Steve Does Comics

Grab your shurikens, Grandma! It's time for my latest video review as I take a look at Charlton Comics' stab at leaping on the early 1970s' Kung Fu craze.

Looking at the covers on the Grand Comics Database, it would appear that my household at one point possessed half the issues of Yang that ever existed.

Clearly it must have made a greater impression than all logic might suggest it would have done.

All students of history will know there've been many great endings over the centuries; and today, Steve Does Comics brings you an ending worthy of Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes itself - as its latest feature grinds to its final resting place.


The only issue of Shazam I ever owned.

Like the Metal Men comic I mentioned the other day, I got it from a newsagents in Heeley Green. I still don't have a clue why that makes it seem exciting but, somehow, it does.

Sadly, I remember little of the main story but remember that I found CC Beck's simple art style appealing.




The Legion of Super-Heroes find themselves entangled in a plan devised by their evil counterparts.

The only issue of E-Man I ever owned.

I believe this issue may have introduced me to the word, "Entropy."

I also suspect this issue featured John Byrne's Rog 2000 in the tale of a haunted hotel. This may have been the first time I ever encountered the work of John Byrne. At the time, I found the tale most droll.

Apart from the cover, I don't remember anything about this at all.

It does however remind me that I once had a comic that featured a reprint of a Lee/Kirby tale about a girl who can walk on air until it's pointed out to her that people can't walk on air, at which point she loses the ability to do so. If you know in which comic that reprint appeared, I'd be very glad to read your thoughts in the comments box below.

It's another issue of Prez - and another whose contents somehow elude my memory.

An evil bad guy has a formula that turns people into monsters. Needless to say, the Avenger soon sorts out his perfidious plans.


The only issue of the Champions I ever had.

You do wonder just who at Marvel thought it made sense to launch a comic that tried to team up the Black Widow, Hercules, Iceman, the Angel and Ghost Rider. Maybe it's just me but that doesn't seem the most natural combination of characters.

Sadly, I can recall nothing of what happened within this issue.

I think a shopping mall may have been involved.

I could be wrong.

My eyeballs detect a Neal Adams cover.

Arguably one of Atlas/Seaboard's stronger offerings. I particularly recall a tale of two samurai and a load of giant spiders - not to mention an article on the making of Towering Inferno.

Wulf the Barbarian has his third outing. I'm not sure if he had a fourth one, the Curse of Atlas being what it was.

For some reason, they don't let me have atom bombs.

I don't know why.

After all, what harm could a man of my quality possibly do with a bunch of weapons of mass thermo-nuclear annihilation?

Probably a lot less than the characters in Charlton Comics' Space Adventures #33, who tend to treat such weapons as though they have no more destructive power than a boxful of indoor fireworks.

Still, you have to hand it to them, if not for their recklessness, we would never have had the hero the world knows as Captain Atom.

Captain Atom is no stranger to me. I first encountered him reprinted in the black and white pages of various Alan Class comics.

But, long before those heady days of the mid 1970s, he had his origins in 1960, in the far more colourful pages of Charlton Comics.

What happens is this. The American military are about to fire a nuclear missile into space and explode it there for no good reason, when, no sooner have they launched it than they realise that, oops, their finest pilot Captain Adam is still on board. Clearly, whoever was in charge of this launch was the same character who was in charge of the gamma bomb test that Bruce Banner was working on.

Sadly, this unforeseen but avoidable development means Captain Adam is blown to pieces.

But all is not lost. For, with the nation still adjusting to life without a man who'd been a national hero, he reappears on Earth, having reintegrated himself and been transformed into a nuclear-powered super-being.

It's at this point that you realise exactly where Alan Moore got the idea for Doctor Manhattan from.

Needless to say, the military quickly see the value of this turn of events, put him in a costume designed to stop him leaking radioactivity all over everyone and rename him Captain Atom.

And it's just in the nick of time. For, no sooner has he shown off his powers to a startled top brass, than a pair of double agents (no doubt recruited from the same place Bruce Banner found Igor) decide to launch one of America's nuclear missiles at one of their own cities, in order to give their beloved leader a reason to start World War Three. The comic doesn't name this country but, with a plan like that, I think we can assume it's not one of the better run ones.

Wasting no time at all, Captain Atom flies into action and blows the missile up in mid-flight, by punching it in the face, and the world is saved.

The thing that strikes you about the tale is that, with only nine pages to tell the tale in, there's no character development or backstory at all. We first meet Captain Adam as he's being launched into space. Even after his return, we learn nothing of him. Does he have a family? Is he a little peeved that he's been blown up? Does the fact he's now giving off deadly radiation bother him in the slightest? We're never told and the man seems totally unphased by it all to a degree that suggests he may have accidentally forgotten to bring his soul along with him when he recreated his body.

Not for Captain Atom the eternal agonising and self-doubt that Marvel heroes would later encounter.

