Remembering D-Day

Remembering the invasion of Normandy during World War II, which happened on June 6, 1944...called D-Day.  D-Day was also a war comic from Charlton, with 5 issues (no number three was published), and though they weren't entirely focused on that date, it did show our heroic armed forces in action, with the first two covers likely by Dick Giordano, cover four by Sam Glanzman, cover five by Rocco Mastroserio, and cover six by Carlos Cassala.

D-Day #1 and #2 (Summer, 1963 and Fall, 1964)

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D-Day #4 and #5 (September, 1966 and October, 1967)

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D-Day #6 (November, 1968)

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Brides In Love

Another mostly forgotten title from Charlton, Brides of Love lasted 45 issues from August 1956 to February 1965, but did feature some incredible art, such of issues #17 and #29, by Joe Sinnott and Vince Colletta.

Just Married

Just Married, a romance comic from Charlton, that lasted for 114 issues from January, 1958 to December, 1976...

...here, with a couple of covers from Luis Avila (#61 and #84, from November, 1968 and April, 1972).

Day Of The Cowboy 2025

Celebrating the Day of the Cowboy with two covers by Stan Campbell for Charlton Comics...each a one issue in length series, Cowboy Western Comics #46 (October, 1953, coming off of Space Western Comics), and Cowboy Western Heroes #47 (December, 1953, turning into Cowboy Western after that).

The Flintstones Celebrate Easter

Get ready to celebrate Easter with Fred Flintstone and his daughter Pebbles, as they do on this cover by Ray Dirgo for Flintstones #45 (May, 1976) for one of the 50 issues featuring the Flintstones that Charlton published.

Remembering Artist Earl Norem

Remembering artist Earl Norem on his birthday (April 17, 1924 - June 19, 2015) with two of his painted covers for the Emergency magazine for Charlton, featuring the adventures of paramedics Johnny Gage and Roy DeSoto of Fire Station 51 in the Los Angeles area, under the guide of the medical staff of Rampart hospital including Dr. Kelly Brackett, nurse Dixie McCall and Dr. Joe Early.

The issues are Emergency #3 and #4 (November, 1976 and January, 1977).

Kirby's Bulls Eye

One of the last collaborations of Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, working for their own comic book company, Mainline...or at least the first five issues of the series, Bulls Eye.  Issues #6 and #7 were published at Charlton.

The boy, Bullseye, became an orphan due to an Indian attack, and was raised by his grandfather, Deadeye Dick (who escaped with the boy).  They were aided by a friendly Indian scout, Long Drink.  Bullseye became the master of guns, horse riding and all sorts of throwing weapons.  He wandered the west, as a western scout, righting wrongs as a hero, and even had an encounter with a pterodactyl...all where he never misses!

Bulls Eye #1 and #2 (July-August and October-November, 1954)

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Bulls Eye #3 and #4 (December-January, 1954/1955 and February, 1955)

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Bulls Eye #5 and #6 (April and June 1955)

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Bulls Eye #7 (August, 1955)

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Remembering Artist Dick Giordano

Remembering artist Dick Giordano on his birthday (July 20, 1932 - March 27, 2010) with a little look at his covers featuring Gunmaster for Charlton comics.

Simplistic for its time, still an interesting series that debuted in Six-Gun Heroes #57 (June, 1960) and ran through issues #83 (March-April, 1965), along with two runs of self titled series, one for four issues (#1 to #4), and the second running for 6 issues, picking up its numbering from Six-Gun Heroes, though Giordano didn't do covers for the whole series, the ones he did are below.

Gunmaster was Clay Boone, a gunsmith who travelled from town to town with a small arsenal, dispensing justice with lead in his masked identity.  He even added a sidekick, Bullet the Gun-Boy (who was Bob Tellub) in Six-Gun Heroes #79 (March, 1964), and faced foes like Doctor Dynamite and various other thugs and cattle rustlers.

Six-Gun Heroes #57 and #58 (June and August, 1960)

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Six-Gun Heroes #62 and #71 (April, 1961 and November, 1962)

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Six-Gun Heroes #73 and #74 (March and May, 1963)

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Six-Gun Heroes #76 and #77 (September and November, 1963)

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Six-Gun Heroes #78 and #79 (January and March, 1964)

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Six-Gun Heroes #80 and Gunmaster #1 (September, 1964)

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Six-Gun Heroes #81 and Gunmaster #2 (November, 1964)

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Six-Gun Heroes #82 and Gunmaster #3 (January, 1965)

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Six-Gun Heroes #83 and Gunmaster #84 (March-April and July, 1965)

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Gunmaster #85 (September, 1965)

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Secret Origins Of The Blue Beetle

At some point, heroes fall, and are replaced by other heroes.  That is now a frequent occurrence in comics, but it had gone on before.

