May 1974: Legacy and the Living Weapon

Iron Fist, a superhero created by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane for Marvel Premiere 15 (May 1974), was the result of pop cultural cross-pollination.

The Marvel Age of Comics was already more than a decade old, and to freshen it up the Bullpen tried superhero titles reflecting popular trends. 

Thanks to a relaxed Comics Code, more vivid horror stories could then be published, so Ghost Rider was born in Marvel Spotlight 5 (Aug. 1972).

Martial arts had been popularized by the David Carradine TV series Kung Fu in 1972 and the Bruce Lee movie Enter the Dragon in 1973. Add the superhero trappings of a lost-child Tarzan origin, a secret identity, a colorful costume and the ability to focus chi into a punch of overwhelming power, and you have Iron Fist.

The character was presented in his Netflix series as a kind of billionaire super-Buddhist. And that may well ring a bell.

Comics readers might remark on the similarity of Danny Rand to Adrian Veidt, the superhero Ozymandias created by by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons for their 1986 Watchmen graphic novel.

Well, yes, and there’s a reason for that.

Iron Fist was in part an homage to Amazing-Man, Bill Everett’s original variation on the Superman theme introduced in Amazing-Man Comics 5 (Sept. 1939). That Tibetan-trained super-being also inspired Pete Morisi to create Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt for Charlton Comics in 1966. And Moore and Gibbons used Thunderbolt as the template for Ozymandias.

The history of superhero comics is a wonderfully multi-faceted and multivariate thing.

June 1972: The Man for the Moment

Superhero origin stories are necessarily fantastic, but at least one of them had an eerie parallel in real life.

Hero for Hire 1 — covered-dated June 1972, but on the newsstands in March — begins in the maximum security Seagate Prison, where the man who will be Luke Cage is caged. 

No cosmic rays or radioactive spiders for him. He gains his super powers of strength and durability through a prison experiment that’s a sinister, shadowy reflection of Captain America’s WWII origin. 

But Cage is no volunteer. He’s a victim.

And as Luke Cage’s first adventures were being published, the infamous Tuskegee experiments were coming to light in the New York Times and the Washington Post. 

Between 1932 and 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service studied the progression of untreated syphilis in African-American men in Alabama under the guise of receiving free government health care. 

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study’s ruthless mistreatment of black men seriously and permanently damaged the black community’s trust in U.S. public health efforts. 

Ironically, the experiments became a front-page scandal in July 1972, just four months after the first issue of Hero for Hire appeared on newsstands.

“Probably no connection unless Archie (Goodwin), Stan (Lee) or I had seen earlier reports somewhere, since obviously Hero for Hire 1 was plotted out roughly half a year earlier,” noted Roy Thomas, the character’s co-creator.  

“We just followed human nature, which is suspect in the best of times, even irrespective of race.  The story was about powerful people experimenting on less powerful ones. Race wasn’t really a major factor in that part of the plot... Lucas just happened to be the unlucky recipient of the bad guys’ attentions because he was in jail.”

Nevertheless, the comic book they created ended up echoing the zeitgeist, for the very reason Thomas cited. The less powerful the race, the bigger the target on its members’ backs. 

Cruel scientific experimentation on black men turned out to be no comic book fantasy.

August 1971: Red Wolf in the Spotlight

“We must applaud Red Wolf for many reasons,” wrote Michael A. Sheyahshe in Native Americans in Comic Books. “The comic contains a character who is the first major Native superhero, one who is a complex character, more human than many other Indigenous characters, and one that even has his own sidekick.”

Created by writer Roy Thomas and artist John Buscema, Red Wolf was William Talltrees, a young man whose Cheyenne family was extorted and murdered by corrupt businessman Cornelius van Lunt. To avenge them, he adopted the legendary persona of Red Wolf, gaining vaguely defined powers from the Native American god Owayodata and a partner, an actual wolf named Lobo. 

“I liked the story,” recalled comics historian Paul Zuckerman of Red Wolf’s September 1970 debut in Avengers 80. “Although Native Americans had already long been treated with more respect in comics, this brought them front and center into the modern world, part of the trend of relevant comics that were popping up then and getting all of the attention from the media.

