Olden age Golden age: Free comics liveblogged by Odradek

Odradek · 2015-06-22 16:35:04

First up it's Fantastic Comics #1! This is one of those anthology comics.

Also really racially insensitive. Let's hope this doesn't get too bad.

So the narration informs us that an evil army lead by "The brilliant mad Thorga" have streamed out of "A barren Tibetan plateau" to invade Europe. So what's up with this Thorga guy?

The next page arrives, and I am suddenly very confused over when this is supposed to take place.

It's like, people in bomber planes wielding bayonets are fighting a barbarian muscleman at the behest of a mad Tibetan(?) scientist? Okay?

Anyway, Samson beats up all the Thorganians, so Thorga sends out a bunch of tanks and planes to defeat Samson.

This goes about as you might expect

So Samson destroys the machines of war, but a pilot from the plane survives. Samson tells a random soldier on his side that he's off to go destroy Thorga and his laboratory.

Samson sneaks into the HQ under the cover, stopping to beat up some sentries. He breaks in, and confronts Thorga, who promptly runs away. Thankfully for Thorga, he still has his "super death ray" which not even Samson can beat!

Thorga doesn't get a chance to use it, because Samson beats the shit out of him and destroys his whole laboratory, except for a single bomb he carries out.

I have no idea what the hell any of that was.

NEXT TIME: Buzzy in the Land of Nod! featuring this!

And also the adventures of The Super Wizard: Stardust

Salix Babylonika · 2015-06-22 16:37:16

hell yeah I like this thread already

and only good things can come from a SUPER WIZARD

Tachyon · 2015-06-22 16:38:13

that snail thing is horrifying

is Samson maybe some kind of immortal wandering superhuman?

lee4hmz · 2015-06-22 16:39:04

Thorga looks like Totally Not Nikola Tesla to me.

Salix Babylonika · 2015-06-22 16:41:11

Tachyon said:
that snail thing is horrifying

is Samson maybe some kind of immortal wandering superhuman?

Samson / Vandal Savage crossover

Odradek · 2015-06-22 16:42:28

Tachyon said:
that snail thing is horrifying

is Samson maybe some kind of immortal wandering superhuman?

I think maybe? Thorga gets more backstory, and I think he's dead

Imipolex G · 2015-06-22 16:56:02

...was this story written by a four-year-old?

One-Winged Eagle · 2015-06-22 16:57:30

Do Stardust the Super-Wizard.

Odradek · 2015-06-22 17:00:10

MachSpeed said:
Do Stardust the Super-Wizard.

That's the next story in the comic! aside from

BUZZY

in the land of nod

Yarrun XIX · 2015-06-22 17:01:16

remember when I said I'd do a tumblr about facts about dinosaur comics?

I just registered dinosaurcomicsfacts.tumblr.com

Tachyon · 2015-06-22 17:01:47

wrong thread?

cool, though

PatchAwful · 2015-06-22 23:08:24

It isn't a good comic unless Stardust the Super Wizard pops in to enact some cruel and unusual punishment with his unlimited range of reality warping powers

Odradek · 2015-06-23 17:16:24

Time to learn about the adventures of BUZZY: In the Land of Nod! This is easy because it's just two pages.

And that's it for BUZZY: In the Land of Nod. I mean it's really, really, it. This was the first and last appearance of BUZZY: In the Land of NOD, according to the database I checked. We don't know why it wasn't continued, but we can assume it had nothing to do with famed cartoonist Winsor McCay dangling the author of BUZZY: In the Land of Nod off a hotel balcony.

Now It's time for Stardust the Super Wizard! He's here, and he's brought walls of text!

Anyway Stardust has come to cleanse our planet of crime! He has a laundry list of powers including "mastery of space and planetary forces" "immunity to heat or cold" "can turn invisible or as bright as the sun" "has artificial lungs" that let him breathe wherever, and he wears a suit of star-metal skin that makes him even more invulnerable. The terrorists are disheartened to hear this, as they packed a bunch of typhoid germs, poison gas, hot fusing liquid, and "the Atom Smasher", and now they realize it's all useless.

Anyway, they're scheduled to assassinate the president, and they decide their best bet is to do it before Stardust gets there. It doesn't work out.

The nebulous army of spies and terrorists is not doing well, it seems. They try to send a fleet of planes to drop bombs on the Capitol, but Stardust uses his anti-gravity ray to send all the bombs back up at the planes. The terrorists decide to bring out the Atom-Smasher. He bursts into the room-hey wait!

An invicible super-man is being threatened with a death ray as soon as he enters the room! This is Samson again, Fantastic Comics! Who do you think you're fooling? This is the reason we're not talking about a Fox Features Cinematic Universe nowadays.

