June 1938: A Superman for the Underdog

On the newsstands in May 1938, browsers had their choice of Tarzan in Comics on Parade, Popeye in King Comics, daredevil aviator Captai...

Wednesday, October 10, 2001

October 1961: Mayhem in Miniature

In order to tell a good superhero story, writers must constantly come up with ways to undermine their protagonist’s built-in advantage in power.
So why not cut the all-powerful superhero down to size?
Literally.
Among the many superheroes who’ve been reduced to insect size and imperiled are Superman (both as an adult and as Superboy), Batman, Marvel’s Fantastic Four, Archie Comics’ Jaguar and the Fly and Fly Girl. The latter were rocketed to a planet where germs were gigantic, so that amounted to the same thing.
I remember particularly enjoying The Battle of the Bacteria Brutes! from Adventures of the Jaguar 2 (Oct. 1961), penned by Robert Bernstein. Artist John Rosenberger created an array of fascinating and colorful bacteria — both humanoid and non-humanoid — to menace the superheroic master of the animal kingdom.
All these stories, I suspect, own something to the 1940 science fiction film Dr. Cyclops — based on a short story by Henry Kuttner from the June 1940 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories — as well as Richard Matheson’s 1956 novel The Shrinking Man, which was adapted into the film The Incredible Shrinking Man and released in February of 1957.
Good concepts can often be inverted in superhero comics, and shrinking is no exception. Doll Man, the Atom and Ant-Man all turned that condition into a crime-fighting advantage.

2 comments:

  1. Johnny Williams wrote: OMG Dan, you've done it to me again! Not only did I have this issue, but I was just thinking about it the other day. That's crazy.
    Btw, as I boy I 'really' liked this guy. His powers were great and I thought that his costume was cool, especially his flying jet belt. The Jaguar, like the early Fly, and the Lancelot Strong version of The Shield were three of my boyhood favorites.

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  2. Melody Ivins wrote: Tiny heroes battling gigantic germs is rather timely again.

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