Frank McLaughlin was born on this date in 1935. McLaughlin of course created Judomaster, the mascot for this blog. He worked with Dick Giordano at Charlton for some time. When he shifted to Marvel and other publishers from time to time he mostly concentrated on inking, which he did with great aplomb. His sharp inks rescued many a tired layout.
Frank McLaughlin is the man, a trained martial artist who sought to bring to the comic book page an accurate representation of the skills which have formed the basis for so much exploitation entertainment over the last many decades. The thrill of Judomaster is the novel setting -- World War II. What we have is a re-imagining of the Captain America story minus the super-soldier serum. Jagger is a capable U.S. soldier who due to circumstances becomes trained in martial arts and adopts a persona to better wage war on the Japanese threat in the Pacific Theater. He is joined by a young boy named Tiger and this ersatz Cap and Bucky proceed to kick butt. Judomaster's WWII setting is at once his blessing and his curse. His adventures felt like little else in the superhero universe at the time, but his isolation in time made his eventual teaming with other of Charlton's "Action Heroes" difficult.
Alas the line did not last long enough for that problem to really develop and eventually Judomaster like most of his Action Hero kin were snapped up by DC and blended into the background of that sprawling universe. Judomaster himself has been barely used but nonetheless multiple versions exist. But for me it will always be the original Rip Jagger stuff by McLaughlin which makes my heartbeat race a little more. Here are the covers from that brief but powerful run.
The first time I came across Judo Master was in the pages of the various UK Alan Class comics that reprinted numerous US titles including other Charlton characters like Sarge Steel, Thunderbolt etc. At the time I wasn't aware these were Charlton comics, but for the most part they were pretty good
ReplyDeleteAs much deserved flack as Charlton gets, there were periods of greatness. The "Action Heroes" era was such a time when the books were at least as good as stuff put out by Marvel or DC.
DeleteA true action hero! Interesting that McLaughlin incorporated a rising sun into Rip's costume. One thing for sure, you could see him coming! I also liked Sarge Steel's Judo lessons.
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