Heroes from the year 1950

Today's stories are from Black Cat 24 (August 1950), Blue Beetle 58 (April 1950) and Lady Luck 88 (April 1950). As usual, my mindless ramblings follow the stories.






















"Superheroes died-out after World War II". That's the commonly held belief by "The Experts". On the other hand, WWII ended in 1945 while many heroess continued to be published for years afterward. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Arrow, Fawcett's Captain Marvel & the rest of the Marvel Family, Plastic Man, Doll Man, Lev Gleason's Daredevil, Captain America, Lady Luck, Blue Beetle, Black Cat and Air Boy all made it to at least 1950. Plenty of others lasted until 1949, like Black Terror, Sub-Mariner, Skyman, The Face, The Target (who also had some stories reprinted in 1950-51), The Human Torch, The Shield and Quicksilver. If you consider four years later to be "after World War II", then make sure you add phrases like "Image Comics was founded after the fall of the Roman Empire", "Malibu Comics was sold to Marvel after the first Moon Landing" and "after the invention of the wheel, Jack Kirby started work on his 'New Gods' books". I guess as long as you keep the timeline straight & people don't know better, who really cares how much time passes between one event and another?

Black Cat: The Phony Crusade!

I'm tired today, so I won't ramble-on too much.

Today's story is from Black Cat # 22 (April 1950) drawn by Lee Elias (according to the Grand Comic-Book Database).

Text Story Bonanza!

Text stories seem to get over-looked by a lot of folks, so that's why I'm jamming them down everyone's throat today! In this post, you're getting NOT only one, not just two, not even simply three text stories, but FIVE text stories, all involving superheroes.

See, back in the day, comic book publishers would throw-in a text story, not as a way to fill-up the issue (there was plenty of one-page humor strips for that), but as a way to get their comics reclassified so they could get cheaper mail rates from the post office. Did kids & adults back then read the text stories? I don't know, but for at least one character, they were the only stories you were ever going to see of them.

Of the five stories I'm posting, three were posted here before: Aman the Amazing Boy from "Amazing-Man Comics # 10" [March 1940;, Black Terror from "Black Terror # 26" [April 1949] and Dr Darkness. Only Dr Darkness NEVER appeared in anything other than a text story (well, to my knowledge, anyway). His first appearance, according to the Grand Comic-Book Database, was in "Keen Detective Funnies 24" [September 1940], the last issue of that title. While goldenagecomics.co.uk has that issue available for free downloads, their file does not include the good Doctor's tale. His last appearance was in "Fantoman 4" [December 1940], which is the story I'm posting here today.

The other two stories I'm sharing are from "Black Cat # 22" [April 1950] and the Sub-Zero story from "Blue Bolt Comics volume 2 issue 3" [August 1941].

Oh, and don't forget to vote in the "Should I post stories from Golden Age comics that I don't own?" poll. Your vote could be the one that makes a difference!