“They didn't really do much with the character and when Red Wolf got his own series, it wasn't him — it was his ancestor! But it was books like this that piqued my interest in comics again.”

Penned by Gardner Fox and drawn by Syd Shores, the Red Wolf feature that began in Marvel Spotlight 1 (Aug. 1971) was set in the Old West.

“The switch to a Wild West era character was something Stan imposed on us,” Roy Thomas recalled. “I would have preferred to keep the modern hero from the beginning.”

“Red Wolf marked the first time that an American Indian had assumed the role (of mysterious avenger), and it certainly should be remembered at least for breaking ground in a new direction,” Maurice Horn wrote in Comics of the American West.

In the movies at roughly the same time, actor and writer Tom Laughlin introduced his half-Indian ex-Green Beret avenger, Billy Jack.

June 1968: The Machine and the Magic

Whether by accident or design, Marvel’s mid-1960s dual hero titles were subtly thematic.

You had Tales of Suspense featuring Iron Man and Captain America, two out-and-out superheroes. You had Tales to Astonish featuring the Hulk and the Sub-Mariner, two super-antiheroes. And finally you had Strange Tales featuring Dr. Strange and Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD, two characters who operated on the periphery of the superhero world.

Fury and Strange were thematically similar and yet opposite. Both operated in secret to protect humanity, but one employed magic and the other super-science.

By 1966, Marvel characters were increasingly popular, and being recognized as such on college campuses and in the national news.

So why, you may well wonder, did such popular characters have to double up in the same magazine? That was because publisher Martin Goodman had made a colossal mistake, one that had forced him into a 1957 distribution deal with DC-owned Independent News. The catch was that Marvel’s titles would be limited to eight per month.

Beginning in 1964, with demand for Marvel obviously exceeding supply, that number was grudgingly increased, little by little. Nevertheless, Marvel’s popular superheroes were forced to bunk together until 1968.

This ad announces that the two characters get their own titles as part of a major expansion of the Marvel line.

“Marvel’s titles had been selling so well that in 1967 Goodman was able to twist Independent News’s arm into allowing him to release even more, “ Reed Tucker noted in his Marvel-DC book Slugfest. “Suddenly the characters who had previous been forced to share the so-called split books got their own stand-alone titles.”

Other among the flood of new titles at Marvel were Captain America, Captain Marvel, Capt. Savage and His Leatherneck Raiders, the western Ghost Rider, Groovy, Incredible Hulk, Mighty Marvel Western, Not Brand Ecch, Silver Surfer, Spectacular Spider-Man and Sub-Mariner.

Fighting supernatural menaces all day long leaves you wanting a cigarette, apparently.

June 1968: Smoke Gets in your Eye of Agamotto

Constantly having to save the world from Lovecraftian horrors can jangle one’s nerves. The heavy responsibility can even cause Dr. Stephen Strange to lose sleep, and light up a cigarette in the wee hours.

 “Dan Adkins just drew it that way, and I wrote it,” Roy Thomas recalled. “Somehow, it seemed right to me that Stephen Strange was a smoker... and it wasn’t as reviled in society then as it is now.  

“Actually, it chagrins me that such a scene probably couldn’t be drawn in today’s supposedly more ‘adult’ comics at Marvel or DC. In fact, I know it couldn’t, having tried to write scenes with cigarettes a time or two in recent years.”

That scene came during the great Marvel expansion of 1968 in Dr. Strange 169, the first issue of the sorcerer’s own title (with numbering continuing from Strange Tales, where he’d been appearing since issue 110). 

I remember being a little surprised by it at the time. Superheroes so rarely smoked. Dr. Strange had just been awakened by a nightmare, so this is a scene of quiet vulnerability in a superhero, another thing that was rare then.

“I remember Adkins showing him smoking more than once,” recalled Nils Osmar. “It humanized the character for me; he was so perfect otherwise, it was hard to relate to him.”

But the scene didn’t work for other readers. “Sure, before he became Sorcerer Supreme, Strange was a smoker,” wrote Jef Willemsen. “But after studying with the Ancient One and learning how to hone and care for his body, I really can't see him indulging in drugs or narcotics of any kind. He has to stay alert and vigilant, in constant tune with the magicks of the universe. The highest he gets is when he inhales the Vapors of Valtorr.”

