop culture history! And that's not just my opinion. It's shared by at least two other pop culture mavens, namely Steven "Booksteve" Thompson and Hal Lifson.

The above issue (#18) of DC's 80 Page Giant title promised something I'd never actually seen before: Golden Age comic book reprints! (Okay, okay, with one exception, briefly mentioned here, and again below.)

Unfortunately, Yours Truly missed that razzer-frazzer issue, and all I ever saw of it until many years later was the following advertisement!

As I mentioned in the first installment of this "They Might Be Giants" series, I spent the early 1960s learning about DC's "Earth-Two," and I also knew that Marvel Comics' Captain America and the Sub-Mariner had both originally appeared in the 1940s. However, I didn't dare hope that I'd ever actually see a Golden Age story, outside of the one G.A. tale of the original Flash (Jay Garrick), reprinted in 1963's Giant Flash Annual #1!

DC did reproduce a handful of Golden Age covers on a couple of back cover illustration appearings on two of their annuals, plus on one interior page from Giant Flash Annual #1... and all three of those are shown below.

It seemed that the two leading comic companies were reluctant to show the relatively primitive antecedents of the comics which were instrumental in my learning to read. 80 Page Giant #18 (a/k/a Superman #183) was a notable exception. See why I was so ticked off that I missed that issue?

As a kid, I loved appearances of not only Ace, the Bat-Hound (discussed here), but also the various super-powered pets owned by, or associated with, both Superman and Supergirl.

Superman usually dealt with Krypto, the super-dog, or (I swear!) Beppo, the super-monkey. Both of those animals were originally from Krypton, like Superman himself! There was even a one-shot character in the Superboy comic named Krypto Mouse, but the less said about that, the better!

Supergirl was sometimes joined by Streaky, the super-cat, and Comet, the super-horse! Neither Streaky nor Comet hailed from Krypton, however. In fact, Comet had quite a convoluted origin and history, most of which I'll spare you. He was originally a centaur named Biron, who was magically turned into an immortal, super-powered horse hundreds of years ago. In modern times, he occasionally became fully human and in this form, he had an actual romance with Supergirl! Pretty sick stuff, if you look at it with a 21st century attitude, but when I was a young'un in the '60s, I found it quite entertaining. So obviously, comics like 80 Page Giant #20 (a/k/a Action Comics #334) really appealed to me.

Oh, and if you noticed the black and white checks at the top of 80 Page Giant #20, those are the infamous "DC Go-Go Checks" that adorned the tops of all DC titles for about a year and a half. They were evidently placed there so comic readers could spot a DC title on a crowded newsstand rack. Plus, the powers-that-were at DC apparently (and erroneously) thought these Go-Go Checks showed that DC could be just as "cool" as this upstart Marvel Comics company.

Yeah, right.

Anyway, back to the story of the pre-adolescent and his yearning for Golden Age comic stories.

In early 1965, Marvel's Tales of Suspense title (which featured both Iron Man and Captain America in separate adventures every month) decided to start telling Cap tales from the World War II era. They began with a retelling of his origin story (from 1941's Captain America Comics #1) in Tales of Suspense #63, and continued through most of  the rest of 1965. But again, these were retellings, not the G.A. reprints that I so desired.

For example, here's one page from Tales of Suspense #65, featuring Cap's first encounter with the Red Skull! It features artwork by the incredible Jack Kirby, comic legend.

Here, on the other hand, is a reprinted page from Captain America Comics #1, produced by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.

"Mister Maxon" (a/k/a George) turned out to be an agent of the "real" Red Skull, if you're interested...

In early 1966, Marvel began a 12-cent reprint title, Fantasy Masterpieces. Its cover proclaimed "From the Golden Age of Marvel" but they lied! The first two issues contained reprinted stories from 1959-1962!

With issue #3, however, they made two major alterations to the book's format. The first was to make it yet another "giant," but not an "annual." No, this was an ongoing series!

The second change was a little better. Okay, a lot better.

The third issue of Fantasy Masterpieces contained not one, but two original Captain America stories from the 1940s! At last!

Issue #4 contained three Golden Age stories!

And sandwiched in with these exciting Marvel Comics was yet another 80 Page Giant that featured "Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen," another character whose adventures really clicked with this little Foxlet!

But Fantasy Masterpieces kept rolling along with its Captain America classics, three to an issue!

And if you think that all of these vintage Captain America stories were enough to shut me up satisfy me, I've somehow failed to impress upon you how obsessed I really was with not only the comics I was growing up with, but the history of the medium itself!

In fact, there was so much going on in the comic book titles of 1966, for next week's Comical Wednesday entry, I'm going to devote yet another chapter to 1966.

See you then, I hope. And I apologize for not posting any non-comic-book-related entries lately, but this series, as well as my personal life, have been taking up all my time.

And speaking of "time," thanks for your time.

They Might Be Giants! (1965) ~~ A "Comical Wednesday" Post!

Another snowstorm, one that dropped about two feet of that white crap on my area, but I managed to post this on Wednesday nonetheless!

So here we go again, fellow babies! This edition's focus is on the giant-sized comic books (or annuals) which hit the stands in 1965.

Well, mainly...

You may very well be wondering, whuzzup with the Giant Superman Annual #2, pictured above? That book came out all the way back in 1960!

Well, y'see, I estimate that it was in 1965 that I first saw that annual, which belonged to either my friend Jeff or my friend Kevin. Only his copy looked more like this:

That's right, no front cover! But plenty of great stories in it, nonetheless! It reprinted the first appearances of villains like Brainiac, Metallo, Bizarro, and -- I swear -- Titano, the Super Ape! And no, in case you're wondering, Titano did not wear a freakin' mask like Ace, the Bat-Hound did!

