The Greatest HERCULES of All is Coming to RetroBlogs™!

We hope you've enjoyed five days of...

at Crime & Punishment™ this week
and we want you to join us next week as

Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™ 
goes to sunny Italy for a week of posts featuring two sword and sandal (with a hint of sorcery) sagas starring Steve Reeves...

...featuring the manly art of John Buscema
and...

...with muscular renderings by Reed Crandall and George Evans!
The testosterone will be oozing off your screen!

PHANTOM LADY at the London Olympics...in 1948!

Join the voluptuous vigilante known as the Phantom Lady...

...as she battles those who would destroy the 1948 Olympic Games (which also took place in London)

by visiting our newest "sister" blog, Heroines™!

Reading Room: EXPLORERS IN THE UNKNOWN "Hostile Asteroid"

In the 1960s, we were about to reach the Moon...

...so the idea that we would first explore the Solar System, then nearby stellar systems, within a few decades wasn't unreasonable.

We developed a new metal alloy, Zakanite, just to use it on ID tags and insignia?
There's not a nut or bolt on the ship made from it..or even the crewmens' ID tags and insignia?
And you wonder why Congress cut NASA's budget in the mid-1970s!
We do learn there's only three officers (including the ship's commander) in the ship's complement.
Because there's only four pages in each story, there's no character development between them.
This odd tale from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea #8 (1966) was written by Dick Wood (who wrote the entire series) and illustrated by Nevio Zaccara (who remained the strip's artist until the final chapter).

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Reading Room: "COMICS" McCORMICK "Captain Catapult"

Each issue our hero encounters characters from a different comic strip/book genre!

This time, he aids a super-hero in the Superman / Captain Marvel mold.

The main difference between this strip and it's primary rival, SuperSnipe, is that "Comics" daydreams about interacting with comic characters, but SuperSnipe actually tries to do heroic deeds like capturing spies or rescuing kittens, but invariably screws up and ends up being grounded (or worse).
This story from Holyoke's Terrific Comics #4 (1944) is written and illustrated by Ed Wheelan.
The final blurb mentioning "Suspence" Comics is totally-inaccurate.
While Holyoke did publish Suspense Comics (note the spelling), "Comics" never appeared in that title, only in Terrific Comics.
When Wheelan moved over to EC Comics in 1947 (before they did horror and sci-fi titles), he was given his own book, Fat & Slat, where he carried over several older strips, including "Comics" McCormick.
Fat & Slat only lasted four issues before being retitled Gunfighter and made into a Western comic.
#4 marked "Comics" McCormick's only cover appearance in his too-short existence.
Wheelan did over 300 stories during his career from 1938-1949, almost all of them as both writer and artist.

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Reading Room: SPEED CARTER: SPACEMAN "Famous Explorers: Mars"

In 2004, we reached Venus and Mercury!

Then, in 2007, men reached another planet...

You do remember this stuff, don't you?

It was only a few years ago!

Oh, it's just a comic book from the 1950s, when we thought we'd be all over the solar system by 2000!

Didn't quite work out that way, did it? 

Damn. ;-(

This story from Speed Carter: SpaceMan #3 (1953) references the previous Famous Explorers tales in its' first paragraph, mentioning the explorations of Venus and Mercury.
Written by Hank Chapman, and illustrated by Al Eadeh.

Note: the astronauts in this story, which takes place three generations in the "past" of Speed Carter, have different uniforms and lower-end technology than what's shown in the Speed Carter tales.

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Reading Room: SPEED CARTER: SPACEMAN "Core People"

"Watch the Skies!" they cried in the 1950s!

They should have said "Look out below!" as this subterranean saga from Speed Carter: SpaceMan #2 (1953) proves!

OK, science pretty much gets tossed out the porthole on this one, but, hey, it's fun!

Written (as are all the Speed Carter stories) by Hank Chapman and illustrated with his usual flair by Joe Maneely.

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RetroBlogs™ Marathons: Week 3!

Crime and Punishment™ will chill your blood on those hot summer nights...

...with the classic Sherlock Holmes novel (from Classics Illustrated, no less), The Hound of the Baskervilles, beginning tomorrow...


And have a look back at our previous one-week marathons:

True Love Comics Tales™ presented a full-length Gothic romance...

...with evocative art by the late Tony DeZuniga.
Then...

War: Past, Present and Future™ returned to the future...

...with tales of Atomic War and World War III!