Some stories need little extrapolation...
...such as this never-reprinted short by writer/artist Howard Nostrand from Harvey's Blast-Off! #1 (1965)
Cute, eh?
Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics!
Visit Amazon and Order...
Showing posts with label spies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spies. Show all posts
Friday, May 3, 2024
Saturday, December 30, 2023
Space Secret Agent Saturdays MYSTERY IN SPACE "Operation Phobos"
We presented the first Interplanetary Investigations tale from the Swinging Sixties HERE...
..now here's their second, final, never-reprinted adventure from DC's Mystery in Space #102 (1965)!
Note Sean Connery-lookalike Damos appears again.
Also note (from the ad at the end of the story), this month also saw the Strange Adventures premiere/origin of "The Man with the Animal Powers" who would morph a couple of issues later into superhero Animal Man, who's still active in DC's comics and tv series over 50 years later, unlike the secret agents of Interplanetary Investigations!
Written by Dave Wood, illustrated by Gil Kane, the series had a lot of potential.
Jan and Davos could've been a futuristic Man from U.N.C.L.E./Wild, Wild West/I Spy duo...
Ah, what could have been...
Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics
Visit Amazon and Order...
(which contains only a couple of stories from this previously-listed volume)
Saturday, April 8, 2023
Space Secret Agent Saturdays MYSTERY IN SPACE "Secret of the Double Agent"
It was 1965, and secret agents were everywhere...
...even DC's Mystery in Space, whose 100th issue, introed a cover-featured "space spy" series!
(With a cover by Dick Dillin and Sheldon Moldoff!)
Written by Dave Wood, illustrated by Gil Kane, and guest-starring a Sean Connery-lookalike, an ongoing Interplanetary Investigations series seemed like a sure bet, but it disappeared after only one more appearance two issues later!
(BTW, neither of them have been reprinted!)
(BTW, neither of them have been reprinted!)
Instead, a new character, Ultra: the Multi-Alien took over the book until cancellation with #110!
Pity, since the Interplanetary Investigations strip showed such promise.
Considering DC had the rights to James Bond (which is why there were no comic adaptations of any of the 007 flicks after Dr No, which didn't do well due to being released months before the movie came out), could you imagine what Gil Kane could've done illustrating any of the other pre-Roger Moore Bond movies?
Sadly, we'll never know.
Two notes:
1) The comic rights to 007 eventually lapsed and Marvel did two movie adaptations in the 1980s, For Your Eyes only and Octopussy.
Neither were big sellers.
2) DC released Doctor No as part of the Showcase tryout comic as shown HERE.)
Sadly, we'll never know.
Two notes:
1) The comic rights to 007 eventually lapsed and Marvel did two movie adaptations in the 1980s, For Your Eyes only and Octopussy.
Neither were big sellers.
2) DC released Doctor No as part of the Showcase tryout comic as shown HERE.)
Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics
Visit Amazon and Order...
(which contains only a couple of stories from this previously-listed volume)
Thursday, September 29, 2022
Reading Room ALARMING TALES "Secret Weapon"
We've worried about homeland security for decades...
...but, quite frankly, we're damned good at it!
OK, maybe we haven't produced an invisibility device/formula...yet, but we Americans can handle anything terrorists can thtrow at us, as this never-reprinted Silver Age story from Harvey's Alarming Tales #4 (1958) shows!
BTW, it's written by Jack Oleck (a talented novelist and comic book writer who was the brother-in-law of Alarming Tales editor Joe Simon) and illustrated by Johnny Quest's co-creator Doug Wildey!
Sunday, May 1, 2022
Russkies in Iran: T-MAN "Death Trap in Iran" & "Trouble's Double"
What happens when you combine Russkies and Iran in a spy story?
Besides a Repug's wet-dream, you get this kick-butt tale from Quality's T-Man #3 (1952)!
But, that's not all!
There's also this sanitized-for-your-protection, Comics Code-modified reprint from Quality's T-Man #31 (1956), which waters down all the kool hard-boiled elements from the original tale...and makes the Russkies into generic "Communists"!
Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics!
Visit Our
Monday, June 7, 2021
Monday Mars Madness MAN FROM S.R.A.M. "Madhouse in Hollywood!"
In the Silver Age, comics mixed genres with wild abandon...
...as this tale, which combines no less than three of them demonstrates, albeit a bit ham-handedly!
When the protaganist has to spend half the story explaining his name, you know the writer's really desperate.
Which is surprising since the guy who penned this tale is Otto Binder, a prolific sci-fi writer who not only scripted classic Superman and Golden Age Captain Marvel stories (including The Monster Society of Evil serial!), but also wrote the first Marvel Comics novel, The Avengers Versus the Earth-Wrecker!
But this never-reprinted, Carl Pfeufer-illustrated tale from Harvey's Jigsaw #2 (1966) is so incredibly-silly that it's surprising Binder was so over-the-top!
