Children Of Doom!

"Children of Doom" is a story I've examined before, but this time I'm focusing on it as an atomic fable. The yarn of how the story was composed is interesting in itself as it was put together quickly when a scheduled story for Charlton Premiere failed to appear and that Denny O'Neil (under his Charlton pen name of "Sergius O'Shaunessy") wrote it quick and artist Pat Boyette (who typically did pencils, inks and letters for his jobs) handled the rest. It's weird and oddly compelling, even if it doesn't totally make sense all the time. 

We begin at the end with a story told in flashback of how an atomic Doomsday device was made to scare mankind into peace. But a tinpot dictator used other technology to create massive firestorms which were the targets of missiles from space which caused the firestorm to overspread the entire planet. It resulted in mutations of three kinds -- firestarters, blind soothsayers, and mysterious others who stay hidden from the mass of humanity who survive but just barely.

The astronauts who fired the missiles think they can get their ship to Venus where they think they might survive and there they encountered a mutated human, one of the mysterious hidden variety who is apparently able to transport himself across space, and they bring him back to Earth.

But all that folderal activates the Doomsday device and only the weird powers of the mysterious and shunned mutants can save the day for the rest of humanity which hangs on by a thread as the story winds up. It's not a happy tale, it's not really a sad tale, it's an enigmatic fable which does and doesn't make sense at the same time. 

But one thing it is for certain and that's a parable preaching against the dangers of war and particularly atomic war, as if that needed preaching against. But there we are. This story is widely reprinted but I read it this last time in The Unknown Anti-War Comics from Yoe Books. 

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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. 

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Peacemaker Day!

Pat Boyette was born on this date in 1923. Boyette was a Renaissance Man of sorts. He had a successful career in radio and television but left all that to create comics. His style was quite distinctive in his time. He avoided many of the typical methods to present action. His greatest creation was Peacemaker. His perfect kind of story was gothic horror. He worked tirelessly for Charlton, some for Warren, and later for DC briefly. 

Pat Boyette's Peacemaker is a concept which is mocked by some, and frankly I've never understood why. Christopher Smith was a diplomat who traveled the globe attempting to come to terms with the dangerous folks he encountered. When that failed, he donned his uniform and strapped on his weapons and confront the villain. It was a bit of wish fulfillment about how to handle the myriad problems the world confronts. Looking at the way we deal with world problems today makes me think of the well-meaning Christopher Smith and his spectacular helmet.

Peacemaker debuted in the back of The Fightin' Five. I love the "Action Heroes" from Charlton and Peacemaker though for a very long time was largely forgotten save in the guise of Alan Moore's Comedian.

Boyette created five issues of Peacemaker in 1967. 

There was a sixth issue of the series which has been travelling around the fan community for years. Sadly it wasn't included in the recent reprint of the series. Don't know why. 

DC was befuddled by the character, making him into a Punisher-like madman. Still, he wasn't mostly ignored as was Judomaster. 

In recent years Peacemaker has become a hit as portrayed by John Cena. The madness remains but cloaked in satire it's a bit easier to swallow. I confess to enjoying these strange adventures. 

Though I haven't bought any new Peacemaker comics. I'll make do with Pat Boyette's classic. It will serve. 

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Action-Heroes Day!

Dick Giordano was born on this date in 1932. Giordano began his career as an artist, working for Charlton Comics for many years. In the late 60's when superheroes were all the rage, he assumed the role of editor of the comics line. His goal was to create not "super-heroes" so much as what he called "Action-Heroes". These would be heroes, but people with skills and not so much power. Later Giordano was an editor at DC and was a partner with Neal Adams in the art firm Continuity Associates. 

Dick Giordano became editor of Charlton Comics after Pat Masulli. Giordano had made his mark with Sarge Steel, a hard-nosed detective turned super-spy. His artwork was always crisp and attractive. Shifting to the editor's desk, he surveyed the landscaped and decided that if Charlton were to make a move into the superhero market, they would need to find a way to make their heroes distinctive. Some heroes were already around and might need adjusting and new fresh heroes were needed. 

