Before Percy Jackson was...Nature Boy!

Long before Percy Jackson met the Olympians and fought a Sea of Monsters, there was another teen given amazing powers by ancient gods...
Rich teenager David Crandall was yachting with his parents when a storm sank the boat and David was stranded!
Rescued by "gods" who control various aspects of nature, he is given a portion of each of their powers...
Neptune--water
Gusto--wind
Furo--fire
Eartha--earth
Electra--lightning
Allura--love
Azura--skies
Friga--cold
(Yeah, I know a couple of them overlap, and only one was an actual mythological god, but why quibble?)
David used his new powers to return home and reunite with his still-alive family.
He also decided to battle evil in various forms as Nature Boy, since he controlled the forces of nature, and the gods gave him a spiffy new outfit to show off!

He only had three issues of his own title (which started with #3*) before he disappeared from the comics scene..until now!
But, within those three issues, the seeds were planted for an entire superfamily of Nature-heroes including Nature Man (an adult version of the hero from the future) and female counterpart Nature Girl.
This isn't surprising, since he was created by Jerry Siegel (co-creator of Superman) who knew a thing or two about that sort of thing.
To add to his hero cred, Nature Boy was drawn by the great John Buscema who later did Conan, Avengers, Fantastic Four, and damn near everything at Marvel in the 70s thru the 90s, so even if the stories were a bit silly, they looked spectacular!
You can read several of his tales at our "brother" blog, Hero Histories™!

Technically, Nature Boy should be considered one of the last Golden Age heroes as his premiere was in 1956, just a couple of months before The Flash re-emerged in Showcase #4.
However, like Captain Flash, and the Martian Manhunter, though he predates The Flash, he's thought to be one of the first Silver Age characters instead!
On that basis, we at Atomic Kommie Comics™ have revived Nature Boy as part of our Lost Heroes of the Silver Age of Comics™ line, on t-shirts, messenger bags, mugs and other kool kollectibles!
He was one of the first, but hardly one of the worst...

*To save money on paying for a new second-class mailing permit,  comics publishers would often just rename an existing comic, rather than start a new one!
Today, with #1 issues being such "hot" collector's items, publishers wouldn't dream of doing that sort of thing!

Wind up "Lone Ranger Month" with a Classic LONE RANGER Comic Story!

Here's a tale written by the co-creator of the Lone Ranger...

...originally-published in the newspaper strip, and probably based on a radio show episode!

Click on the link HERE to read it!

Design of the Week: Steve Savage Over Korea!

Each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another.
This week,with the 60th Anniversary of the end of the Korean War, we look at one of the more popular characters to come out of the conflict, aviator Steve Savage with this kool retro-style cover from his 1950s Avon Comics run.
Available on t-shirts, mugs, iPad and laptop cases, and other goodies!

Reading Room: SAVAGE TALES "Fury of the Femizons"

Rush Limbaugh whines about "Feminazis", but personally, I think he'd be turned-on by...

...as portrayed in this Women's Lib-era story from the b/w magazine Savage Tales #1 (1971)!

Written by Stan Lee and illustrated in kool pen & ink with pencil highlights by John Romita, Sr,  this tale had an unusual genesis, as detailed on the editorial page...

Women's liberation.

It's all around us, be we male or female.

marches, intellectual treatises, picketing, bra-burning, some four-letter forensics, and more burnings–not always of bras.

"Women are the equals of men every day, in every way!'

Men are beginning to believe it.

Women always knew it.

So what happens if maybe we come the full circle in, say the next hundred years or so?

What if women turn the rascals out–and we do mean out!

What would we have then?

A better world? Perhaps.

A gentler world? Could be.

A different world? Believe it.

Stan Lee got to wondering-and, by and by, he set imaginative artist Johnny Romita to wondering along with him.

The result is, perhaps, something just a wee bit new under the sun.

Not quite sword-and-sorcery–certainly not science-fiction–and not exactly a political polemic.

Robin Morgan clobbers Buck Rogers in the 25th century!

Kate Millett zaps both Flash Gordon and Ming the Merciless–then takes over Mongo for good measure!

The hand that rocks the cradle really rules the world!

Today's look at the future...as seen from the past.  ;-)

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Reading Room: MAN O' MARS

Here's a kool klassic from the 1950s...the lead story from a 1953 one-shot that combined all the great cliches of space opera (spaceships, ray guns, aliens, half-naked space babes) in one tight ten-page tale...

These days, this story would be a six-issue mini-series with tie-ins to several other titles.

The rest of the book was made up of unrelated reprints from earlier issues of Planet Comics.
The interior artist is Maurice Gutwirth, but the writer is uknown.
The cover was done by Maurice Whitman, one of Fiction House's more prolific artists.
When the book was reprinted in 1958, yet another cover was done (see left), featuring totally different-looking characters and flying saucers that appeared nowhere in the story!

We included the original cover as part of our Martians! Martians! Martians! retro collectibles line including mugs, t-shirts and other nifty stuff.