Showing posts with label John Forte. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Forte. Show all posts

Saturday, November 11, 2023

Space Hero Saturdays BLACKHAWK "Battle on the Moon"

Since today is Veterans Day, let's look at the post-war adventures of a team of WWII vets...
...as these Commie-crushing Russkie-Smashers fight for freedom everywhere on Earth...and beyond!
BTW, note the Blackhawks don't walk around the airless vacuum on the Moon's surface in the story itself wearing just their leather uniforms with helmets!
(Nor does the leggy Russkie woman wear just her shorts!)
Though the writer of this never-reprinted tale from Quality's Modern Comics #99 (1950) is unknown, it's illustrated by penciller John Forte and inker Chuck Cuidera.
The "Dark Knights", as they're often referred to, went whole-heartedly after Russkie and Chinese Communists during the post-World War II days of their Quality Comics run.
But, when the characters continued at DC after Quality closed up shop, other opponents like mad scientists, aliens, and the occasional ex-Nazi, took center stage, along with newly-created super villains until the middle-aged aviators became superheroes/spies in the Swinging '60s as shown

 HERE!
(You truly have to see it to believe it!)
Trivia: John Forte is better-known to present-day comics readers as the primary artist on the first few years of The Legion of Super-Heroes' run in Adventure Comics, while Blackhawk co-creator Chuck Cuidera remained on the strip after DC took it over, almost to the very end of the Silver Age run!
Plus, Cuidera inked Dick Dillin (who penciled almost all the DC Blackhawk stories) on Dillin's Hawkman run after Blackhawk was cancelled!
And, in an ironic turn, that the Blackhawks adopted uniforms surprisingly-similar to the Russkies' outfits in this story when they entered a "scientific adventurer" phase in the early 1960s...

..yet nobody noticed!
(Of course it was over a decade later...)

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Monday, July 11, 2022

Monday Madness MARVEL TALES "Dictator!"

There's a rumor floating though the 'Net that the current coronavirus is a man-made disease!
It's unlikely, but, what if someone did do that horrible deed?
Did artist John Forte and an unknown writer of this story about a fat, insecure dictator from Atlas' Marvel Tales #125 (1954) predict something that could happen over 65 years later?
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Thursday, October 7, 2021

Reading Room STRANGE TALES OF SUSPENSE "Uncle Ed and the Men from Space"

Telling stories about monsters from outer space is common around Halloween...
...just ask Orson Welles!
But when real aliens show up, things aren't quite what they seem...
A simple little tale from Atlas' Strange Stories of Suspense #5 (which was the first issue of the title)
Oddly, the GCD lists "Bill LaCava" as the artist, but the work is clearly John Forte (whose signature is at the bottom of the first panel!)
Forte is best known for his work at DC Comics including long stints on Superman Family series, particularly Tales of the Bizarro World and Legion of Super-Heroes.
The writer is unknown.
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Tuesday, April 7, 2020

CoronaVirus Comics STRANGE TALES "I Saved Mankind!"

I love stories with ironic "switch" endings...
...even if the switch produces a tragic result, like this one!
Illustrator John Forte's aliens in this tale from Atlas's Strange Tales #43 (1956) just aren't very...well...alien!
Other than that, it's a clever story (with slightly-stilted dialogue) by a scripter whose identity has been lost to the mists of time!
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Marvel Masterworks
Atlas-Era Strange Tales #5
(which is the only time this story has been reprinted)

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Reading Room MENACE "Walking Dead"

As we pointed out yesterday, "Walking Dead" didn't always refer to zombies...
...but it sure does here!
This cover-featured story from Atlas' Menace #9 (1954) came at the tail-end of the horror comic craze.
Dr. Wertham's crusade against those magazines had already taken it's toll as entire comic companies folded due to falling sales and public outcry.
Menace itself only lasted two more issues before disappearing.
Luckily, Atlas, which already had a predeliction for jumping onto whatever current fad was selling, had such a diverse line, that it was easy for Stan Lee and company to simply "switch gears" and replace the disgraced horror genre with other types of books.
(For example, When MAD comics took off in the mid-1950s, Atlas had four MAD-clone comics; RIOT!, CRAZY!, WILD!, and SNAFU!!
None lasted more than five issues!)
With the Silver Age dawning only a couple of years later, Atlas hung on long enough to become Marvel, and the rest is history...
Illustrated by John Forte with a cover by Gene Colan, the story's writer is unknown.
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