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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2020 2:05:41 GMT -5
Archie. The artwork almost 80 years ago was gorgeous...
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Post by berkley on Apr 10, 2020 2:36:09 GMT -5
Archie. The artwork almost 80 years ago was gorgeous... Yeah, it is nice. I'm guessing this was from the 40s because of Betty's bobby-soxer look, but something about the background almost reminds me of early 20th-century art nouveau.
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Post by MDG on Apr 10, 2020 8:45:11 GMT -5
Archie. The artwork almost 80 years ago was gorgeous... Yeah, it is nice. I'm guessing this was from the 40s because of Betty's bobby-soxer look, but something about the background almost reminds me of early 20th-century art nouveau. It was a fine line--it's probably because I grew up after DeCarlo became the model, but a lot of the 40s stuff borders on the grotesque to me. Also, Betty looks like she's about 12 in that splash.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Apr 10, 2020 12:30:41 GMT -5
Yeah, it is nice. I'm guessing this was from the 40s because of Betty's bobby-soxer look, but something about the background almost reminds me of early 20th-century art nouveau. It was a fine line--it's probably because I grew up after DeCarlo became the model, but a lot of the 40s stuff borders on the grotesque to me. Also, Betty looks like she's about 12 in that splash.
I've been reading a lot of Archie comics lately, in the successive Archie Americana digests, and I tend to agree with MDG about the art in the early years, i.e., the first half of the 1940s: I find it more interesting than appealing. I really like the style that got cemented by the end of the 1940s, and my favorite stuff is from the 1950s and 1960s, when guys like Harry Lucey and Samm Schwartz were doing most of the art. And yeah, I like DeCarlo, too.
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Post by electricmastro on Apr 14, 2020 0:35:31 GMT -5
Fantomah - Fantomah, the "Mystery Woman of the Jungle," is a mysterious goddess-like being who protects the jungles of Africa. She has vast magical power, to the point of being practically omnipotent, and can transform herself into a frightening blue phantom/skeleton creature as well as a floating skull with blonde hair. The Heap - Baron Eric von Emmelman was a German flying ace under the command of the Red Baron (Manfred von Richthofenshot) who was shot down on October 12, 1918, while fighting in World War I. He crashed in a mystical Polish swamp called Wausau, near the small town of Rodz, and was thrown from his plane. With a beautiful wife, and a newborn baby, the Baron had told his friends that he had everything to live for, and as he lay in the swamp, mortally wounded, he simply refused to die. Mother Nature came to his aid, and decided to save him from death, to transform the Baron into her champion against evil. Over 20 odd years, Eric's body merged with the "dreary vegetation" of Wausau to make him a massive humanoid plant that was forced to drain animals of blood in order to get oxygen. He targeted birds, dogs and livestock, but he usually did not attack men, unless they were evil. Iron Skull - The Iron Skull was originally a soldier who was gravely injured during World War II (which, in this timeline, was fought partially on American soil well into the 1950s). He was brought to Chicago, where Dr. Watson, a surgeon at "Chicago Hospital," worked to replace his flesh and bones with metallic components. The resulting cyborg was super-strong, resistant to bullets and capable of limited telepathy. His new face was missing a nose, giving him a skull-like appearance. By the year 1960, the Second World War wound down and reconstruction began. This year also saw a rise of rampant crime that the police struggled to contain. The cyborg decided to use his abilities to fight crime in Chicago as the Iron Skull. In Amazing-Man Comics #9, the story jumped forward to 1970, when America was once again threatened with war. The spies working for an unnamed country "spread terror throughout United States," forcing the Iron Skull to intercede. Two issues later, in 1971, war broke out in Europe and spy activities intensified. In Amazing-Man Comics #14, the Iron Skull set up operations in New York City. The next issue, he developed a mental link with the D.A. of New York. The D.A. used that ability to alert the Iron Skull of any crime in progress. Magician from Mars - In the future, Jane Q-X 3 Gem, the Magician from Mars, is born to a Martian father, Jarl 6EM35, and an Earthling mother, Jane Faro. When she was a baby, she was accidently exposed to "cathode" radiation, which is deadly to humans but which Martians are naturally immune to. Because she was a hybrid of the two, the radiation had an unexpected effect of boosting her brain power to the point where she was capable of changing reality with a thought. Her powers developed as she grows. By age six, she could "wish" things like ice cream cones into existence and levitate things through the air. At 16 years old, she lost both of her parents and was raised by her Aunt Vanza, who refuses to allow the girl to travel to Earth. Eventually, she found life