Although he started off by merely “leaping tall buildings,” Superman soon evolved the power of flight, inspiring generations of kids across America to break their legs jumping off of roofs with towels tied around their necks and initiating a veritable…
There’s at least three things a superhero needs to succeed in the comic book business: a cool costume, an interesting power set and a catchy name. Here we meet a hero who proudly fails all three tests. I give you…
It’s Independence Day, and by golly if there’s one thing superheroes love more than justice, it’s the good old US of A. Take for instance the modestly named Captain Courageous, who has America on his mind pretty much 24 hours…
Continuing our review of unusual comic book adventurers, the spotlight now falls on Kangaroo Man, not that he deserves it since he’s not the real star of the strip that bears his name. Just as the Red Bee played second…
Well, this is a bummer, posting two obituaries in a row. Last week we lost comics artist George Perez, and while I can’t claim he had the same earth-shaking impact on my young life that Neal Adams did, he was…
When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up to be a comic book artist. I suppose that wasn’t so unusual an aspiration for a youngster, but I was pretty specific: I wanted to be Neal Adams. Come to…
Our continuing review of peculiar superhero-types now takes us back several centuries to the era of tall ships and piracy on the high seas. Daring buccaneer “Black Douglas” is an expert swordsman, sailor and devoted Englishman pensively perambulating his poop…
I recently unearthed this image in some corner of the internet and fell in love with it. I have no idea where it’s from, where it was taken or who’s in it, but I still love everything about it. The…
In an unusual introduction to what will prove to be a very unusual “superhero,” we first meet the celebrated Dr Hormone in Dell’s Popular Comics #54 as an old man at death’s door. It’s unclear whether “Hormone” is a family…
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Volume 2 of “The Steranko History of Comics,” a work that it’s fair to say blew my mind as a kid. I call it a “work” because I never know how to classify…
