Reading Room ADVENTURE COMICS "Invasion"

Here's a"lost" story you'd think was from one of Atlas/Marvel's early 1960s sci-fi titles...

...because it features a kool a pencil and ink job by Silver Age legend Don Heck!

But you'd be wrong!

Heck had an undeserved reputation as a hack artist, mostly due to poor inking by actual hacks like Vince Colletta, who was notorious for leaving out pencilers' linework to get the job done faster.

When Don had a good inker or inked himself, his work was on a par with any of the other acknowledged greats of the field.

But since he was almost as fast a penciler as Jack Kirby, publishers didn't utilize his inking talents as often as they could've.

This tale hasn't been seen since it appeared in the back of DC's Adventure Comics #424 (1972).

We're pleased to present it to an audience that was probably unaware of its' existence.

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Don Heck

A Work of Art

Space Force Saturdays SPEED CARTER "Jet-Men of Zurko"

Previously, Speed battled beings from the center of the Earth...

...now he battles self-propelled aliens from an unnamed star in this tale from Speed Carter: SpaceMan #4 (1954).

According to Marvel's writers, aliens are idiots who can be tricked by everything from photos of ancient ruins to comic book panels showing monsters or high-tech weaponry that doesn't really exist!
Remember the end of Fantastic Four #2 (1961) by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby?

Reed Richards showed cut-out comic book panels from Journey into Mystery and Strange Tales to the Skrull fleet commander stating the creatures and super-science weapons shown were real and ready to use against alien invaders!
(Of course, the idea that Jack Kirby could draw stuff that could scare the pants off hostile aliens does have a real appeal...)
And, I remember at least a couple of other pre-Silver Age Marvel stories with a similar concept, including one where movie special effects techs frightened aliens with fake robots from a sci-fi film they were shooting on location...
Written (as are all the Speed Carter stories) by Hank Chapman and illustrated by new artists Mike Sekowsky, Don Heck, and Jack Abel.

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Complete Adventures of Lucky Starr

by Isaac Asimov

(under the pen-name "Paul French")

Omnibus of ALL Six Space-Opera Sagas!

David Starr: Space Ranger, Pirates of the Asteroids, Oceans of Venus, Big Sun of Mercury, Moons of Jupiter, Rings of Saturn

Trump Reading Room / CoronaVirus Comics CHAMBER OF DARKNESS "Day of the Red Death!"

Don da Con's "let them eat cake" moment, including partygoers withour masks, yesterday..

...reminded me of an updated version of Edgar Allan Poe's classic tale of disease, "Masque of the Red Death"! Here's that updated  "adaptation", set present-day, which freely admits the source material!

In fact, out of the mouth of the legendary Stan (the Man) Lee himself...

A rich, uncaring guy who has the power to destroy the entire world and wouldn't hesitate to allow a plague to do so...as long as he was safe!

Now who does that remind us of?

Writer Roy Thomas had been a teacher before turning to writing/editing comics, and he loved utilizing classic literature in his work!

Don Heck, whose Marvel work was usually inked by others, apparently relished the opportunity to do both penciling and inking, as he had done in his 1950s horror and war comics work!

In addition, John Romita Sr turned in a wonderfully-rendered cover which was somewhat obscured by the black tints used to create "mood".

Look at the original art to see the detail you might've missed on the printed version...

Kool, eh?

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Raven and the Red Death

Adapted by Richard Corben

CoronaVirus Comics CHAMBER OF DARKNESS "Day of the Red Death!"

Here's another "adaptation" of Edgar Allan Poe's classic tale of disease...

...which, for a change, freely admits the source material!

In fact, out of the mouth of Stan (the Man) Lee himself...

A rich, uncaring guy who has the power to destroy the entire world and wouldn't hesitate to allow a plague to do so...as long as he was safe!

Now who does that remind us of?

Writer Roy Thomas had been a teacher before turning to writing/editing comics, and he loved utilizing classic literature in his work!

Don Heck, whose Marvel work was usually inked by others, apparently relished the opportunity to do both penciling and inking, as he had done in his 1950s horror and war comics work!

In addition, John Romita Sr turned in a wonderfully-rendered cover which was somewhat obscured by the black tints used to create "mood".

Look at the original art to see the detail you might've missed on the printed version...

Kool, eh?

Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics!

Visit Amazon and Order...

Raven and the Red Death

Adapted by Richard Corben

Man from U.N.C.L.E. From 1965 to 2015!

