August 1960: The Monsters Beneath Your Feet

The Earth is full of monsters.

In one month alone, for example, you might run into a Lava Creature, a Giant Sea Beast and a Magnetic Monster down there.

And that month would be June 1960, when The Brave and the Bold 31 went on sale at newsstands.

That issue, written by Ed Herron and drawn by Bruno Premiani, introduced spelunker Cave Carson and his intrepid yellow-clad band (Bulldozer Smith, Johnny Blake, and Christie Madison). 

In coming up with Carson, DC followed the path blazed by Edgar Rice Burroughs a half-century before. When you’ve used up Mars, Venus and the jungle as locales, why not go underground?

Without super powers to aid them, DC’s various “uncanny team” heroes had to rely on their wits, their uniformly dauntless courage, some mid-century high tech and each other as they battled alien invaders, giant monsters, mad scientists, what have you.

Prof. Calvin “Cave” Carson also had the help of a super-vehicle, however — the laser-equipped “Mighty Mole” he designed to travel on or in land and water.

Unlike several of DC’s other uncanny teams, Cave Carson’s crew never managed to dig out a permanent place for itself in a series. The only tryout issue that even tempted me was this one, and that was because of the paradoxically cool-looking Lava Man featured on the cover.

I guess I had a thing for burning red monsters, including Marvel Comics’ Dragoom, the Challengers of the Unknown’s Volcano Man, and Space Ghost’s first foe, the Heat Thing.

Premiani’s relatively “realistic” artistic style was an asset for the subterranean adventurers.

“The man who fled two countries to escape political persecution and who briefly found a home in the United States has been claimed by comic book scholars in three countries, with fans all over the globe,” observed Glen Cadigan in TwoMorrow’s Teen Titans Companion.

The countries he escaped, by the way, were fascist Italy and fascist Argentina. You could find some monsters there too.