“Given the character’s somewhat peculiar adventures, I’d ask whether that’s really a ‘cigarette’ he’s smoking,” quipped Matthew Grossman.

May 1968: When Villain Turns Hero

Those first few appearances of Marvel’s Captain Marvel in 1967-68, by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas and Gene Colan, were dramatic and innovative.

The Kree invader Captain Mar-Vell was an alien spy and saboteur who, when accidentally compelled to pose as a superhero, found that he was gradually becoming one.

It’s a theme that has been reworked to good effect since, notably in Marvel’s Thunderbolts (when the Masters of Evil posed as a superhero team) and Superior Spider-Man (in which Dr. Octopus took over his archenemy’s identity).

But I’ve heard Stan Lee was unenthusiastic about Marvel Comics stealing the name and Shazam-born thunder of the famous Fawcett hero of the 1940s (it was his publisher’s idea). As the feature fell into other hands, it careened erratically into relative obscurity. What might have been, had Thomas and Colan stayed... 

September 1967: A Plague of Frogs

Daredevil has had a surprising amount of trouble with frog people.

Equipped by the Organizer (a/k/a New York mayoral candidate Abner Jonas) for the role of Frog Man, Francois Le Blanc teamed up with Jonas’ other Ani-Men (Bird Man, Cat Man and Ape Man) to battle Daredevil in Daredevil 10-11 (Oct.-Dec. 1965).

Then, in Daredevil 25 (Feb. 1967), Vincent Patilio adopted the springy identity of the Leap Frog even as Matt Murdock invented a twin brother, Mike, in a desperate ploy to protect his secret identity.

In Daredevil Annual 1 (Sept. 1967), the Leap Frog returned with the “Emissaries of Evil” (which included Electro, the Matador, the Gladiator and the Stilt-Man), but DD’s old foes didn’t fare any better as a team than they had individually.

Now styling themselves as “the Unholy Three,” Ape Man, Cat Man and Bird Man returned without Frog Man in Daredevil 39-40 (April-May 1968). And the Man Without Fear didn’t miss the green gangster.

“Only the Frog Man is left — but he hasn’t the brains to lead these other three,” Daredevil observed. “And since he wasn’t with them, he … must still be in the pokey!”

Unlike Frog Man, however, the Leap Frog was smart enough to invent the battery-powered high-tech spring boots that propelled his criminal career. 

Those boots were inherited by his son Eugene in Marvel Team-Up 121 (June 1982), and he used them to try to clear the family name as the Fabulous Frog-Man. 

Surviving largely by luck, Eugene is sometimes referred to as “Kermit.”

“Must be sad needing to follow in your daddy’s flippers in an ugly Frog Man costume,” Joseph Lenius said.

February 1967: Those Ghostly Memories

So Ghost Rider is a supernatural motorcyclist who made a deal with the devil to save his father, and got a flaming skull-head for his trouble?

Well, no. 

Originally, Ghost Rider was an Old West lawman turned trickster dressed in spectral white. 

The Magazine Enterprises character was created for editor Vincent Sullivan in Tim Holt 11 (Nov. 1949), combining the superhero trappings then fading in popularity with the horror elements that would dominate comics over the next few years.

Ghost Rider’s dramatic design — a caped white figure with a full face mask, a pale wonder horse and lots of ghostly tricks — proved popular enough to propel the character into a respectable four-year run. 

Marvel Comics decided to revamp and revive the hero in 1967. 

Roy Thomas recalled, “The idea to revive ME’s Ghost Rider was Stan’s — or, though I wasn’t told, it could have been Martin Goodman’s, since he was big on picking up the occasional ‘abandoned trademark,’ as he had wanted to do earlier with Gleason’s Daredevil. This time, though, I do know that Stan loved Dick Ayers’ Ghost Rider.”

Thomas said he too had been a fan of the character since he’d seen the origin story in an issue of Tim Holt. Rex Fury had previously starred in a backup feature in Tim Holt as the Calico Kid. But in the 11th issue, artist Ayers and writer Ray Krank upped the ante by turning him into a 19th century mystery man superhero.