Anyway, Sampson deflects the ray with his "Boomerang Ray", and then throws all the terrorists out the window and then suspends them in thin air.

Stardust, you're a weird dude.

Next up: THE GOLDEN KNIGHT

Tachyon · 2015-06-23 17:43:21

trippy

Yarrun XIX · 2015-06-23 18:21:36

The spectre before he had fashion sense

Odradek · 2015-06-23 19:09:45

I feel like they're trying to make him look handsomer by drawing everyone else as weird monster people.

PatchAwful · 2015-06-23 19:39:52

Odradek said:
I feel like they're trying to make him look handsomer by drawing everyone else as weird monster people.

A life of crime has taken its toll on their previous good looks

Odradek · 2015-06-26 19:22:33

What ho, good sirs! 'tis the tale of The Golden Knight, a brave man given inspiration by what is obviously WONDER WOMAN!

The brave SIR RICHARD immediately sets out uponne his journey, but is distracted by a birb.

It seems our brave Sir Richard has the mentality of a six year old boychild!.

In the Golden Age of Comics, in this good Christian year of Our Lord and Savior 1939, one did not have the TIME or the PAGE SPACE for prolonged battles! Instead our brave hero strikes down his wicked foe with a single blow!

Brave Sir Richard emerges from the hypogean cavern to find a pack of wicked SARACENS, plotting evil against his erstwhile travelling companions! They have somehow made their way into whatever corner of Christendom Sir Richard happens to live in!

This page is really confusing! Nevertheless Richard defeats the evil Saracens, and ventures off to find the old hag. He spies a fair maiden in trouble, and approaches her, but she suddenly reaches out to stab him! Our brave Sir Richard is too quick, however!

It seems Richard got LUCKY! His adventures will continue EVERY MONTH, PROBABLY! I don't know how long I will be able to keep up this wretched GIMMICK!

Next time: SPACE SMITH!

Preview:

Tachyon · 2015-06-26 20:08:41

I was attacked by a horrifying monster! Someone tried to poison me! I had to kill a whole bunch of people! Oh boy, my travelling companions will be sorry they missed out on so much fun!

Yarrun XIX · 2015-06-26 20:18:49

You dream of a woman demanding that you use your "mighty sword", and your first thought's the Crusaders?

Section42L · 2015-06-26 20:20:23

These are all the same character with minor variations so far (except for Buzzy).

Do things keep going like this?

Odradek · 2015-06-26 20:33:56

Section42L said:
These are all the same character with minor variations so far (except for Buzzy).

Do things keep going like this?

We are thirty pages into a 64 page comic, but I should probably try another company, or possibly genre for the next one.

Odradek · 2015-06-26 20:34:38

Once we're done with this comic, I mean

Section42L · 2015-06-26 20:35:41

Odradek said:

Section42L said:
These are all the same character with minor variations so far (except for Buzzy).

Do things keep going like this?
We are thirty pages into a 64 page comic, but I should probably try another company, or possibly genre for the next one.

If it helps, I was amused by that trend.

That would probably still be a good idea, though.

Odradek · 2015-06-26 20:36:40

Maybe a horror comic.

Section42L · 2015-06-26 20:37:35

I didn't know that horror comics existed before EC did them.

Odradek · 2015-06-26 20:40:24

EC popularized the genre, and were the big guys, but horror comics did exist.

as did Pirate comics, cowboy comics, and detective comics.

Anonus · 2015-06-26 20:54:19

I remember the olden days of 2012 when we thought Stardust was the super Mary Sue but of course it turns out he's one in a million (although "Stardust the Super Wizard" is still a great name...YOU ARE NOW IN THE POWER OF STARDUST)

Odradek · 2015-06-26 20:56:17

Who are "We"?

Anonus · 2015-06-26 20:56:44

the people here? You might not have been around for it

Section42L · 2015-06-26 21:02:58

Stardust is still the best version of that character, though.

Odradek · 2015-06-26 21:20:33

Section42L said:
Stardust is still the best version of that character, though.

He's the most popular, apparently.

Salix Babylonika · 2015-06-26 21:22:55

Anonus said:
"Stardust the Super Wizard" is still a great name

it might actually be the best name?

like, no qualifiers.

Section42L · 2015-06-26 21:28:19

Odradek said:

Section42L said:
Stardust is still the best version of that character, though.
He's the most popular, apparently.

Well, if you're going to be a boring strongman, at least be a comedically overpowered one.

Mort Weisinger understood this when he worked on Silver Age Superman.

Odradek · 2015-06-26 21:37:02

Well this is like a year after Superman debuted.

