Golden Age Space Wars!

Skyman is not a Charlton character. The aviation hero actually was part of Columbia comics scene. But Skyman's adventures were popular and he appeared briefly in his own title as well for years in Big Shot Comics. The stories reprinted by Mort Todd in these Charlton Neo volumes come from Big Shot. If you enjoy classic movie serials you will like these tales which are paced almost exactly the same as say Radar Men from the Moon. 

The series began soon after Ogden Whitney returned from active duty during WWII. While never featured on the covers of Big Shot, this series of stories featuring Skyman going to the Moon where he encounters Martians and Hitler are well paced adventures with proper cliffhanger endings. The series ran for years from 1946 until late 1948. 

In addition to aliens and Nazis, Skyman and his girlfriend Fawn must confront threats such as giant green rats who live inside the Moon. (No reference is made about cheese, but that must've been in the back of Whitney's mind.)

Hitler has a bombastic scheme to conquer the Earth with bombs from the Moon, but of course that goes awry. But when Skyman is able to end that odious threat, that doesn't mean the danger is over. 

Aliens from Venus are the next obstacle facing Skyman and Fawn as well as several Earth people who have been snatched by Venusians. Skyman has to salvage more than one spaceship to get around the solar system. 

But it will come as little surprise that Skyman and his girl do find their way back to Earth, but it's not without more mayhem and death than I expected. This story was exceedingly well told, but waiting for chapters over several years must've been excruciating for readers back in the day. 

On a different note, Steve Ditko drew a Skyman adventure written by Mort Todd way back in the 90's which appeared under the Indy ACE Comics brand. I have the original around here somewhere. 

I don't sadly have this version of the story from Charlton Neo which presented the Ditko story and pencil art for the tale. I'd love to see and compare. 

Rip Off

Mort Todd's Monsters Attack!

Mort Todd was an editor for Cracked Magazine, MAD's longtime rival during the 80's. A fan of monsters, he incorporated them into Cracked with great success as born out by the Cracked companion magazine Cracked's Monster Party. Then Todd went one step further and created Monsters Attack. According to Todd, he did this without the okay of his publishers and pushed out a few issues before they even knew. They put a halt to the magazine until they saw the sales numbers and then gave it the thumbs up after a half year layoff. 

Todd wanted to create a magazine which was a synthesis of Famous Monsters of Filmland and Creepy. He succeeded, especially in the early issues. He tapped proven pros such as Steve Ditko, Gray Morrow, Pat Boyette, Gene Colan and even the reluctant Alex Toth. The latter didn't draw a new story for the magazine, but did offer up one he'd done for Charlton, but withheld due to the meager pay. (That story titled "Bookworm" was written by Nick Cuti and was given to Nicholas Alascia to draw. That story too is included in this collection for those who want to compare.) Todd took advantage of his position to ink a Ditko story, much to the story's detriment. Todd recognized his error thankfully and most of the Ditko stories are pure. 

But things grew difficult as the final issues began to be produced. Todd eventually left after purchasing stories for the fifth and final issue, but he had little control of the magazine after that. Given that these two collections are titled "Mort Todd's Monsters Attack!", he does not include any work he didn't commission or played a key role in obtaining. Strangely that seemed to also apply to a Poe adaptation by Walter Brogan from issue two. 

In addition to great horror tales by proven masters, we are treated to articles on movies, books, ranging from classic reviews of Universal's Frankenstein films to an exhaustive examination of the Godzilla movies. One of the stranger things in the collections is a detailed chart documenting Jason's kills over the course of several of the Friday the Thirteenth series. Even if like me you already own all five of the Monsters Attack! series, there is still some new-old goodness with "Transformation Flying", a Todd-John Severin effort which for some reason was never used and is delivered here for the first time. 

Here are the covers. 

(Debut cover inspired by the first issue of Creepy.)

(Severin cover meant to evoke that Famous Monsters of Filmland vibe.)

(Another solid John Severin offering of a splitting headache.)

(Severin again, this time it's Godzilla based on an Aurora model.)

(A George Bush --not that one--painting of Karloff's monster.)

These are fun comics produced by an editor who was rich with youth and energy, tapping veterans who were in need of a place to create. 

One great detail I never noticed is that the "Attack!" part of the title was copied from the vintage Charlton classic Fantastic Giants which celebrated the work of Steve Ditko. 

Rip Off

Mercury Man Day!

Yesterday was the birth date of the Italian-born Rocke Mastroserio. Rocke was a much-respected artist at Charlton Comics and Warren as well. He's most famous for his renditions of Mr. Dedd, the host of Ghostly Tales, a title which was to be Rocke's mainstay until his untimely death changed things.

(Mastroserio's Mr. Dedd)

Here's Mercury Man, a character Mastroserio co-created for Charlton's Space Adventures comic. The story was most likely written by the ubiquitous Joe Gill. 

In this Rocke Mastroserio extravaganza we have Mercury Man, an offbeat blend of sci-fi and super heroics, in a time when superheroes were somewhat scarce. This seems clearly to want to build on the success of Captain Atom, but it alas falls a tad short. (I apologize for the tilt on the pages, but that's the way my copy is printed.) For the second and final Mercury Man story see this link.