And there's another ultra-cool, giant-sized book that I missed, this one back in 1961... and why I'm even mentioning it will be apparent very, very soon, I promise.

Since 1961, DC has come out with a lot of Secret Origins annuals, series, one-shots, etc., but the first one I ever saw devoted to that theme was yet another issue of the 80 Page Giant series!

80 Page Giant #8 was the first of a terrific four-issue run.

That issue contained mostly cool stories, as I recall, except for (maybe) the Flash story, "The Origin of Flash's Masked Identity!" Back in the 1940s, y'see, the original (Golden Age) Flash, Jay Garrick, never wore a mask... and yet, no one ever realized that Jay and the Flash were the same guy! (Hey, it worked for Superman, right?) Well, in this particular story, the new (Silver Age) Flash, Barry Allen, daydreamed about how his life would be if he tried the maskless route. He ended up deciding it was a stupid idea. What a surprise.

So, now we're back to the real 1965. Or something.

I was still at the stage where I thought The Flash was one of the coolest superheroes ever, and 80 Page Giant #9 reprinted plenty of early appearances by members of Flash's Rogues Gallery, plus "Flash of Two Worlds" from The Flash #123, the landmark issue which established that the modern-day DC heroes (and villains) lived on an Earth called Earth-One, while DC characters from the Golden Age had existed on a different Earth, called Earth-Two (actually an entire universe)!

Actually, the so-called Earth-Two heroes came first, so their universe probably deserved to be called Earth-One instead. It gets complicated... and I'm barely scratching the surface, believe me!

DC and Marvel, which produced all of the giants and annuals that I'm gushing about in this series -- except for one, in my next installment -- seemed to enjoy re-publishing first appearances of certain characters, hero or villain origins, and the like. Both companies really knew what their audience wanted.

(Well, they knew I wanted, anyway. I can't speak for the rest of the country's comic book readers.)

Two examples of "re-publishing first appearances of certain characters, hero or villain origins, and the like" would be the reprinted debut of The Kryptonite Kid, as well as the story which told how a teenage Lex Luthor met Superboy and became his friend at first, only to end up as his greatest enemy.

And speaking of Lex Luthor, the next issue of 80 Page Giant featured several stories of the adult Lex Luthor against Superman... and in one case, Superboy.

How did that happen? Via time travel!

In a fairly well-told, effective story called "The Impossible Mission," Superboy decides to go back in time to prevent the assassination of none other than Abraham Lincoln. Purely by coincidence, Lex Luthor, who is an adult in "our" time (1960, when this story first appeared), is in Washington, D.C. on that very same day! Apparently, he'd traveled to 1865 just to hide from Superman. No, really.

Luthor spots Superboy, and assumes that Superman had sent his own younger self to capture him (Luthor). Lex luckily has some Red Kryptonite with him. "Red K" is a variation of plain ol' Green Kryptonite, which can kill Superman or Superboy. However, Red Kryptonite doesn't kill Superman/Superboy. Instead, it causes strange effects, transformations, etc. that last (in most stories) for forty-eight hours, but that period sometimes varied, depending on the writer of the individual stories!

In this instance, the "Red K" completely immobilizes Superboy, while Luthor stands there gloating. Suddenly, a commotion from nearby begins as news hits the streets that Lincoln has been shot. A tear runs down Superboy's face because he knows that he's failed in his mission. Luthor, hearing the uproar and seeing Superboy's reaction, realizes the real reason Superboy was in 1865. With an "I'm evil, but not that evil!" kind of attitude, the horrified Lex exits the room (and, presumably, leaves 1865 by whatever method he'd used to get there in the first place).

Whew! And all that just to teach Superboy that it was impossible to change what's already happened.

Now, on the Marvel Comics side of things...

The Mighty Thor had been introduced back in 1962, in a title called Journey into Mystery. The comic was later renamed The Mighty Thor, but as of 1965 J.I.M. still bore its original title. That's why the first annual featuring Thor was actually Journey into Mystery Annual #1.

This annual introduced Marvel's version of Hercules in an all-new story. And if that wasn't enough, it reprinted the first appearances of the Lava-Man (whom I'd first seen in The Avengers #5), the Radioactive Man (whom I'd first seen in The Avengers #6 as a member of The Masters of Evil), and last but not least, Thor's perennial nemesis, his scheming half-brother Loki!

It seems like every year brought us little Marvelites yet another superb annual or two or three, and 1965 was no exception. The third Fantastic Four Annual featured the wedding of Reed Richards ("Mister Fantastic") and Sue Storm, a/k/a "The Invisible Girl." And almost every Marvel hero appeared, and more villains than you could count tried to disrupt the proceedings. At this point, who needed reprints, you may well ask, but F.F. Annual #3 had those, as well!

For today's final selection: In 1965 "Mighty Marvel" gave us a brand new, slightly-more-than-double-sized comic. This was Marvel Collectors' Item Classics, which became an ongoing title. Its first issue contained extremely early stories of the F.F., Spider-Man, Ant-Man, and the "Tales of Asgard" feature which served as a back-up to Thor in Journey into Mystery.

Yep, I was pretty spoiled when it came to relatively recent stories from DC and Marvel being reprinted, but I had no real hopes of ever seeing anything from the supposed "Golden Age." It looked like those would be forever out of my reach.

Well... As it turned out, I didn't know everything!

Next week: 1966, another banner year! (Uhhh, no pun intended, Hulk fans!)

Thanks for your time.