Supermen!
Sub-titled as “The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes 1939-1941″, Supermen! provides a concise glimpse into what the early comic books were like back when the medium was really fresh i.e. pre-WWII.
Don’t get too excited, you’re not gonna get any Superman or Captain America or even Captain Marvel comics here. Instead, we have heroes like Dr. Mystic, The Clock and Dirk the Demon, as published by publishers named Comics Magazine Company, Fox Publications and M.L.J. Magazines.
Knowledgable fans would recognize prominent creators like Siegel and Schuster (Superman), Bill Everett (Sub-Mariner) and Will Eisner (The Spirit) amongst the contributors to this sampling. Today’s readers will be surprised at how some of the material from a supposed more naive times really comes across rather grim and gritty.
For example, the Clock is a masked vigilante that battles an underworld of murder and drug addiction, the Flame is a caped crusader that has to protect a small town from horrific creatures of the night and Stardust is a “Super Wizard” with vast interplanetary knowledge which allows him to deal with otherworldly threats and rescue damsels in distress whom he is quite happy to bring home.
The 20 stories on view here provide an intriguing insight of where many of our modern day comic book heroes may have originated from, even if indirectly. A history lesson at best and a curiosity at worst. One for the scholars, I think!
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.