Thomas and Gary Friedrich joined with Ayers to bring Ghost Rider to Marvel. 

This time he was one Carter Slade, tricked up in a costume identical to the original and fighting bandits instead of monsters. 

“While we could apparently legally use the name and outfit of Ghost Rider, other things were still officially under copyright so he couldn’t have the same identity,” Thomas said. “Somehow, though, the rest of Ghost Rider’s modus operandi — pretending to be a ghost, etc. — was not off-limits.” 

For more info on Ghost Rider, check out the Marvel in the Silver Age blog.

August 1965: Subby Moves into a Duplex

Marvel’s seagoing superman of the 1940s became a useful utility character early in the 1960s, serving as hero or villain as the occasion required — just as the Hulk did a little later.

In his Silver Age resurrection (Fantastic Four 4, May 1962), the Sub-Mariner became the super-team’s enemy, but in his second appearance (Fantastic Four 6, Sept. 1962), he started out as an opponent but turned into an ally to save the day. 

Prince Namor was intriguingly unpredictable, even as he had been in the late 1930s (though, thanks to the Comics Code, he was no longer casually murdering police officers).

However, by the time a feature spot opened up for the character in Tales to Astonish 70, the very busy Stan Lee had settled into a sort of one-note characterization for the Sub-Mariner, a grandiloquent arrogance. Compared to other Marvel superheroes, I found him a bit of a humorless “noble” bore. 

 “I was as thrilled as anybody when the Sub-Mariner was finally given his own series in Tales to Astonish,” recalled Roy Thomas. “‘Adam Austin’ drew an illustrative Namor which had little in common with the (Bill) Everett version, but I liked it. Later that year, when I went to work for Stan Lee, I learned that ‘Adam Austin’ was really one Gene Colan, hiding under a fake name because he also drew romance comics for DC and didn’t want them to know he was moonlighting.”

Perhaps coincidentally, when the Sub-Mariner replaced Giant-Man in the duplex title Tales to Astonish, the magazine acquired a theme: super-antiheroes.

Both Prince Namor and the Hulk, the star of the magazine’s other feature, were rough-hewn, sharp-edged heroes who often rescued humanity only reluctantly or inadvertently. 

Meanwhile, Strange Tales, featuring Dr. Strange and Nick Fury, spotlighted niche characters more marginally connected to superheroes. And Tales of Suspense, featuring Iron Man and Captain America, was the duplex comic offering two out-and-out superheroes.

May 1965: Mann and God

Charlton Comics had their own knockoff of Mighty Mouse (Atomic Mouse), their own Lone Ranger (the Masked Raider), their own Dennis the Menace (L’il Genius) and even their own Casper the Friendly Ghost (Timmy the Timid Ghost).

So why not their own knockoff of Thor? 

In Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds 46 (May 1965), almost two years after the debut of Marvel’s Thor, Charlton introduced Son of Vulcan, a disabled man empowered to become a flying champion. This time the Greek gods did the trick, instead of the Norse ones.

“The hero started out as Johnny Mann, a reporter for the Worldwide News Syndicate,” noted comics historian Don Markstein. “He got involved with Olympian gods while covering a civil war in Cyprete, an island in the Aegean or eastern Mediterranean that doesn’t seem to appear on real-world maps. He incurred the particular wrath of Mars because he disliked that deity’s work, war.”

Clad in indestructible Roman armor, the Son of Vulcan could summon fire and magical weapons from his foster father’s forge. Granted superhuman strength by Venus, he could also fly. But Jupiter had decreed that Mann’s powers could be cancelled any time the gods deemed him unworthy of them, so Mars frequently plotted to make him look bad and thereby render him helpless.

“After three issues with him as the biggest thing in it, the title Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds was changed to Son of Vulcan,” Markstein noted. “But two issues after that, it was changed again, taken over by a new superhero, Thunderbolt, and Son of Vulcan was gone.”

The character’s footnote in comics history came in his last issue, Son of Vulcan 50 (Jan. 1966), which marked the first professional sale of famed comics writer/editor Roy Thomas.