Apart from Steve Ditko's art, I suppose the main virtue of the strip is it gives us a peek back into the depths of the Cold War mentality, with its tale of people firing off nuclear missiles at every opportunity; while starting a World War for no reason seems perfectly sensible to all involved.

And, of course, without Captain Atom, Jim Starlin would never have been inspired to copy him by showing Captain Marvel leaving a sparkly trail behind him wherever he flew. And where would we all have been without that effect?

"Steve!" I hear you cry. "What have you been reading lately and when are you going to review it?"

Well, I've been reading quite a lot lately - and I'm going to be reviewing almost none of it.

This isn't because a strange new wave of apathy has swept across my living room. It's because most of the comics I've read lately, I don't have anything to say about that I've not said about other issues in their respective series.

For instance, much as I love Charlton's Midnight Tales, I can't think of anything to say about issues #5 and #12 that I didn't say in my reviews of issues #8 and #9.

Therefore, in the absence of fresh new opinions, I'm going to give you a quick round-up of what I've been looking at.


It's the second part of the Red Rajah saga, as the girl Defenders take on the boy Defenders and make a better job of it than the boys ever did.

Don McGregor's Panther's Rage kicks off with T'Challa returning to Wakanda, only to find everyone's a bit fed-up of him.

Jack Kirby's short-lived take on the Avenger gives us men turning into monsters, as the Avenger gains a new sidekick and strikes a blow for racial equality in the pulp era.

It's like a cross between The Man Who Fell To Earth and Whistle Down The Wind, as Warlock arrives on Counter-Earth and promptly gains a bunch of disciples.

Gil Kane's art's fabby but Roy Thomas lays on the religious allegory so hard it's like being run over by a copy of the Bible.

It's more winningly quirky pleasantness from easily my favourite Charlton series, as Professor Coffin and Arachne have a Hellbound diversion.

And they're back again.

Reading The Shadow was the first time I ever liked Frank Robbins' artwork.

Here, the scarf-tastic super-doer finds himself mixed up in showbiz shenanigans.

With Frank Robbins still in charge, the Shadow's up against a smuggling operation at Niagara.

It's the Shadow vs the Avenger in the battle to see whose comic's going to be cancelled first. While the strip's still here, there's plenty of lovely E R Cruz artwork to savour.

More E R Cruz on the inside and a classic cover by Mike Kaluta on the outside, as the Shadow finds himself up against a town full of Satanists.

Or does he?

One of my Kung Fu faves, as Shang-Chi finds himself up against his best friend Midnight, from the era when Jim Starlin was still on the art and proving there was more to his repertoire than being Cosmic.

Twitter is a wonderful thing. With it I can find out eight times a day that Justin Bieber has died - and, nine times a day, that he's not. That Kristen Stewart has only one facial expression and that someone is saying terrible things about me if I only click on that link to find out who.

Through it, I've also created an army of mind-slaves who hang on my every @, # and RT. With them, like a bad Dr Who villain, I shall take total control of this planet.

But it's not all good news. As those followers could tell you, earlier today I made an attempt to write a post about Charlton Comics but then found I didn't have anything interesting to say about them. This is odd, as I have a lot of affection for them and have always loved a plucky underdog.

So, instead of pontificating, I shall just post the cover of every Charlton Comic that I recall having owned.

All I will say is:

1) Midnight Tales is my favourite Charlton comic. A book of strange and alluring charm.

2) I've always loved the covers Tom Sutton did for the company. I do feel he's a shamefully overlooked talent. His cover for The Many Ghosts of Dr Graves #45 is especially wonderful.

3) Speaking of which, I always loved the tale in that issue, where a wimp in Hell turns out to have a deadly secret.

4) I always loved the story from The Many Ghosts of Dr Graves #41, in which bright green druids are up to no good at Stonehenge. I got the comic in Lytham St Annes. That fact shouldn't make any difference to my liking for the mag but, somehow, it does.

5) I always loved the story from Ghostly Tales #107, in which some adventurers discover just who they've been travelling with. I first read that mag in the Woolworths restaurant, Blackpool - the big Woolworths near the Tower. This should make no difference to my feelings for the mag but somehow it does. I also first read Midnight Tales #7 at that very same sitting. This shouldn't make any difference to my liking for that mag but, somehow, it does.

6) I'm pretty sure the only issue of E-Man I ever owned contained an early John Byrne haunted house story featuring the robotic Rog-2000, which was always a favourite of mine.

7) I wish I could recall exactly what happens in the issue where Yang fights a Bigfoot.

8) Their strange crinkle-cut pages, not-quite glossy covers and not-always properly aligned printing marked Charlton mags out as clearly cheaper and technically inferior to the output of their slicker rivals at Marvel and DC but it also gave them a homespun charisma, like Robin Hood tweaking the beard of the Sheriff of Nottingham, and therefore made them all the more endearing.

Anyway, that's my thoughts over and done with. Any thoughts you may have on Charlton Comics are indeed welcome.

And, if you wish to know more about Charlton and its battles with the odds, you can find it here.