Kirby Reading Room BOMBAST "Bombast Lives!" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

Revived from suspended animation after 15,000 years genetically-engineered warrior Bombast encounters problems in then-current (1993) Chicago!

Besides not understanding any current language, the Garzan soldier's actions are misunderstood and the police, led by the Savage Dragon, attempt to apprehend him!

He narrowly manages to evade the authorities and...

To Be Continued on Friday at our sister RetroBlog...

HEROINES

as NightGlider makes her introduction!

BTW: there's an in-joke on the cover almost nobody born after 1975 will get!
(But almost all the readers of Topps' never-reprinted Bombast #1 in 1993 did understand and appreciate!)
All the listed creatives worked on Marvel's Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos!
"Wah-Hooo!" was the squad's battle cry!)
Additional BTW: all the creatives were active during the Silver Age and Bronze Age!
But both Dick Ayers and John Severin began working in comics at the end of the Golden Age!
And Jack (King) Kirby himself was there at the dawn of the Golden Age up to the "present" (1993)!
So that's three generations of creators who happily leaped to participate in this project on the strength of Kirby's name alone!

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Kirby Reading Room BOMBAST "Bombast Lives!" Part 1

Moving from 15,000 years ago (as we saw yesterday) to the "present day" of 1993...

...Chicagoans (including Savage Dragon) are about to meet the first of the Ninth Men to be revived from suspended animation!

To Be Continued...

Thursday!

And before you ask, yes, Erik Larsen granted permission to utilize his Chicago-based Image Comics character, Savage Dragon, in this tale to help foster the "Silver/Bronze Age" feel with an almost-traditional "heroes meet up but fight due to a misunderstanding" event.
Considering how much Jack Kirby has influenced Larsen's storytelling/illustrating style, I suspect Erik might have wanted to, at least, pencil the tale, but was unable to do so!
As it is, plotter Roy Thomas, writer Gary Freidrich, penciler Dick Ayers, and inker John Severin are all in top form as they follow through with the concept in this never-reprinted story from Topps' Bombast #1 (1993), producing a kool example of how comics used to be before the "Dark Age of Comics" begun by Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns in the mid-1980s!

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Kirby: Genesis

A retelling of elements of the Secret City Saga which also combines other Kirby projects like Galaxy Green, Captain Victory and Silver Star!

Friday Fun MODELING WITH MILLIE "Millie the Marvel"

If you think Marvel and DC are rebooting their characters (and continuities) more frequently than ever...

...you've never followed the many incarnations of Millie the Model from 1945 to the present!

This particular story is from the early Silver Age "romance comic" phase of her career.

This never-reprinted story from Modeling with Millie #54 (1967); written by Gary Friedrich, penciled by Odgen Whitney, and inked (uncredited) by Frank Giacoia; was Millie the Marvel's only appearance.

It was also the final issue of this particular title.

Over at her ongoing "sister" title, Millie the Model, the character returned to her previous Archie Comics-influenced format, once more becoming a teen-humor title without ongoing storylines.

Trivia: From 1945 to 1973, there was always at least one Millie title from Atlas/Marvel, for a total of five different series, plus annuals, a couple of one-shots, an ongoing strip in Comedy Comics, and a spin-off series for her rival, Chili!
Her main title ran for 207 issues, and was, until Fantastic Four #207 came out in 1979, Marvel's longest-running character-named book!
(Books with longer runs like Mighty Thor, Incredible Hulk, and Captain America had different names [Journey into Mystery, Tales to Astonish, and Tales of Suspense, respectively] before becoming "character" titles.
Millie's flagship title was always Millie the Model!)
Millie was rebooted several times going from a romance/humor hybrid to Archie-style humor to romance/soap opera and finally back to Archie-style humor with changes to the characters' ages, professions, and relationships at each stage.
Millie Collins, despite being shown as outside the Marvel Universe in this tale, has appeared as part of the mainstream Marvel universe in several titles, including the "Wedding of Reed and Sue" in Fantastic Four Annual #3 (and Marvels #2), Dazzler #34, Sensational She-Hulk #60, and the Models, Inc mini-series.
In the 1980s, a middle-aged Millie appeared in the Star Comics mini-series Misty, about the teen-age daughter of Millie's brother!
(The best thing about this Trina Robbins-produced mini-series was the retro look and use of readers' designs for the characters' clothes.)
Millie was scheduled to be rebooted in 2003 as a teen-age tennis player in a manga-style mini-series called 15-Love.
When the project was finally published in 2011 (yeah, eight years later), the lead character was Millie's teen-age niece (though Millie herself did appear briefly)!

Reading Room SUPERNATURAL THRILLERS "Headless Horseman Rides Again!" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

Upstate New York crime lord "Bones" Bullinger murdered reporter Matt Carter to stop the newspaperman's investigations into the underworld.

But Carter's widow, Kim, and his best friend, private eye Duke Durbano, kept the investigation going.

So "Bones" hired NYC hitmen to kill the pair.

The assassins failed (though they don't know it) and "Bones" (in an elaborate disguise) is about to eliminate them...

Written by Gary Friedrich at the same time as he was co-creating the flaming-skulled motorcyclist known as Ghost Rider, this tale from Marvel's Supernatural Thrillers #6 (1973) was left open-ended with the possibility of the Horseman returning as a "Spirit of Vengeance" to deal with other criminals.

Note: 1973-75 featured the appearances of several avenging supernatural characters including Ghost Rider, Son of Satan, Man-Thing, Scarecrow (aka Straw Man), and the return of The Spectre in extremely-gruesome (for the Comics Code era) tales.

Illustrated by penciler George Tuska and inker Jack Abel, both of whom worked in comics during the horror comics era and were quite familiar with how to tell a terrifying tale!

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Reading Room SUPERNATURAL THRILLERS "Headless Horseman Rides Again!" Part 1

We presented the Washington Irving version of The Headless Horseman HERE!

Marvel did a never-reprinted sequel set in the "present day" almost 50 years ago!

What do they see?

Could it be...?

Find out Thursday!

This book-length story from Marvel's Supernatural Thrillers #6 (1973) was the final one-shot tale from the short-lived comic before N'Kantu the Living Mummy took the book over for the remainder of its' sadly-short run.

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