S&S's Forgotten Fantasies (Part The Second)

As we continue with this weekend's look at the Stan Lee/Steve Ditko tales from Amazing Adult Fantasy in the issues before Spider-Man, let's begin with one of those themes i always enjoy - the creators appearing within the story. Well, at least sort of...

A recurring theme in the book was how Humankind and Strange Visitors react to each other. Sometimes, it's all a matter of timing...

Yeah, i had to leave that promo for the FF on there; if for no other reason, simply to mark the point in time for these tales. And because it was conveniently located at the end of the story, unlike some of the other promos for Hulk and such.

I'm made no secret of my shameful love of terrible pun names. I think i need to use a character named Swami River in one of my stories or games.

Let's wrap things up for this batch with another of those Strange Visitor stories, though this guy might be a bit more familiar than most...

And so another Hermit was born...

We'll be back with at least one more batch of Amazing Adult Fantasy tales this weekend.

page art by Steve Ditko from Amazing Adult Fantasy #s 8, 9, 12, & 13 (1962)

S&S's Forgotten Fantasies (Part The First)

Everybody (sic) remembers Amazing Adult Fantasy #15 as the first appearance of Spider-Man. But how many remember anything else about the series?

A title of all Stan Lee & Steve Ditko tales is well worth remembering, wouldn't you think? So, let's do that and spend this weekend looking at some of those old stories. We'll start with a classic Bradbury-esque time travel tale -
 

Sometimes the answer is obvious early on, even if it perhaps isn't obvious until they point it out -

I must admit, there are Many things in modern society that leave me feeling like that crowd above. 

We opened with a time travel tale - let's close for this post with another...
 

They produced seven issues of stories before Spider-Man took over. We'll be back with more this weekend.

page art by Steve Ditko for Amazing Adult Fantasy #s 7 & 10 (1961, 1962)

3 Says 2 Was 1

While we're in the neighborhood, why don't we peek inside Daredevil Comics #2, in which Real American #1 debuted.

Issue #2 was really issue #1 in most respects. The first issue of the series was Daredevil Battles Hitler and was more of a stand-alone special than part of the ongoing series. 

Now that we once again face the possibility of World War for the sake of a madman's ego, maybe we'll go back to that issue soon. Meanwhile...

"The Greatest Name In Comics" they proclaimed upon the cover. There were a lot of those back in the '30s & '40s - Greatest Name In Comics, Greatest Comics, All-Great Comics, even just All-Good Comics, etc.,. I suppose one of these days we should start fact-checking some of those claims.

Meanwhile, Daredevil Comics did feature some top talent including, of course, Charles Biro on Daredevil himself -

The Whirlwind had Dick Wood writing and featured Bernard Klein artwork - 

Dash Dillon with art from Edd Ashe -

And, semi-related to Real American #1, we had the Pioneer by Bob Wood (not to be confused with Dick Wood, working on the same book) and J. Gahr -

We're a little less certain on "America's Joan Of Arc" - "Chuck" Woodro was Charles Biro and Bob Wood writing together, but the artwork might be from Frank Borth or Reed Crandall, a couple of familiar names around here. But, it might be from someone else - we simply don't know - 

Bob Wood both writes and draws the tales of the "World's Worst Villain" - The Claw. No, the title doesn't mean he's the worst at his job as villain. Though it might refer to his maxed out Yellow Peril factor -

These days George Roussos is perhaps best remembered for his inking work on things like Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four pages. So it's amusing to me that he used to go by the name "Inky," as when he was drawing Nightro, with Dick Wood scripting. 

Let's take a look at Nightro's origin -

You know, when someone is getting conked on the head or suffering physical trauma, Roussos really makes 'em look like they're feeling it. (For those of you keeping track at home, Dr. Midnight debuted four months earlier in All-American Comics #25.)

For many, the biggest star of the book wasn't any of these folks, nor even Dick Briefer with his work on Real American #1. It was Jerry Robinson writing and drawing the WW2 adventures of London -

Unfortunately, with a name like London it's exceedingly difficult to know for sure how many tales he had or how long he was around. Certainly at least 10 tales running from Daredevil Comics #s 2-11. Beyond that...? 

Happy hunting.

page art by Charles Biro, Bernard Klein, Edd Ashe, J. Gahr, George Roussos, and Jerry Robinson from Daredevil Comics #2 (1941)