Even in the superhero desert of the 1950s, a lot of comic book stories might be…
Dan Hagen
JUST IMAGINE: March 1982: Shout ‘Kimota!” and Transform Comics
Before his own Watchmen and Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, there was 1982’s Marvelman, Englishman Alan…
JUST IMAGINE! April 1960: Wolf Man Jimmy
Superman’s pal may have been mystified about how he became a Wolf Man (Jimmy Olsen 44,…
JUST IMAGINE! March 1962: Monsters May Be Misunderstood
From the first, Marvel Comics regularly repeated an anti-prejudice theme (except where “Reds” were concerned, of…
JUST IMAGINE! July 1925: Beware the Deadly Ringer
Virtually a one-man fiction factory, the British writer Edgar Wallace perpetuated many of the melodramatic conventions…
JUST IMAGINE! December 1958: The Four Faces of the Jackal
For years, I assumed that the Batman villain King Tut, played with scenery-chewing relish by Victor…
JUST IMAGINE! June 1959: The Invisible Tomahawk
Tomahawk started out fighting redcoats and ended up battling frontier dinosaurs, frontier supermen, giant gorillas, Indians…
JUST IMAGINE! December 1952: Double, Toil and Trouble
In November, Captain Comet had encountered a female counterpart, Miss Universe. The next month saw him…
JUST IMAGINE! December 1959: How the Blackhawks Evolved
Part of my fascination with comic book house ads is seeing what was inside the titles…
JUST IMAGINE! January 1967: The Super Powers of the Twilight Zone
“Some people possess talent, others are possessed by it. When that happens, a talent becomes a…
JUST IMAGINE! August 1992: A Superhero in Pleasantville
Martian Manhunter: American Secrets illustrates how superhero comics can be used for retrospective moral satire. The…
JUST IMAGINE! February 1980: A Forgotten Feel-Good Film
If Frank Capra had made a superhero movie, it might well have been 1980’s Hero at…
JUST IMAGINE! November 1956: Have Rocket Belt, Will Fight Crime
In France after World War II, superheroes became problematic. Characters like Tarzan and the Batman-like French…
JUST IMAGINE! September 1964: When Justice Jests
One scene in superhero stories always amuses me. It’s the bit where some bully, smartass, or…
JUST IMAGINE! February 1947: The Wonder in the Wheelchair
Gardner Fox wrote superhero stories intended to provide support for the disabled, all the way back…
JUST IMAGINE! September 1967: That’s Nice, That’s Terrific
Superman editor Mort Weisinger often took his story cues from the popular culture fads of the…
JUST IMAGINE! January 1964: On the Side of the Angel
In Tales of Suspense 49 (Jan. 1964), Iron Man uses his new armor to withstand a…
JUST IMAGINE! June 1967: The Everyman in Superman
That mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent seldom gets any applause. Superman 197, a 1967 80-page Giant, was…
JUST IMAGINE! September 1986: Götterdämmerung for Superman
A certain dramatic flaw is inherent in superhero stories appearing in ongoing commercial magazines like pulps…
JUST IMAGINE! November 1964: Enter the Dragon Man
The Thing began by being subject to embittered, violent rages, but those tantrums evolved from being…
JUST IMAGINE! November 1965: Pulling Powers Out of Your Hat
His power came from his long-unfashionable hat. Teeny weeny magic beanie, / Pointing towards the sky;…
JUST IMAGINE! March 1958: The Dynamic Duo and the Terrible Trio
Who could threaten a duo of animal-costumed heroes more than a trio of animal-costumed villains? The…
JUST IMAGINE: April 1954: Captain America By Any Other Name…
But for a quirk of fate, comic books’ Silver Age might have arrived a couple of…
JUST IMAGINE! January 1967: Now Tarzan Make War
Wielding a huge mounted machine gun as if it were a tommy gun, a grimacing Tarzan…
JUST IMAGINE! November 1960: Females and Felines
Females and felines. They go way back. But why that particular popular cultural association? Perhaps partly…
JUST IMAGINE! November 1964: The Advantages of Being Frozen
As a writer, Stan Lee took pride in attempting to repurpose something that might be regarded…
JUST IMAGINE! June 1958: Look! Up in the Sky! It’s a Hawk!
Thanks to his seven comic book titles, his newspaper comic strip, his movie cartoons, his movie…
JUST IMAGINE! January 1970: Another Thunder
Alan Jim Hanley’s Captain Thunder appeared in his fanzine efforts in the late 1960s-early 1970s. The…
JUST IMAGINE! January 1940: The Start of the Shtick Superheroes
Created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Harry Lampert, the Flash was among the first of…
JUST IMAGINE! November 1960: Pity the Old Man in the Sky
Superheroes generally have one power of which even they remain unaware: they don’t age. We long-time…
JUST IMAGINE! July 1970: The Female of the Species
In 1970, Marvel unveiled the first of its several female counterparts to Spider-Man. And it turned…
JUST IMAGINE! July 1942: A Superman No More
Perhaps MLJ may have decided that Batman-like heroes were on the way in, and Superman-like heroes…
JUST IMAGINE! May 1941: Beware the Butterfly’s Bayonet
In a single story in Captain America Comics 3 (May 1941), we get mummies, a looming…