Captain Action - Classic Collection!

I was the ideal age (pardon the pun) to be attracted to Captain Action when he first dropped onto the scene. I never got the doll (I resist the convention to call him an "action figure") but I always wanted one and have come close to pulling the trigger on some of the modern releases of the toy by others than the original Ideal company. 

So being so enticed by the doll, I was certainly interested in the comic book which came out from DC Comics in late summer of 1968. I was just beginning my life-long career as a comic reader and wasn't at that moment as tuned into DC so I missed these issues when they first dropped for whatever reason. But I've made up for in the intervening years, collecting up all five of the originals some decades ago. But that said I still quite excited when finally a handy dandy reprint volume was announced earlier this year. I now have it, have read and here's a full report. 

Captain Action is brought to life by boy writer Jim Shooter and veteran artist Wally Wood. Under a potent Irv Novick cover these two talents combine to give us the story of Clive Arno and his son Carl. Along with his associate Krellik unearth a trove of magic coins. They are told by the god Odin that the coins can give the powers of the gods to those who possess them. Krellik is immediately interested in getting hold of the coins for his own purposes but fails and instead comes into possession of another coin which gives him evil powers. Arno for his part returns home and becomes Captain Action with Carl becoming Action Boy. They confront Krellik who also is faced with Superman. Arno gets Superman to stand down and he takes the battle to Krellik but is seemingly defeated at the end of the story. 

Gil Kane steps in to pencil with Wally Wood on inks. This is now a superior team as Kane's dynamic style is perfect for the title. Krellik allows Arno to survive but his desire for all of the coins remains. They battle and battle for possession but eventually Arno tricks Krellik with fake coins. Still he slips away as his threat is ended for the time being. As it turns out that's the last time we ever see Krellik. In the next issue we will meet Dr. Evil. 

Dr. Evil makes his debut in issue three. Also making a debut is Gil Kane...a the writer. He takes over both the scripting and the art chores with Wally Wood's help on inks. The story is wacky one indeed with psychedelic overtones. Dr. Evil is in fact one Dr.Tracy (Arno's father-in-law in fact) but he gets transformed when an earthquake triggers a massive explosion which throws him into a strange dimension. He loses his humanity but gains vast intelligence along with desire to destroy mankind. It's all Captain Action and Action Boy can do to fend off the bizarre attacks which use the very forces of nature as weapons. He is though fended off with a classic Gil Kane punch. 

But Dr. Evil turns up in the next issue which sees Gil Kane on writing and full chores. Dr. Evil with deadly race (which looks what he's turned into) and uses that knowledge to bring deadly menaces to the planet Earth. It should be noted that when Kane took over the writing he made Captain Action less omnipotent and gave limited powers such a great sight, ability to throw lightning and possessed of great strength. For his part Action Boy is reduced to mere super speed. Dr. Evil lives up to his name when he uses the ghost of his own daughter to haunt both Captain Action and Action Boy. She had been wife to Arno and mother to Carl. The attacks stop when the aliens step in to stop their former agent. 

The fifth and final issue of the brief run sees Wally Wood back on inks. The story by Kane this time features a wannabe despot named Blackwell who uses hate to whip the populace into a frenzy to support him. (Sounds too close to reality for me these days.) He's actually a split personality and his other self is the father to a son who protests against the Blackwell forces. Captain Action and Action Boy fight these authoritarian forces but alas the tale ends quite tragically. Of all the very excellent Captain Action covers this one is my favorite. 

Chic Stone is tapped to create art for a mini-comic for the Ideal Toy folks. It's mostly an excuse to shill Captain Action toys. 

This comic book package is handsome and durable. It also features a lot of Captain Action extras like the ads which permeated the comics of the time as well as original artwork by Kane. This was Kane at his finest, with pages that never stop moving and at times burst off the page into the readers face. The stories are wild and imaginative if not always logical. We also get some of letter pages as well some of the text pieces which appeared in the comics at the time. Great package and highly recommendation. 

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Gunmaster And Bullet The Gun-Boy!

Once upon a time western heroes ruled the day. Pulps, radio, films, and ultimately television and comics were dominated by the genre which generated hundreds of iterations of the western hero. One of the most distinctive to appear from Charlton Comics, one of the last bastions of the western was Gunmaster. A western hero with a superhero flavor, Gunmaster straddled the transition from the dominance of the one genre into the dominance of the other.

He first appeared in the fifty-seventh issue of Charlton's Six-Gun Heroes which also starred Annie Oakley and Wild Bill Hickock, among others. Quickly though Gunmaster came to dominate the covers and eventually the entire comic. Gunmaster was the masked identity of Clay Boone, a gunsmith who traveled the western landscape plying his trade and seeking justice where he could. Eventually he would need help in this work. More on that below. 

To read Gunmaster's origin story by Joe Gill, Dick Giordano, and Frank McLaughlin go here.

For now enjoy some vintage Charlton covers featuring one of their most distinctive heroes, one who doesn't get a lot of attention. More details to follow as well. 

Eventually the Gunmaster series in Charlton's Six-Gun Heroes was thought to require a boost, and it got it in the addition of the then-obligatory boy sidekick, another element which pushed the series to the superhero side of things. Bob Tellub (ahem...really?) learned of Gunmaster's dual identity and almost immediately was brought into the fold as "Bullet the Gun Boy". He did add a dash of action and the series featured some of the best covers Charlton had to offer thanks to the art of Dick Giordano, Rocke Mastroserio, Pete Morisi and others.

Eventually Gunmaster and Bullet were given their own self-titled comic which lasted four issues.

But given that this is a Charlton publication, it needed some added confusion to the numbering so without missing a beat nor a month, the series adopted the numbering of the old Six-Gun Heroes series in mid-stride.

The series came to an end in 1966 in time to make way for another master of fighting, a martial artist set in World War II by the name of Judomaster. We're familiar with him around these parts.

Gunmaster did not go gently into that goodnight though and one year later in 1967 one more issue of the series was published. And in vintage Charlton fashion they numbered it eighty-nine, a number they'd already used for the debut of the Judomaster series two years earlier.

Sigh. This did prove to be the last hurrah for the western superhero who had managed to eke out an existence on the comic racks for nearly a decade, no mean feat.

To read some delightful Gunmaster and Bullet Boy adventures go here.

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Flips And Counters With Judomaster!

With the seventh anniversary of the Dojo, let me take a moment and talk about the comic book which in many ways inspired this blog -- Judomaster. This site makes it most plain that I have a great affection for that little concoction of Dick Giordano's he dubbed the "Action-Heroes", of which Judomaster is a part despite being set during World War II. The comic produced by Frank McLaughlin under the editorial auspices of  Pat Masulli and Giordano had a distinctive character which set it apart from everything else on the stands. All the "Action-Heroes" had that, something Giordano strived mightily to create in order to find some level of sales success. It didn't work but not for lack of trying.

(Dick Giordano (far right) holds court in the 60's with writers O'Neil and Skeates)

With "Flips and Counters with Judomaster" Giordano attempted to open a line of communication with the fans. That strategy had proven mondo successful for Stan Lee at Marvel and clearly Giordano was attempting to tap into something akin to that popularity with his refurbished Charlton books. In those letters pages in Judomaster and elsewhere, Giordano entered into a robust and surprisingly frank conversation with the fans, treating them with true respect. For all his vibrant personality Stan could come off as glib and sometimes condescending in his letters pages, and DC rarely did it at all and didn't really to understand the whole dynamic. Giordano did get it, and he brought forth something which worked for this young fan.

Letters pages have disappeared in the modern day, losing out to the internet where fans yak incessantly about their favorite comics (this website a case in point of course). But once upon a time they were important, really important in building what we take so much for granted today, real sense of community among comics book fans, a group that often shared isolation and a degree of loneliness all their own.

Here are the letters pages from Judomaster...all of them. 

In this one we meet Judomaster's creator and the artist and writer of the lead feature Frank McLaughlin.

This letters page features a missive from Bill Schelly, a regular contributor and a man who has since gone on to document much of what was happening in the fan press of the time.

This is the only two-page letters section in the comics run, but it was the first issue I ever encountered and so I just assumed two pages was the norm, and was disappointed when I only found one. The candid talk about prices and distribution was fascinating. Dick Giordano was an artist before he became editor and the value of having artists write as well as draw the feature is discussed.

Letters pages were always great places for cross promotion and Pat Boyette's Peacemaker gets a push in this installment.

I get the sense that Stan Lee is getting a mention here in the discussion of dialogue and attempting to get a natural feel. Stan's loquaciousness would seem to be the counter to what is mentioned. Sarge Steel fans really miss that comic and since he's the back up in Judomaster a lot of the page time is devoted to him.

The Action Hero line up is in full swing and you really get a sense that we are talking about a line and not just a single comic book. Giordano really was on to something.

But it didn't last, just like the Action Heroes themselves the letters pages went away and were replaced by the durable one and two-page text pieces which had decorated Charlton comics for many many years. It's a shame really. With the lapse of the letters page the company lost a crucial connection with their fan base and lost an ability to reinforce a sense of a distinctive voice. But for a short time, a sweet moment in comic history they had the lightning in a bottle and were making the most of it.

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