Another ancient-themed superhero with magical armor and weaponry, the Glowing Gladiator, made two appearances around the same time in Harvey Comics’ short-lived Double-Dare Adventures. This one was empowered not by Vulcan, but by the ghost of Hannibal.

March 1964: Who Pines for the Porcupine?

Sometimes you simply run out of animals.

That may have been Stan Lee, Ernie Hart and Don Heck’s problem when they created the much-mocked Porcupine to battle Ant-Man in Tales to Astonish 48 (October 1963).

Actually, at age 9 I had no problem with the Porcupine, who was really just a variation on the already familiar Iron Man theme. Embittered Army research scientist Alex Gentry realized that the protective combat suit he designed could make him “as rich as Midas” (yes, Gentry’s personality could fairly be described as “prickly”).

His “quills” could do all sorts of cool stuff — spray fire, fog, liquid adhesive and knock-out gas or fire off stun pellets, suction cups, darts and even jets that enabled him to fly — and escape Ant-Man and the Wasp.

Months later, in Tales to Astonish 53 (March 1964), Ant-Man has become Giant-Man, and his higher profile has attracted a fan club of kids. Anticipating comics conventions, they like to dress up as pint-sized versions of their hero’s enemies.

“How do you like our costumes, Giant-Man?” the fans ask. “Can you tell who we are?”

“Of course I can!” replies Giant-Man. “You’re the Black Knight, standing next to Dr. Doom. But yours is the most realistic costume, Porcupine!”

As well it should be, because it’s the real Porcupine. He captures the Wasp, but lets her escape so his radio-transmitter quill can trace the location of the superheroes’ lab. He outwits himself when he grabs and swallows what he thinks are Giant-Man’s growth capsules, and shrinks himself to the size of a microbe.

That diminishing figure might have been the last we saw of the Porcupine, but Lee had other plans for him. Roy Thomas had taken over the scripting of the X-Men title, and Gentry reemerged there as part of a team of also-ran villains (X-Men 22-23, July-August 1966). The Porcupine was recruited by Count Nefaria along with the Eel, the Unicorn, the Scarecrow and the Plant Man.

May 1961: Hawkman in the Himalayas

Hawkman tended to tangle with other man-beasts.

In his first 1960s outing, the revamped Hawkman fought a shapeshifter who could become any animal on Earth or his home planet, Thanagar. 

And in his second appearance (The Brave and the Bold 35, April-May 1961), the Winged Wonder ran into “abominable snowmen” while investigating the Valley of Vanishing Men in the Himalayas.

At the time, the Abominable Snowman or Tibetan Yeti — “(A) mythical monster resembling a large, hairy, ape-like being supposed to inhabit the Himalayas at about the level of the snow line,” according to Britannica — was enjoying a flurry of popularity in articles, movies and comic books.

The first story in the issue pitted the Winged Wonders against scientist-turned-alchemist Mark Mandrill, whose accidental discovery of a compound he calls “Mentachem” provides him with a wand he can use to reshape, transmute or levitate any matter. The Matter Master would return many times.

“Gardner Fox’s Silver Age revival of the Hawkman shows similarities and differences from the original Golden Age Hawkman character, whom he also created,” observed comics historian Michael Grost. “Both go after criminals with a ‘variety of ancient weapons’ … Both characters have a secret identity of Carter Hall. By contrast, the Golden Age Hawkman is not an alien being: he is an ordinary Earth human. Nor does he have all the alien technological devices from Thanagar that the Silver Age Hawkman employs for crime detection.”

Reader Roy Thomas expressed his appreciation for the revival and revamping of the characters on the second Hawkman’s Roost letter page. 

“I’m glad you have changed the characters physically as little as you did, for little improvement could have been made,” Thomas wrote. “One complaint, however, which I feel duty-bound to make as my chief (and practically only) disappointment in the issue — I think Hawkman’s mask greatly needs some wings.” 

By his fourth tryout appearance in The Brave and the Bold 42 (June-July 1962), Hawkman had won his helmet wings.

May 1959: The Years of the Sword

Before DC’s The Brave and the Bold became an audition title like Showcase, it focused on sword-and-shield fantasy.