The line-up consisted of Frank McLaughlin's creation Rip Jagger, a WWII soldier who becomes a deadly master of martial arts Judomaster, who battles the Japanese forces in the Pacific Theater with his young partner Tiger. Peter Cannon - The Thunderbolt created by Pete Morisi, is a man trained by Tibetan monks and is possessed of fantastic skills and powers of the mind. Christopher Smith, the Peacemaker created by Pat Boyette and Joe Gill, is a diplomat who realizes that talk alone will fail to solve all problems and uses his technology to fight when necessary to preserve the peace. Giordano inherited Captain Atom, created by Joe Gill and Steve Ditko a decade before. Giordano had the good Captain's vast powers muchly diminished, and Steve Ditko was all too happy to do so. Added to the Captain Atom cast was Charlton's lone female super-heroine of the era, Nightshade. We learn more about her when Steve Skeates and Jim Aparo take over. 

The line-up was completed by the arrival of Steve Ditko's "All-New" Blue Beetle. Ted Kord becomes a Blue Beetle who is not reliant on a magical scarab but who turns to modern technology and fisticuffs to bring villains to heel. With the arrival of Blue Beetle the "Action-Hero" line was complete, just in time for it all to end. Sales were not what everyone hoped for and the super-hero craze which allowed for this flowering of talent and creations withered. The arrival of a new fresh look for Charlton, the big "C" which would in a few years be replaced by the famous Charlton Bullseye badge, marked both the height and the end of the "Action-Hero" line.

Dick Giordano went to DC and took many of his most talented artists with him. He found great success at DC, sticking with the company for decades. DC purchased the "Action-Heroes", mostly as a gift to Giordano, the editor who had made these fondly remembered heroes possible. As we all likely know, the "Action-Heroes" formed the basis for Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbon's The Watchmen, which originally began as a vehicle for the classic Charlton characters, before DC decided to save them for other things. Hence the "Action-Heroes" live on. 

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Charlton Meets The Multiverse!

I picked up Multiversity- Pax Americana for the very simple reason that I love the old Charlton Action-Heroes and this is as close as we're ever going to get to seeing new adventures featuring those awesome characters.

These characters, created largely under the aegis of editor Dick Giordano were a brief but brilliant attempt to mine the superhero market which blossomed briefly during the Silver Age. Captain Atom and Blue Beetle were dusted off and revamped with new heroes such as Peacemaker, Nightshade, The Question and Judomaster brought along to fill in the ranks.

These characters of course these days are mostly remembered as the inspirations for Alan Moore's iconic Watchmen series and many dismiss them beyond that point. Alas, in this story Grant Morrison, a storyteller with stones, tries to revisit these heroes but clearly through the goggles of the Watchmen variations.

We are invited into a complex story, told by Morrison and artist Frank Quitely, which travels back and forth through time and space with all sorts of visual hijinks, all serving to create some larger mystery and make some larger point. The heroes are not as developed as individuals but merely used as elements of the one-shot story which explores the nature of heroes and justice and how the society can best make use of them.

We get good looks at Captain Atom, a man removed from his fellows by the dint of awesome power and who seems lost inside himself and the universe he sees differently from everyone else. The lovely Nightshade is a very young government agent who seeks to find the right way, but seems out of her depth most of the time. Peacemaker is a man on a mission which makes little sense for most of the story. The Question as always seeks answers regardless, while the Blue Beetle is a loyal government man.

We get glimpses of Sarge Steel and while Rip Jagger the Judomaster doesn't make the cut, his sidekick Tiger is around for a few pages as a member of a superhero unit which has a lot of vintage fun picking out a sobriquet.

The story even has a reference to Charlton's first superhero, the Golden Age Yellowjacket.

(Frank Quitely)

This is a complicated yarn, a mystery which has an answer, but which demands mighty attention from the reader and frankly more than one pass through the material. 

At five bucks for a copy, I guess I should thank Morrison and Quitely for giving me a comic which demands to be read more than once, since the density makes the entertainment value rise.

This is a book any Charlton Action-Hero fan should read, if only to see some vintage imagery and old rather obscure Charlton references hanging around in various panels. It has been collected up a few times. 

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Charlton Premiere Presents Trio - The Spookman!

The Spookman by Pat Boyette was apparently originally to be called "Sandman", but alas that name was taken. His presence brings a little heft to a comic which had real diversity. I'd have loved to see some more Spookman stories but I can't imagine anyone but Boyette drawing them. (Some relatively recent efforts to revive the hero have proved to me that Boyette is a hard act to follow.)

Now that's a hoot! And a face only a mother could love. We wrap all this up tomorrow with The Shape. 

We wrap all this up tomorrow with The Shape. 

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