The story above was reprinted with bright new colors in the debut issue of Maui Might Comics #1. Note he's called "Captain Mercury" in this new presentation. 

Rip Off

Maui Mighty Comics!

Although that singular focus has shifted over the many years of this blog, I began it with a special emphasis on Charlton Comics. The defunct publisher created some of my all-time favorite characters as evidenced by my "nom de electron". Mort Todd among others attempted a revival of sorts of Charlton with the Charlton Neo brand. That project always seemed to be waiting for the next thing and as far as I can tell didn't live up to promises, though they did produce some tasty comics which hearkened back to Charlton's heyday. The final E-Man stories by the late Nick Cuti and the great Joe Staton were published by Charlton Neo. Now Charlton Neo has risen up with a rebranding as "#1 Comics". The first publication titled Maui Mighty Comics is a charity tie-in for the Maui which as suffered deadly wildfire damage of late, and it reprints many stories from the Charlton Neo run. 

"The Dream Weaver" by Roger McKenzie and Steven Butler features Mr. Mixit, a hero who is created as an homage to Steve Ditko. Mr. Mixit is a blend of various classic Ditko hero looks with Blue Beetle's general shape and costume design, Spider-Man's crazy poses, Captain Atom's chest symbol, Doctor Strange's cape details, and the Creeper's signature shaggy cape-piece. 

This story is reprinted from 2017's Charlton Arrow #1 from Charlton Neo.

"Captain Mercury" is a polished re-colored reprint of "The Mercury Man" by Joe Gill and Rocke Mastroserio from the pages of Charlton's Space Adventures #44 from way back in 1962. The new colors help make the hero pop as he encounters mankind for the first time. The wing-eared alien comes to Earth to find that humanity is about to destroy itself with deadly nuclear weapons. He intervenes. If you'd like to read the original check out this link. 

"Ms. Molecule" is by Renee King Thompson and Sandy Carruthers and this story is reprinted from Charlton Neo's Unusual Suspense from 2015. Ms. Molecule is really Maxi Molin, a graduate student in the sciences who during a treatment to shrink a cancer is herself given the power to shrink. With the help of Dr. Spaulding and technician Oliver, she helps people with strange medical problems and animals like the horse in this adventure which takes her to the Kentucky Derby. 

"Yang - The Sea of Blood" is by Roger McKenzie and artist Ben Torres and is a reprint from 2016's Charlton Arrow #5. It's 1895 and we meet Yin Li, the man known as "Yang" or the "Light" as he prepares to return to China aboard the clipper ship Sattler. But the warlord Chao Ku gets word and transforms himself into a dragon. We learn a secret of Chao Ku's daughter who is the Ying to his Yang. There's a confrontation and an explosion and this might be Yang's final adventure. 

Yang by Joe Gill and artist Warren Sattler and its spin-off House of Yang by artist Sanho Kim were remarkable if relatively brief additions to the Kung-Fu craze of the 70's. 

There is also a one-page Nature Boy gag strip by Gary McGinnis and artist Mort Todd. I wonder why Nature Boy gets no respect. 

Oh, that's why. Never mind. 

This second Mr. Mixit story titled "Reflection" is by the McKenzie and Butler team for Charlton Arrow #2 from 2016. Our hero is learning to use his new powers gained when a box of comic books exploded in the basement of Mr. Oktid's comic shop, and he stops a crime and saves a kid before changing back to his nerdy self. But the cliffhanger portends great danger four our hero. 

Part of me wants #1 Comics to succeed, though I am sad that Charlton Neo is now a memory. Good luck to Mort Todd and the gang. And good luck to the folks in Maui who are recovering from the deadly disaster. For more on that check out this link. 

Rip Off

Ditko Runs Amok!

Back in the 90's when Steve Ditko was winding down his mainstream career in comics you had a hard time telling when he'd pop up next. One place was in a nifty four issue reprint series edited by Mort Todd called Monster Menace. Of the four issues Ditko drew two of the covers including the one above featuring not only himself and Stan Lee hard at work but an avalanche of monster mugs from the mighty Atlas/Marvel monster years. 

Here's a look at a raw version of the artwork Ditko turned in before it was menaced itself by logos and branding imagery. 

And here it is again with some of that identifying copy in place. Notably missing still is the little Jack Kirby blurb at the bottom. 

Ditko also did the cover for issue three of Monster Menace and this one is bit more typical of the work he was doing at the end of his career in the halls of Marvel. Dismayed and frightened regular folks (Ditko's bread and butter) are scared of an oozing green gelatinous monster as it appears on the sidewalk. The copy at the bottom announced the monster "Zuztak", but this is no Zzutak my friends. 

 

Zzutak was a delightful monster penciled by Kirby and inked by Ditko who appeared in an issue of Strange Tales and some years later in the third issue of Fear where I first encountered him. He's always been a favorite. He was an ancient Mayan monster recreated by an artist given three dimensional paint by a mad Mayan priest who lusts for power and an army of Zzutaks. The artist instead paints up an enemy to do battle with Zzutak and the Mayan priest's plans are foiled. It's one of my favorites. 

I had hoped to do more this month with the Marvel mystery and monster work Ditko did, but time has got the best of me. Look for another go at Ditko's Marvel years in months to come. 

Rip Off