 The genre was popular during the 1950s in films like Knights of the Round Table (1953), The Black Knight (1954) and The Vikings (1958) and in TV series like The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955-1960), The Adventures of William Tell (1958-59) and Ivanhoe (1958).

“(S)imultaneous with his work on DC’s war comics, Joe Kubert drew the swashbuckling feature Viking Prince, set circa 1,000 A.D., with a hero first written by Robert Kanigher and probably inspired in large part by Harold R. Foster’s Prince Valiant,” noted Roy Thomas.

“Prince Jon, a noble warrior suffering from amnesia, originally appeared in BB 1-5 and 7-24,” wrote Michael T. Gilbert. “His most unusual adventure may have been a unique two-part story pairing the Viking Prince and Sgt. Rock in Our Army at War 162-163 (Jan.-Feb. 1966). Rock discovered the Prince frozen in a glacier.”

This full-page house ad for BB 23 (April-May 1959) emphasized mysterious elements to hook the potential reader.

So why did Prince Jon fight to protect that carving in the Bob Haney story The Figurehead of the Burning Sea? Because the evil sorcerer Jarl Eric had imprisoned the spirit of the beautiful Asa inside it. The Viking Prince escaped with the figurehead as a volcano set the sea ablaze.

That particular brand of heroic fantasy would take a decade-long break from comic books as superheroes proliferated, returning with a vengeance in Conan the Barbarian 1 (Oct. 1970).

March 1947: To Venus With Neptune

What’s the opposite of a bird-man? Well, a fish-man, right?

That very contrast was likely the reason that Neptune Perkins appeared twice in the Golden Age Hawkman feature, first in Flash Comics 66 (Aug-Sept 1945) and again in Flash Comics 81 (March 1947). 

According to writer Gardner Fox, Perkins was the “Webbed Wizard” to Hawkman’s “Winged Wonder.” Joe Kubert handled the art.

Although he couldn’t breathe in water, Perkins was a mutant undersea explorer who had webbed feet and a sodium deficiency that required him to live near salt water. His constant swimming made him stronger than most men. A bestselling nonfiction author, Perkins kept a pet seagull (who proved handy for communicating with Hawkman).

In 1945, Hawkman helped Perkins recover his stolen houseboat. In 1947, Perkins and Hawkman traveled via giant light bulb to Venus, where they saved the Q-tip-headed inhabitants from an avian/aquatic menace (attacks by a gigantic Roc and Kraken).

Writer Roy Thomas revived the character of Neptune Perkins in All-Star Squadron 33 (May 1984) and went on to star him in The Young All-Stars, beginning in 1987.

DC’s tendency to juxtapose bird people with fish people continued into the 1960s, when Mer-Boy’s rival for Wonder Girl’s affections was of course Bird-Boy. And one of the first superhero team-ups in The Brave and the Bold featured Hawkman and Aquaman fighting an aquatic/avian monster in Fury of the Exiled Creature (issue 51, Jan. 1964).

April 1942: Backing from the Future

Progress was the American watchword in the 20th century, so why not just hop to the future and get us a big helping?

In All-Star Comics 10 (April-May 1942), Justice Society members used a time-ray to travel 500 years into the future to secure a defensive weapon. The Gardner Fox script cleverly placed some individual superheroes in futuristic settings that offset their powers. 

Hawkman, for example, finds that everyone in the future can fly with Buck Rogers-like belts.

“But I AM the Hawkman,” he protests.

“And I’m George Washington,” replies a futuristic flying cop.

Starman must fight without his gravity rod, and the shorter-than-average Atom confronts a race of sky-dwelling giants. 

“This is the first of three All-Star issues in which the Atom has solo adventures where he appears diminutive, foreshadowing the hero of the same name who would debut in 1961,” observed Roy Thomas in his All-Star Companion Vol. 1.

Green Lantern and the Flash are now honorary members because they have their own solo titles, but make cameo appearances to guard America’s scientific team while the full-time members “time out.”

No need to fret about time paradoxes in 1940s comic books. The Justice Society’s provide the Allies with a futuristic force beam that no bomb could penetrate, a gift that should have shortened the war considerably.

Yet oddly, it did not.

But in February 1942, the month that All-Star Comics 10 appeared on newsstands, an Allied task force of 14 vessels was defeated by a 19-vessel Japanese task force in the Battle of the Java Sea, with 2.300 sailors killed.

And in the so-called “Battle of Los Angeles,” more than 1,400 anti-aircraft shells were fired at some unidentified object over LA, and a wartime blackout of Southern California was ordered in consequence.

Early in the war, Americans were worried, and they had reason to be. One of the jobs of popular culture was to give them hope, which is just what All-Star 10 did.

July 1940: The Battle of the Elements

Marvel Mystery 9 prefigured three elements that would be revived to define the Marvel Age of Comics in the 1960s — the crossover, the anti-social hero and the battle between heroes.

Both the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner debuted at the birth of Marvel Comics (Oct. 1939), which was both the title in which they initially appeared and eventually the brand name that would storm the world.

Both were monster men as much as supermen — the Torch a confused android who burned whatever he touched, and Prince Namor an angry loose cannon about as likely to murder innocent people as to save them.

And within nine months, they’d clashed in a spectacular, crowd-pleasing three-issue crossover of their features. 

By that time, the Torch had joined the New York City Police Department — an artificial being trying to fit in and overcompensating, I always figured. Meanwhile, the Sub-Mariner was on another of his periodic rampages against humanity.

Though they were natural enemies, that didn’t prevent Subby and the Torch from teaming up later on against some real monsters — the Nazis.

Bill Everett, creator of the Sub-Mariner, told Roy Thomas that he thought he and Torch creator Carl Burgos had dreamed up the crossover storyline. 

“Just the fact that the two opposite elements had had their own stories — now what would happen if we ever got them together as rivals to fight each other?” Everett recalled.

Whenever I look at some of Everett’s earliest Marvel tales about the Sub-Mariner, from 1939-40, I am reminded what a perverse protagonist this character was — murdering people in fits of pique, helping others in manic spasms, wrecking Manhattan infrastructure like Kong.

Everett managed the difficult feat of an original take on the much-imitated Superman template – an anti-hero Superman, an amoral, arrogant Superman.

A period Hollywood film about Namor as written could easily be a blockbuster — a sad comment on the moral tone of our society, one that demands a Superman who breaks people’s necks.

July 1939: The Green Hornet in Four Colors

When we later Baby Boomers first met the Justice Society of America in Flash 123 (Sept. 1961), Flash 129 (June 1962) and Flash 137 (June 1963), and then again in Justice League of America 21 and 22 (Aug.-Sept 1963), we undoubtedly thought we’d hit the jackpot. 

Our roster of superheroes had doubled instantly!

We swiftly sorted these intriguing “older newcomers” into the variations-on-a-theme heroes (Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, the Atom, Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman) and the unique heroes (Hourman, Dr. Fate, the Spectre, Dr. Mid-Nite, the Sandman, and others).

Created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Bert Christman for Adventure Comics 40 (July 1939), the Sandman drew on inspirations that predated the smash-hit heroes Superman and Batman. Wealthy Wesley Dodds wore a gas mask, fedora and stylized, caped business suit, wielded a gas gun to kayo criminals and was pursued by police as a criminal. One ancestor was obvious: the dramatic radio hero Green Hornet, who had premiered in 1936 (who was himself inspired by his great-uncle, the Lone Ranger, a radio hero who’d bowed in 1933).

“Wes Dodd (later the name was usually written as ‘Dodds’) and his gas-masked secret identity were introduced in Adventure Comics 40, July 1939 — only one month after Bob Kane's Batman,” Roy Thomas noted. “He became a charter member of the Justice Society of America when it debuted in All-Star Comics 3, 1940.”

“But his primacy was short-lived. For with the advent of Superman —and later Batman, et al — a hero needed a whole costume, as per Hourman, the guy who pushed: Sandman off the Adventure covers within a year.”

The Sandman was “Batmaned-up” with yellow-and-purple tights and a boy sidekick in Adventure Comics 69 (Dec. 1941). But his distinctive pulp hero look was restored, thankfully, during his 1960s JLA revival.