Things got more creative as time went on

Anonus · 2015-06-26 21:53:30

well the art is certainly more skillful

the anatomy in that Fox comic is all over the place

Odradek · 2015-06-29 15:06:27

Today, peyote and few editors bring you SPACE SMITH:

Smith and his girlfriend get knocked out by "radium beams" and taken to the lair of Skomah, a Martian scientist. Skomah has a huge head because "He is the seventh son of the great Skomah" who created a man with a brain so big "no problem would be too much". Big-head's name is also Skomah. I don't know how Martian naming conventions work.

So Skomah sends the space imps after Space Smith and Dianna, Dianna grabs two guns while Smith fends off the imps, but it turns out she can't work them, so Smith tells her to jump out of a window to escape. He thinks they'll be good if they land on a tree.

QUICK HENRY, THE FLIT!

Anyway, Dianna gets the ray gun working, kills the giant mosquito, and then they find a convenient radio transmitting station to turn themselves into radio signals and fly back to earth, while assuring the viewer that they're going to go back to Mars to deal with the Skomah problem. Next time in: In The Pit Of The Martian Ogre

Next up: A two page prose story: The Planet of Death! and another comic: 'Yank' Wilson: Super Spy

Imipolex G · 2015-06-29 17:26:32

good gosh!

Calica · 2015-06-29 17:32:19

is his name really space

Imipolex G · 2015-06-29 17:34:40

also, he apparently doesn't know how to spell his girlfriend's name.

Tachyon · 2015-06-29 18:25:38

i like the mosquito's design

Odradek · 2015-06-29 21:02:16

I do like that Dianna was allowed to shoot down the mosquito instead of just fainting.

Odradek · 2015-07-01 20:04:42

I'm just gonna post the two-page text story in here.

Tomorrow, just in time for Independence Day, it's the adventures of 'Yank' Wilson!

Section42L · 2015-07-01 20:12:01

Even the guy in the text story is the same character as everybody else in this comic.

MetaFour · 2015-07-03 00:36:43

I notice how many of these stories are just jam-packed with narration boxes. Part of that's a side effect of cramming that much story into a limited number of pages—telling takes up less space than showing, after all. But look at the attack of the giant Martian mosquito in the "Space Smith" story. The narration doesn't add anything! It's just telling us what we can already see happening in the panel. Apparently the writer doesn't trust that the art will make sense on its own, and I can't tell if that's more insulting to the audience or to the artist.

I'm told that this was just How Things Were in golden age comics. Which makes it really baffling that, of all things, "Buzzy in the Land of Nod" averted that trend and told a story without any narrator boxes at all.

Section42L · 2015-07-03 01:19:32

To be partially fair, according to comics.org, the writer and artist of that Space Smith story are the same person. I suspect the narration-heavy style of Golden Age comics was imitating the adventure comic strips that they were born out of.

It is perhaps telling that comedic stories, like Buzzy, tended to avoid that sort of style. From my experience with Golden Age comics, the comedic stories tend to hold up much better than the adventure ones.

Speaking of which, the Golden Age Captain Marvel and Plastic Man stories are apparently public domain, so if Myr wants to relieve himself from the crap at some point, he could read some of them.

Imipolex G · 2015-07-03 17:27:16

PLASTIC MAN

Salix Babylonika · 2015-07-03 19:10:23

Plastic Man is underrated.

Odradek · 2015-07-12 21:28:19

There are few things more AMERICAN than missing dates.

I'm pretty sure an anthropologists could go on for hours about otherness as personified by a group called "The Eskimongolians" but that's besides the point. Anyway as a result of the Eskimongolian invasion, the president has been granted unlimited powers and refuses to cede an inch of territory to the invaders.

The leader of the Eskimongolians, Roxala, who is wearing a fur hat and wielding a sword, announces over "ethergram" that he will take over the entire Western hemisphere. Behind him, the hairy sword-wielding Eskimongolians shout their approval.

I didn't know "right wing circle jerk fiction" was a genre we were going to cover in this liveblog.

This chapter is mostly a sleep inducing list of technobabble, numbers of troops, and weapons. I tried to read through it properly, but my eyes just slide right off the page with text bubbles like this.

Anyway Yank defeats the scary brown people with American technology blah blah blah oorah

Next up: Captain Kidd: Explorer

MetaFour · 2015-07-12 21:55:44

So does Yank Wilson ever do any espionage, or is "Super Spy" just one of those titles that doesn't mean anything anymore?

Odradek · 2015-07-12 22:07:01

MetaFour said:
So does Yank Wilson ever do any espionage, or is "Super Spy" just one of those titles that doesn't mean anything anymore?

The latter I think.

Which is weird, because James Bond doesn't exist yet.

Olden age Golden age: Free comics liveblogged by Odradek

Comments

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories