This was a new sci-fi hero by Roy Thomas and Dan Adkins. The ad showed immense promise, but the Marvel Super-Heroes turned to reprints of The Avengers and The X-Men with the next issue, and Starhawk alas never appeared. (Let me add that my disappointment was somewhat moderated by the truly excellent stories in that MSH issue.)
It would be several years later when the cover art graced the issue #3 of Marvelmania Magazine. (See above.)
Later the pages already produced by Thomas and Adkins were published in Marvelmania Magazine #6 under an unrelated Neal Adams cover.
The story is incomplete, literally a cliffhanger, but I for one was exceedingly happy after nearly forty years to at long last get a closer look at the hero who ignited my imagination so long before. Here are those pages.
This is a fun image.
Here is another Starhawk image from The Comic Buyer's Guide where some Adkins art was adapted.
This is a fun image. 
The "Mandroid" name was dusted off and used again in an issue of Captain Marvel, ironically enough an issue written by Roy Thomas and inked by Dan Adkins over some Gil Kane and John Buscema pencil art.
And believe it or not, the "Mandroid" name gets used yet again by Roy in an issue of The Avengers during the famous Kree-Skrull War. This time the Mandroids are SHIELD agents in armor. I've lost track of such things, but it's possible these "Mandroids" are still extant in the Marvel Universe.
The name "Starhawk" of course was revived and given to a totally new character who hooked up with The Guardians of the Galaxy (who as noted debuted in Marvel Super-Heroes) and is still around as far as I know.
So alas the original Starhawk is lost to ages, but some of us remember.
NOTE: This is a Dojo Revised Classic Post.
Rip Off
Those are some of the nicest Dan Adkins pages I've seen, and the setup is quite intriguing. Too bad that's all there is...
ReplyDeleteI was a big Dan Adkins fan, but apparently Dan was just too slow for Marvel's needs. His Doctor Strange comics are some of the prettiest Marvel ever produced in the classic era.
DeleteYeah, I think those Adkins/Severin/Everett episodes of Dr. Stranger are a lot of fun, though sadly tend to be overlooked, being sandwiched between the much more celebrated Ditko and Colan runs.
DeleteYeah. Those are two tough acts to follow and open for. It says a lot about the artistic quality of that series all the way through.
DeleteThat's excellent art by Dan Atkins, I particularly like that stunning splash page. Based on this strip and the character design alone I am very surprised that !marvel didn't persevere with Star-Hawk at this time and he could have become a Marvel comic book star. Thanks for showing these pages Rip an amazimg find.
ReplyDeleteSadly, I can't quite make out that Adams cover.
I think they just forgot about him until some of the people with Marvelmania rummaged around for artwork. The Adams cover is obscure, but it's a barbarian fighting some sort of monster.
DeleteRoy Thomas explained in an interview with Dan Adkins in Alter-Ego:
ReplyDelete"We'd made a good start, and then [publisher Martin] Goodman saw the cover, and it had the "three R's" that he hated on it: rockets, robots, and rayguns. He said, "Those three things never sold comics for me," and he promptly cancelled Marvel Super-heroes, which hadn't been selling very well, anyway!"
Goodman aborted this baby. Bummer. Would have at least liked to have gotten a mini-series.
Good old Goodman! Sheesh! But Martin Goodman was off the scene when Roy became editor of the line, and that might have seemed a great time to revive the character. Likely by that time, Roy had Cimmeria on the brain and lots of other toys to play with.
ReplyDeleteI did read somewhere that Marvel Super-Heroes was much more successful as a full reprint book. Of course the cost of production was less, but those vintage Marvel tales were tasty to new fans like I was back then.