Leaving Mars

Shhh!

My brain has gone wandering back to one of our previous topics. Let's try not to scare it and maybe it will lead us somewhere interesting.

It seems to have taken an interest in Flint Baker. We saw Flint when our topic was Dick Briefer, who wrote and drew the first episode (and created the series? Unknown and likely unknowable) for Planet Comics #1. Briefer moved on after that, and so did we.

If you missed it, here was the first episode. After Briefer's departure, Herman Bolstein takes over the writing chores, and Arthur Peddy , whom you may recall from posts on Red Panther or Captain Thunder, is our new artist. Dick and his ginchy stylings may be gone from the strip, but we get four-armed martian ape, a brutal kill, and a very early use of pogo platforms -

A few issues later, things got interesting as they decided to take the series out of the Solar system and into unknown space ...

...but the very next issue they were back in-system, and working it sequentially. Mercury, then Venus, then Mars again. (Home doesn't count)

So far we've managed to not spook the wandering brain. Maybe if we don't disturb it, we can follow it further...

page art by Arthur Peddy for Planet Comics #s 2 & 5 (1940)

Captain Thunder, I Presume?

As i mentioned yesterday, Captain (Terry) Thunder started out as an action/adventure strip. Although we have a vulture in the first panel, it's not Vincent, just local colour. Art Peters, and later Buck Johnson and Pierre LaRue, were pen names so we have no idea who was writing. But we do know it was originally drawn by Arthur Peddy whom we've already seen drawing the Red Panther (also for Jungle Comics).

On that first episode, he's listed as only Captain Thunder. They changed it to Captain Terry Thunder for the second issue of Jungle Comics and that stuck until his final appearance in that incarnation of the title in #151. As we saw yesterday, however, other things did change. A half dozen issues into the run Gloria hit camp...

...and they even got fireworks when they kissed. Gloria stuck around for another issue, just long enough to leave Terry with Kismet the Camel. Kismet found Anderson, and Vincent soon joined in the madness. Terry Thunder's once 'normal' life was warped and soon his adventures had transformed into this sort of affair...

Slowly, it seemed, Terry Thunder got over the trauma of Gloria Frazier. The presence of Kismet, Anderson, and Vincent diminished, and by issue #40 they no longer shared billing on the strip, and soon vanished entirely. Anderson lingered the longest, what with being human and all.

Perhaps he went crazy again later in the series. I'll have to keep reading and see...

page art from Jungle Comics #s 1, 6, & 29 (1940, 1942)

A Detour On The Road To Wakanda

Back in February and March we looked for a bit at the Road To Wakanda and the Days Before The Panther Ruled and several posts on the long journey made by many heroes for the Black Panther to rule the media world.

And then there were those odd detours that don't get talked about...

Can the Anthracite Jaguar be far behind...?

page art by Arthur Peddy for Jungle Comics # 10 (1940)