January 1966: From the Himalayas to the Deep Blue Sea

Although Pete Morisi’s art was a bit static for my taste, I had to admire the realistic veneer he had worked out for his title Peter Cannon… Thunderbolt, seen here in this Charlton Comics house ad for issue 55 (Jan. 1966).

Thunderbolt’s will-based powers were relatively restrained by comic book standards, and his costume was really a monastic training outfit with an added mask.

The Himalayan hero didn’t want to fight crime, having an enlightened contempt for the greed and corruption of a western culture that remained alien to him. He just wanted to be left alone so he could write.

Created by Joe Gill and Bill Montes, the Fightin’ Five were commandos recruited by the CIA to free a kidnapped physicist, something “…the CIA, the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and all other agencies” hadn’t been able to accomplish.

They also continued the publisher’s long and relentless war against the letter “g.” (Charlton’s titles included Fightin’ Air Force, Fightin’ Army, Fightin’ Marines, Fightin’ Navy and Fightin’ Five).

Here, in issue 41 (Jan. 1967), they tackle what is clearly supposed to be Gorgo, one of the three giant movie monsters licensed by Charlton.

Or maybe Charlton should spell that ’Or’o.

November 1965: That Other Man of Steel

Like superheroes, fictional private detectives generally find themselves in the freelance justice business. And yet unlike superheroes, private eyes have rarely thrived in comic books. Perhaps they just aren’t colorful enough for four colors.

My favorite of the lot was Charlton’s Sarge Steel, a private detective created by Pat Masulli, scripted by Joe Gill and drawn by Dick Giordano. 

Steel appeared in 10 issues of his own title from December 1964 through October 1967, finally resurfacing much later in DC Comics.

The character updated the 40-year-old image of the heroic private investigator by setting it against the background of a contemporary war. Max Allan Collins has noted that Steel was the first fictional private eye to be a Vietnam veteran. 

And like a superhero, that experience provided him an “origin.”

Steel was on furlough, dancing with a pretty girl in Saigon, when a Viet Cong hand grenade was lobbed into the room at him. Seizing it in his left hand, the stoic, grimacing hero held the grenade out the window as it exploded.

So it was that Steel found himself sent home sporting a relatively “realistic” superhero attribute — a shiny steel fist that could be used to batter down doors or even a deflect a stray bullet. He hit people only with his right, however, because his left would have killed them. 

The title of his title shifted from Sarge Steel Private Eye to Sarge Steel Special Agent to Secret Agent.

At the time Sarge Steel was published, Charlton Comics was on the way to establishing a brand featuring marginally more realistic heroes than DC or Marvel, to be billed in ads as “Action Heroes” rather than superheroes. 

They included an unauthorized Jungle Tales of Tarzan title, a commando unit called The Fightin’ Five, the masked western hero Gunmaster and a handful of out-and-out superheroes — Captain Atom, Thunderbolt, Son of Vulcan and a Blue Beetle powered by ancient Egyptian magic (soon replaced by a non-super-powered version). 

December 1964: Tarzan in the Legal Jungle

For a few months there in 1964 and 1965, readers could buy Tarzan comic books from two publishers. Gold Key offered the authorized adventures of the Lord of the Jungle and Charlton Comics published four issues of Jungle Tales of Tarzan, based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ 1916 book about the wild boyhood of Lord Greystoke.

“Under a Pat Masulli cover which seems to want to evoke the fantastic physique of Tarzan actor Gordon Scott, we find the first of several stories by ERB adapted from his stories of the Ape Man when he was growing up among the Mangani and learning the ways of the varied denizens of the jungle,” observed blogger Rip Jagger. “These are often charming stories filled with wonder and well suited to the perceived youthful audience for comics during the early ’60s.”

But not for long.

“Unfortunately it turns out that the ERB estate took legal issue with those who appeared to be using Tarzan’s name in vain and they brought the various productions to a halt including Charlton’s, seizing all the artwork and the materials related to it,” Jagger said. “Jungle Tales of Tarzan as a comic book disappeared from the stands and it became a taboo topic within the halls of (Charlton’s offices in) Derby (Connecticut).”

The Tarzan rights were all over the map in those days, with both Ballantine and Ace publishing Burroughs’ actual Tarzan novels, and somebody called “Gold Star Books” publishing fake, plagiarized Tarzan novels purportedly written by “Barton Werper” (an archenemy of Tarzan’s, appropriately enough. A nice in-joke there).

Five such titles were released — Tarzan and the Silver Globe (1964), Tarzan and the Cave City (1964), Tarzan and the Snake People (1964), Tarzan and the Abominable Snowman (1965) and Tarzan and the Winged Invaders (1965) — before ERB, Inc. sued them out of existence. Because unsold copies were ordered destroyed, these awful novels are quite collectible.

And so, too, are Charlton’s well regarded handful of Tarzan issues.