on Mars too boring, so she escaped from the "Supersteel Room" prison her aunt locked her in and took passage on a ship to Earth. There, she decided to use her reality-warping abilities to fight evil and oppression. Sub-Zero - A Venusian man who would become known as Sub-Zero was a part of an expedition that was launched to establish first contact with Earth. Before the spaceship could enter Earth's atmosphere, it passed through a comet. Everything inside was frozen. One crewman managed to survive, but the exposure turned him into a living ice man that froze everything he touched. He managed to steer the ship towards earth, crash-landing it near Salt Lake City. He painfully escaped the craft while covered in ice and then made his way to the nearest building. The building happened to be full of scientists experimenting with "gamma radiation." They used the gamma rays to return the Venusian to his original humanoid form, though his ability to freeze objects remained. Blending in with America's civilian population in the city of Centro, he became a detective and used his superhuman abilities to fight crime. Source: pdsh.fandom.com/wiki/Public_Domain_Super_Heroes
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Post by rberman on Apr 14, 2020 12:02:41 GMT -5
Magician from Mars - In the future, Jane Q-X 3 Gem, the Magician from Mars, is born to a Martian father, Jarl 6EM35, and a Earthling mother, Jane Faro. When she was a baby, she was accidently exposed to "cathode" radiation, which is deadly to humans but which Martians are naturally immune to. Because she was a hybrid of the two, the radiation had an unexpected effect of boosting her brain power to the point where she was capable of changing reality with a thought. I like how this image shows her mixed heritage and correctly shows Mars as smaller than Earth. Maybe too much smaller, but better that than treating them as the same size.
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Post by electricmastro on Apr 14, 2020 15:01:46 GMT -5
Magician from Mars - In the future, Jane Q-X 3 Gem, the Magician from Mars, is born to a Martian father, Jarl 6EM35, and a Earthling mother, Jane Faro. When she was a baby, she was accidently exposed to "cathode" radiation, which is deadly to humans but which Martians are naturally immune to. Because she was a hybrid of the two, the radiation had an unexpected effect of boosting her brain power to the point where she was capable of changing reality with a thought. I like how this image shows her mixed heritage and correctly shows Mars as smaller than Earth. Maybe too much smaller, but better that than treating them as the same size. Indeed. John Giunta and Michael Mirando made a point of that as well actually:
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Post by electricmastro on May 1, 2020 16:21:53 GMT -5
The Blue Circle (aka Len Stafford), who probably would have turned out to be a completely generic superhero in most cases, though what fascinated me was the idea of a superhero relying on a council of knowledgeable ex-criminals to receive advice and insider-information on sleazy places and suspects.
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Post by mikelmidnight on May 4, 2020 11:30:07 GMT -5
The Blue Circle (aka Len Stafford), who probably would have turned out to be a completely generic superhero in most cases, though what fascinated me was the idea of a superhero relying on a council of knowledgeable ex-criminals to receive advice and insider-information on sleazy places and suspects.
I was unfamiliar with this character. I really like the costume because it's so clunky. Really, it's more of a pulp-hero costume than a standard superhero; pretty much regular clothes with the addition of a cowl and cape, but avoiding the fedora/domino mask combo that most of them go for.
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Post by electricmastro on May 4, 2020 12:15:23 GMT -5
The Blue Circle (aka Len Stafford), who probably would have turned out to be a completely generic superhero in most cases, though what fascinated me was the idea of a superhero relying on a council of knowledgeable ex-criminals to receive advice and insider-information on sleazy places and suspects.
I was unfamiliar with this character. I really like the costume because it's so clunky. Really, it's more of a pulp-hero costume than a standard superhero; pretty much regular clothes with the addition of a cowl and cape, but avoiding the fedora/domino mask combo that most of them go for.
A red, white, and blue costume I really liked that wasn’t necessarily a patriotic one would have to be Quicksilver’s costume. I just really liked the helmet with red visor combined with a white jacket and sleek blue pants, which I suppose is fitting for a super-speed hero.
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Post by electricmastro on May 8, 2020 17:40:11 GMT -5
The Comet from Pep Comics #3 (April 1940, Archie Comics), a chemist who injected himself with a special gas that was many times lighter than hydrogen, allowing him to not only achieve flying leaps (and later fly), but also allowing him to fire beams out of his eyes, and wore glass goggles to keep his powers under control.
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