The new Man from U.N.C.L.E. movie opens this Friday...

...and our "brother" RetroBlog, Secret Sanctum of Captain Video, will be doing a feature on the previous U.N.C.L.E. films.

But before that, we invite you to have a look at the premiere issue of the 1960s comic based on the TV series!

"Why?", you may ask?

Two reasons.

1) It's the closest the comic came to doing an epic tale that would've made a helluva big budget movie.

2) Oddly, enough, the renderings of Solo and Kuryakin look a lot like Henry Cavil and Armie Hammer!

Judge for yourself!

Reading Room FANTASY MASTERPIECES "Beware!! The Ghosts Surround Me!"

"This great yarn, which might have taken place today..."

"...gives concrete evidence to the claim that Dashin' Donnie Heck is perhaps our most sophisticated artist!" --Stan Lee

The odd choice of panels to illustrate the story on the bottom left of the cover...

...does give away a crucial plot point, that the "ghosts" are nothing of the kind!

(I would've used a cropped version of the splash page which gives more of a "ghostly" feel than obviously-alien interdimensional beings.)

Penciled and inked by Don Heck, this appearance in Fantasy Masterpieces #1 (1965) was the tale's second reprinting since its' debut in Strange Tales #76 (1960)!

The first was in Strange Tales Annual #1 (1962).

It appeared one more time, in Vault of Evil #19 (1975), which still makes it 40 years since the story's last publication, and many readers of this blog have never seen it.

As for who wrote it, the consensus is that Stan Lee plotted it, but his brother Larry Lieber (Stan's real name was "Stanley Lieber"*) wrote the captions and dialogue.

Tomorrow, another sci-fi/fantasy tale by one of the artists who defined the Marvel Age of Comics!

*Stan had his name legally changed to "Stan Lee".

50 Years Ago...FANTASY MASTERPIECES!

Face Front, True Believer...

Beginning tomorrow, and for the rest of the week, we'll be presenting the tantalizing tales Smilin' Stan described lurking behind this colorful cover 50 years ago.
(And dig those MadMan-era threads!)

The anthology proved popular enough to keep going for several years, adding Golden Age superhero reprints, and, eventually, becoming a launch platform for both Captain Marvel (The third one, aka Captain Mar-Vell of the Kree) and the Guardians of the Galaxy!

But it was these sci-fi tales by the guys who were doing the Marvel super-heroes, that grabbed my attention!

(Not to mention the sheer chutzpah and showmanship of Stan the Man, linking the tales to the artists who were already becoming the first nerd culture celebrities!)

Be here tomorrow to discover (or re-discover) the magic!

YouTube: Iron Man & the Mandarin: the Early Years!

Art by Jack Kirby and Sol Brodsky

It took almost 50 years, but Iron Man finally gets a crack on the big screen against The Mandarin.

But, the Golden Avenger battled his arch-enemy several times in his first screen appearances on the 1960s Marvel SuperHeroes Show, based on scripts by Stan Lee and art by Don Heck and Gene Colan (with a few inserts of Jack Kirby's art)

Art by Don Heck

(Yes, the subtitles are non-removable, but they're the cleanest copies I could find.)

YouTube Wednesday AVENGERS...1966!

With the new movie opening next week, let's look at some early adventures based on the comics and featuring stats of the original art with limited animation...

They didn't adapt Avengers #1 into animated form, but several other Avengers stories became Captain America, Thor, Hulk, and Iron Man tales.
Today, we're going to present a story starring Captain America where a group of Avengers plays a critical part...



Oddly, Goliath is called Giant-Man! (Yes, it's the same guy, Hank Pym, in the costume, but in the comic, he's called "Goliath" in this blue/yellow costume, not "Giant-Man" as when wearing the earlier red/blue garb.)
And it's almost all Jack (King) Kirby art!

Bonus: The origin of Hawkeye (with the Black Widow) from the Iron Man series...

Art by Dashing Don Heck with a little Gene Colan and Jack Kirby thrown in!

Design of the Week--Tender Love Stories

Each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another!
This week...True Love, with all it's emotional angst, as filtered thru the fashions of the Swinging '70s!
Illustrated by legendary Marvel and DC good-girl illustrator Don Heck, this never-reprinted cover from a time-lost publisher is the perfect graphic for Spring Break (or summer) t-shirts (get them a size larger than normal to use as beachwear!), tote bags, iPhone covers, and other kool kollectibles!