Showing posts with label retro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label retro. Show all posts

Thursday, January 22, 2026

Reading Room BLACK CAT MYSTIC "Great Stone Face!"

Despite the title, Black Cat Mystic was actually a sci-fi anthology...
...featuring the final work of the Simon & Kirby Studio!
NOTE: May be NSFW due to racial stereotypes common to the era.
Penciled, inked, and probably scripted by Jack Kirby, this tale from Harvey's Black Cat Mystic #59 (1957) is Jack's first look at what would become known as the "ancient astronauts" theory in the 1970s due to the interest generated by Erich von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods.
At the same time, Kirby himself would expand the concept into The Eternals, (originally-titled Return of the Gods), which is now one of the lynchpins of the Marvel Universe.

Kirby would present a variation of the theme a couple of years after "Great Stone Face" in Race for the Moon's "Face on Mars" as shown HERE.
Note: Kirby and Stan Lee did a variation of the concept at Marvel in the 1960s with The Inhumans, who were created by Kree scientists visiting Earth in prehistoric times and genetically-manipulating humans to draw out dormant abilities.
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Wednesday, January 21, 2026

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder RAUMPATROUILLE "Deserteure" (Deserters)

Buckle up, space cadets, as we rejoin the reckless crew of the SpaceShip Orion!
McLane is given a super-weapon called "OverKill" that he's to install on Earth outposts, but the Frogs can now mind-control humans...including the Orion's crew.
Will the space fleet have to destroy the Orion to keep OverKill out of the Frogs' possession?
Note: We've tried to embed the English subtitles, but if they don't come up automtaically, go to the "gear" icon on the lower right, and set them manually.)
Be here next Wednesday for another astounding adventure!

Saturday, January 17, 2026

Space Hero Saturdays CAPTAIN SCIENCE "Tracking the Flying Saucers"

A dying alien gives a human without fear the ability to defend Earth...
...nope, it ain't the Silver Age Green Lantern!
It's Captain Science!
Appearing full-blown in the first issue of his own title in 1950, Captain Science was a bold attempt at a Captain Video-type comics hero, one more dependent on brains and technology than brawn.
Unlike Captain Video, who created advanced technology simply because he was really smart,  Gordon Dane was shown to be smart and had the advantage of possessing alien knowledge he could use in adapting and improving present-day tech to serve new uses as the situation required.
Visually, the art on his never-reprinted premiere appearance by Gustav Schrotter is adequate, but hardly distinctive.
Captain Science Will Return!
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Friday, January 16, 2026

Friday Femme Fun MODELING WITH MILLIE "Mille the Marvel"

If you think Marvel and DC are rebooting their characters 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 Marvel's 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 series 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 ThorIncredible Hulk, and Captain America had different names [Journey into MysteryTales 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 Multiverse 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 (along with 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)!
In 2009, Millie and her Silver Age supporting cast were the 20-something title characters in the mini-series Models, Inc.
The series also features Johnny (Human Torch) Storm, Spider-Man, Dr StrangePatsy (HellCat) Walker, Tigra, Night NurseMary Jane Watson, and real-life fashion expert Tim Gunn, re-establishing the Mille characters in the Marvel Multiverse...but nothing's been done with them since!
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Thursday, January 15, 2026

Reading Room EERIE ADVENTURES "Vampires from Venus!"

 It's Freezing, Windy, and Snowy Outside...

...perfect weather for a tale about an invasion by aliens from a hot and steamy planet!


This 1951 tale combining mobila, lethal plants (based on the Triffids from the novel Day of the Triffids which had just been published) and vampires (with their classic weakness, sunlight) from the Ziff-Davis one-shot Eerie Adventures was illustrated by Bob Powell and Howard Nostrand.
The writer is unknown.
Eerie Adventures used leftover material from the recently-cancelled Amazing Adventures with an attempt to market it as horror rather than sci-fi/fantasy.
Only one issue was published as the title was dropped by Ziff-Davis to avoid legal action by Avon who already had an ongoing Eerie comics title.
ZD then did a Weird Adventures one-shot, which sold well, but discovered there was already a title with the same name from PL Publishing which debuted the month before!
So ZD retitled their book Weird Thrillers, before PL could take legal action.
The series ran five more issues before the Dr Wertham-led Seduction of the Innocent witch-hunt forced the cancellation of all horror-related comic books.
(Ironically, the PL series only ran two more issues before the entire company folded.)
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Wednesday, January 14, 2026

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder RAUMPATROUILLE "Hüter des Gesetzes" (Guardians of the Law)

After twice defeating energy-based aliens known as "Frogs"...
...the crew of the Orion 7 encounter rebellious robots on an Earth colony!
(Note the story makes use of Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics!
 Kool!)
OK, let the comparisons to how Kirk and Spock would've handled it begin...

Sunday, January 11, 2026

The Chicago Bears Beat the Green Bay Packers in the Playoffs for the First Time in Decades!

Celebrate the Chicago Bears' Playoff Victory Against Their Eternal Regional Rivals, the Green Bay Packers...

...with this cool, never-reprinted tale from Prize Comics' Babe V1N4 (1948-49) about the "Chicago Crushers" pro football team by writer/artist Gordon "Boody" Rogers, a graduate of the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and the Art Institute of Chicago, who obviously was a Chicago football fan!
(Though we're uncertain if the strip's Crushers were a variation of the Chicago Bears...or the Chicago Cardinals, who later moved to St Louis, then to Arizona!)
But the guys in green she's mopping the gridiron against on the cover (whom she never actually plays against in the tale) are pretty clearly the Green Bay Packers!

...we thought we'd re-present an almost century-old example of how the game might be with a woman super-star...and what a woman she is!
Note: Though I'm a born-and-raised New Yorker (specifically Brooklyn), I currently have "dual citizenship" with residences in both Chicago and Manhattan,
Sadly, though, neither the Jets or Giants made the playoffs, so, this year I'm going with the Bears...
One of writer/artist Boody Rogers' wildest creations, Babe: the Darling of the Hills, was one of several hillbilly series "inspired" by the phenomenal 1940s success of Al Capp's Li'l Abner!
Babe Boone derived her abilities from "lightning juice" which was fermented from the bark of trees struck by lightning!
When it and Rogers' other ongoing series, Sparky Watts, were cancelled, Boody retired from commercial art and comics, opening a pair of art supply stores!
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