Even before Blue Beetle reached DC Comics, back when he was a character at Charlton, there was a replacement of the original super powered Blue Beetle to a non-powered tech driven hero.

In cooperation with the Super Blog Team-Up, now the story of that switch can be told!

The Original Blue Beetle

Dan Garrett was an archeologist, premiering (at least this Charlton version) in Blue Beetle #1 (June, 1964) by Joe Gill, Bill Fraccio and Tony Tallarico.  On an Egyptian dig with his friend, Luri Hoshid, Dan ran afoul of a local warlord, General Amenhotep, who fancied himself a descendant of the original pharaoh.  Heading back to the excavation, there the duo went into the crypt of Kha-Ef-Re, with Dan seeing an azure scarab on the tomb.  Touching it put him in contact with an Egyptian god, who, seeing Dan was an honorable man, gave him the power of the Blue Beetle when Amenhotep had the tomb bombed.  As they tried to escape, Dan summoned the power of the scarab with the phrase Kaji Dha.  

Now as the Blue Beetle, Dan was ready to face the reawoken Kha-Ef-Re (brought back to life by the radiation in the General's bomb).  

Fighting off the mummy, Dan and Luri escaped the collapsing tomb, with Blue Beetle dealing with the General and leaving Luri, to pursue a life as an adventurer.

What an adventure it was, where Blue Beetle faced Communists unleashing a prehistoric thread (#2), the electric villain Mr. Thunderbolt (#3), the Preying Mantis Man (Hunter Mann) (#4) and the Red Knight (Lew Coll) (#5), then a slight hiatus, coming back with much higher issue numbers to fight Mister Crabb and his Scorpion machine (#50), the robot Mentor The Magnificent (#51), the Magno-Man (Dr. Louis Forte) (#52), the return of the Preying Mantis Man (#53) and the Eye Of Horus (#54, written by Roy Thomas).

But then Dan was gone again.  When Blue Beetle returned again, it was a new man, Ted Kord, with a more acrobatic, non super fighting style and a giant vehicle that he called the Bug.     

The Replacement Blue Beetle

Ted Kord was an engineer, premiering as a back up in Captain Atom #83 (November, 1966) by Steve Ditko with dialogue by Gary Friedrich.  Taking down the thug Killer Koke in his first appearance, Ted continued the fight against crime in his next appearance, taking down the Masked Maruader (#84) (Count Von Steuben, while avoiding his secretary Tracey, and Lt. Fisher (who was looking for missing archeologist Dan Garrett, whom Ted was a student of).  Facing a spy in a submarine and getting in trouble (#85), dealing with Tracey asking about Dan's disappearance (#86), then getting his own title with (another) Blue Beetle #1 (June, 1967) and facing a group of thieves called the Squids.

With Blue Beetle #2 (August, 1967), it is finally revealed what happened to Dan Garrett.  Ted went to Dan for help, as his Uncle Jarvis called Ted to help build robots.  But, those efforts stopped when Jarvis; lab blew up, supposedly killing Jarvis. Ted, going through his uncle's papers, found a map to Pago Island and plans to create a robot army.  Going to Dan for help, Ted accompanied Dan to Pago Island, where the duo saw their boat destroyed by a robot army, who took them to...the living Uncle Jarvis!  Jarvis planned on taking over the world with his robots, but, Dan turned into Blue Beetle.  During the melee, the lab exploded, wounding Dan, who asked Ted to carry on for him as Blue Beetle, but another explosion separated them.  Leaving the island, Ted took up the mantle of Blue Beetle, but his way, creating the ship, the Bug, as well as a strobe light gun and metallic mesh cowl, Ted would fight crime as a mortal man, doing the best he could.

His next cases included facing the Mad Men (#3), the Men of the Mask (#4) and the Destroyer of Heroes (#5) in his last published issue (though a planned #6 was done by the CPL Gang in a pair of issue, and later included in DC's Action Heroes Archive, where Ted faced the Specter (Amos Fend).

Ted had a few more appearances in Charlton Bullseye #1 (June, 1981), Americomics #3 (August, 1983 and Americomics Special #1 (August, 1983) before showing up with other Charlton heroes on Earth-4 in the Crisis On Infinite Earths, then in Secret Origins #2 (May, 1986) by Len Wein and Gil Kane....which led to his own DC title, and eventually to the Justice League, and, unfortunately, Ted's death, which kicked off the Infinite Crisis!

Another Blue Beetle?

Jaime Reyes was an ordinary student in El Paso, Texas, until an alien scarab bonded to him, turning him into the Blue Beetle. 

Sucked up in the events of Infinite Crisis by Booster Gold, but later, was able to find and work with Ted Kord.

The Rest Of The SBTU

Here, from an unreplaceable group of bloggers...

...the Super Blog Team-Up members...