Personally, I suspect editor Joe Simon rewrote the story, inserting the SRAM = MARS explanation on practically every page.
Note: Though identified as "Jigsaw" in the indicia, the book's working title was apparently "Big Hero Adventures", which appears as a sub-title on both issues' covers and title pages as well as on the original art for the first issue.
Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics
Visit Amazon and Order...
Monday, April 10, 2017
Reading Room BLAST-OFF "Danger! Atoms!"
Underrated writer/artist Howard Nostrand offers...
Here's the original art from the never-reprinted tale published in Harvey's 1965 one-shot anthology Blast Off!
What does it all mean?
Discuss among yourselves!
Please Support Atomic Kommie Comics!
Thursday, September 8, 2016
Fifty Years Ago...the Final Frontier!
The Fall 1966 TV season was a landmark for TV sci-fi/fantasy!
There were at least two series every night in Prime Time (sometimes opposite each other, which in those pre-DVR days drove us NUTS)!
(NO Internet! NO YouTube! NO Streaming Video! NO DVD/Blu Rays! Not even VHS Tapes!)
But, every night, after dinner (and presuming you finished your homework)...
Spies!
Super-Heroes!
Comedies with monsters/witches/genies/time-traveling astronauts, etc!
Straight sci-fi with The Invaders, and three Irwin Allen series (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, and Time Tunnel!
And, of course, the greatest of all...
 |
| Original 1966 NBC promo poster. Art by James (Doc Savage) Bama! |
Even though my family had two huge 13" TVs, both of them were b/w, so I didn't see all this stuff in color until the '70 when my dad finally got a color set!
(Some, like Captain Nice, I didn't see in color until VHS and DVD copies were available!)
But even in monochrome, those shows enthralled me.
So, tonite, I'm settling down in front of the tube (a 50-inch flat-screen) with my own mini-marathon of 50-year old sci-fi!
Batman "Shoot a Crooked Arrow" (which, technically, aired on Sept. 7) & "Walk the Straight and Narrow"
Star Trek "The Man Trap"
(Bewitched and Jericho [A spy series set in World War II Europe] also ran on Thursdays, but didn't begin their season until Sept 15th!)
Support Atomic Kommie Comics
Visit Amazon and Buy...
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Happy Birthday, Mr Bond! Now Die...
It's Sean Connery's 83rd Birthday...
 |
| Inside cover of Showcase #43 |
...so why not celebrate by visiting our "brother" blog Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™ where you can read the never-reprinted DC Comics adaptation of Sean's 007 debut in Doctor No!
Before you say "But, that's a reprint of the Classics Illustrated version available only in England!", I'll point out that numerous changes (which are compared in the blog posts) were made by DC in both text and art!
And, while the Classics Illustrated version has been translated and printed all over the world, the DC version has never been reprinted!
Because Showcase #43 came out months before the movie debuted in America, it sold poorly, and DC didn't exercise their 10-year option to do more James Bond tie-ins!
Ironically, in 1972, DC realized they were about to lose the rights to do 007
comics and considered doing an entire series of one-shot movie
adaptations up to, and including, the current film, but Sean Connery's
announcement that Diamonds are Forever would be his last film in Bondage (ouch) put the kibosh on those plans!
That's why there were no comic adaptations from Gold Key or Dell (who were doing comics based on every movie and TV show they could get their hands on) during the height of '60s Bond-mania!
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Reading Room: PUSSYCAT "Cool & Carefree Capers of a Curvy, Cuddly Chick!"
We showed you HERE how Phantom Lady handled terrorists at the 1948 Olympics...
This tale originally appeared in Male Annual #5 (1967), but this is from the one-shot PussyCat (1968) that reprinted her stories from the various "laddy" magazines published by Martin Goodman, who also owned Marvel Comics at the time.
The writer is officially-unknown, but the scripter is probably Stan Lee or Larry Lieber, and the artist is pretty clearly good-girl legend Bill Ward with inking by Bill Everett.
Support Small Business!
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Sale from U.N.C.L.E.!
Available at Costco now (but only the warehouses, not on-line)!
If your father (or grandfather) is over 40, they'll make the perfect Father's Day gift!
If your junior-high or high-school graduate is a spy movie fan, it'll make a kool graduation gift!
They're going fast, so head over ASAP, before they're gone!
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Reading Room: PUSSYCAT "Madly Mirthful Misadventures of a Lively Little Lass!"
If Austin Powers had a sister in the Swingin' 60s, she would have been...
...our favorite, funtastic, femme Agent of S.C.O.R.E.!
This tale originally appeared in Male Annual #4 (1966), but this is from the one-shot PussyCat (1968) that reprinted her stories from the various "laddy" magazines published by Martin Goodman, who also owned Marvel Comics at the time.
The writer is officially-unknown, but the scripter is probably Stan Lee or Larry Lieber, and the artist is pretty clearly good-girl legend Bill Ward with inking by Bill Everett.
Support Small Business!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)