The RetroBlogs Summer Blogathon Continues...with AVENGERS BATTLE THE EARTH WRECKER!

It's the over-half century old, never-reprinted novel...

...that introduced the Marvel Universe into prose!
Note: neither Quicksilver or the Scarlet Witch appear in the book, though they're referenced, along with Thor, as past members.

The Wasp and Iron Man are the other featured members of the team in this story!

The cover art is by James Bond movie poster artist Robert McGinnis!

Written by long-time pulp/comic book writer Otto Binder (whose comic book credits include Superman and the original Captain Marvel, this never-reprinted tale is a rolicking, fast-paced adventure that would have made a kool flick back in the Swinging 60s!

Trivia: Binder co-created both Supergirl and the Legion of Super Heroes!

Though there had been numerous paperback reprints of Marvel comics by Lancer Books, this was the first prose novel...and an original story, not an adaptation of any of the comics tales!
There were three previous comic book prose novels before this...all based on DC characters!
George Lowther's Adventures of Superman, which, technically, was based on the radio show (not surprising since Lowther was the show's story editor and occasional scripter), and Winston Lyon's (William Woolfolk's) duo of books about the Dynamic Duo; Batman vs the Three Villains of Doom (based as much on the tv show as the comic) and Batman vs the Fearsome Foursome (a novelization of the 1966 theatrical movie).

Let's have a look at what the book is about!

Here's the inside cover hero lineup...

Monday, read the intro and first chapter of this lost classic at
Hero Histories!

Space...Hero??? Saturdays NORGE BENSON "Gang of Hoodlum Penguins"

 Since We're Suffering through a Heat Wave...

..let's return to frigid Pluto for another interplanetary adventure with Norge Benson, as we discover that some penguins on Pluto speak perfect English, and others talk with Brooklyn accents...just like on Earth!

Think I'm joking?

Read on...

So, what'd youse tink?

Or for dose...I mean "those", who don't speak Brooklynese..."What did you think?"

I'll warn you now, future installments only get loonier!

Illustrated by Al Walker, who spent his entire comics career at Fiction House, this second appearance in Planet Comics #13 (1941) presents a somewhat less snarky (though no less humorous) version of the "Earthman on Pluto" concept shown in the earlier Cosmo Corrigan strip, mixing alien versions of both Arctic and Antarctic animals with total disregard to anything even remotely resembling exobiology!

But it is fun, and that's all that matters!

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Planet Comics
Volume 4
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Friday Fun BIG APPLE COMIX "Peep Shows"

I can tell you from first-hand experience...

...this is, in fact, an extremely accurate look (except for the last four panels in the story)...

...at what visiting 42nd Street west of Times Square in the 1970s and 80s was like!

My high school was nearby (West 54th between 5th and 6th Avenues), and I discovered that, when you wore a sports jacket or leisure suit (which I had to wear daily because it was a prep school), you could pass as over 18, even if you were only 15!

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the HTF Comic Classic...

Big Apple Comix
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Reading Room STRANGE STORIES OF SUSPENSE "Beware...a Martian"

Here's a tale of racism and innuendo involving an "illegal alien"...

...that all Reich-wingers should take note of!

Written by Carl Wessler, penciled by Al Williamson, and inked by Ralph Mayo, this never-reprinted tale from Atlas' Strange Stories of Suspense #14 (1957) uses science fiction to tell a civil rights parable, substituting a Martian (and the paranoia about his race) for a African-American, Hispanic, Japanese, or other minority group about whom equally-inane fantasies have been concocted!

Note: it's interesting that Nardo the Martian has the same appearance as DC's J'Onn J'Onzz: the Martian Manhunter (except for skin color), as well as MM's specific ability to shape-shift, not a talent usually attributed to inhabitants of the Red Planet!

Note: J'Onn had debuted almost two years earlier!

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Mars in the Movies

A History
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Wednesday Worlds of Wonder GRAPHIC SHOWCASE "Eyes of Mars" Part 2

We Have Already Seen...

...disturbed that, due to the development of warp drive, Earth's scientists are bypassing the planets of the Solar System as uninhabitable, Lt Cezer Leason, a pilot in the Space Patrol, steals his scout craft and heads to Mars!

His ship damaged by a meteor storm, Leason crashes on the surface of the Red Planet and discovers it is, in fact, inhabited!
Rescued by two rebel warriors, he and his new-found friends are captured and brought before the beautiful Queen of Mars...

To Be Continued...Next Wednesday

As we explained previously; the Edgar Rice Burroughs-inspired creator of this story from CCCS's Graphic Showcase #1 (1967) is none other than Mike (The Shadow) Kaluta!
The strip was probably intended as weekly installments in a high-school/college paper, but was repurposed for use in the fanzine.

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Michael Wm. Kaluta: Sketchbook Ser

ies

Volume 1
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