...are a few more cases of times identities were filled by replacements!

Between The Pages Blog: 

I Am Groot! - The growth of Groot from a seed of an idea to the world's most beloved tree.

Source Material Comics Podcast:

WE KILLED JASON TODD!

Super-Hero Satellite:

The Reign Of The Supermen

Asterisk 51:

Not-So-Giant-Size X-Men

The Telltale Mind:

Replacement Heroes - When Marcus Johnson finally became Nick Fury

Newsprint Commando:

Monolith of the Elementals

Blue Beetle's Praying Mantis-Man

Super heroes can borrow a little from other genres, and Charlton's original Blue Beetle, archeologist Dan Garrett, did, as he faced his most dread menace, who appeared to come straight from a horror movie....the dreaded Praying Mantis-Man!!!!

Well, to be honest, it was just a villain Blue Beetle faced twice during his original two Charlton comics run, but, let's take a look at him anyway!

The Praying Mantis-Man

Premiering in Blue Beetle #4 (January, 1965) by Joe Gill, Bill Fraccio and Tony Tallarico (with cover by Pat Massulli and Dick Giordano), was Hunter Mann, a radical naturalist who, due to his work with chlorophyll, turned a shade of green, and planned to change the work with giant mosquitos.  His work was found out by entomologist Juanita Rivera, who enlisted the help of Dan Garrett.  Dan, when he realized the size of the threat, pulled out his mystic scarab, said "kaji dha" and became the super hero, Blue Beetle!

Blue Beetle fought the giant insects, as well has the creature Mann had mutated into, the Praying Mantis-Man, with his hypnotic eye power.  There were more than giant mosquitos, and Dan fought them as well, protecting Juanita, and eventually vanquishing his foe.

But, it wasn't over....

The People Thieves

Not content with that loss, the Praying Mantis-Man returned to face Blue Beetle in Blue Beetle #53 (December, 1965) by Joe Gill and Tony Tallarico (with Tallarico providing the cover), with an even bigger threat to Blue Beetle and the world!  This time, Hunter Mann was freezing people in New York, and drawing the attention of Dan Garrett away from his friend, Diane, as Dan goes into action with his mystic scarab, while she goes home. 

  

But, this working in Mann's favor, as he kidnaps Diane, taking her to his lair (which includes many insects, including his giant mutated army ants).  There, he explains his plans to destroy the world with his mutated insects, having only those he froze to repopulate the world.  Praying Mantis-Man faces Blue Beetle, and successfully freezes him.  As Mann continues his plans, Diane schemes, raising  the temperature of the room Blue Beetle is in, unfreezing him.  Blue Beetle goes out to defeat the creatures Mann released, leaving Mann to fall to his likely death as Dan was just too busy to save him.

Remembering Artist Alex Toth With A Question

Remembering artist Alex Toth (June 25, 1928-May 27, 2006) on his birthday, with a quick look at some work he did for a fanzine, in the Charlton Bullseye #5 (July-September, 1976), in a story plotted by Roger Stern and scripted by Michael Uslan featuring Steve Ditko's Question.

Here, intrepid reporter Vic Sage (secretly the faceless hero, the Question) battles with his foe, the Banshee (all in a glorious black and white adventure, the much better to appreciate the subtle stylings of the masterful artwork of Alex Toth!).

4 of the 8 pages of the story, and what a story it was with all the hard hitting crime action you could ask for!

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Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein Animated

Hey Abbott!  Did you know that Abbott & Costello had a Hanna Barbara animated series in 1967/1968?

Did you know that let to a Charlton comic book based on that series that lasted 22 issues?

Join along with Frankenstein's Monster, and learn a few facts.

The comic series started in February, 1968, with stories by Steve Skeates and Henry Scarpelli....

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..all with light humor, and adventures of Bud and Lou...

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...ending with stories by Joe Gill and Frank Johnson (and covers by Tony Tallarico) in August, 1971.

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Now, the series didn't always feature Frankenstein's Monster like their famous 1948 movie, but there were a few other scares that have echoes of Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, and is something fans of the comedy duo look for!

Remembering Artist Earl Norem

World War II veteran Earl Norem (April 17, 1923 - June 19, 2015) was an artist known for stunning painted work, and Marvel and Charlton took advantage of that, featuring his artwork on their magazine versions of comics in the 1970s.

Below are some examples of this fine work, and a representative sample of a lifetime of work!

Six Million Dollar Man 4 and 6, 1977

Savage Sword Of Conan 14 and 47, 1970s

Tales Of The Zombie 5 and 10, 1970s

Rampaging Hulk 3 and 9, 1970s

Marvel Preview 9 and 12, 1970s

Planet Of The Apes 21 and 28, 1970s

Silver Surfer 1 (1978) and Masters Of The Universe: Sunbird Legacy (1983)