Prof. Quatermass: “If we found that our Earth was doomed, say by climatic changes, what would…
Dan Hagen
Dan Hagen is a retired newspaper journalist and editor, a former journalism professor, and a mighty comics presence in print and on the web. You can find Dan's work at... danhagengreatcaesar.blogspot.com, justimaginedanhagen.blogspot.com and captaincommentdanhagen.blogspot.com
JUST IMAGINE! February 1961: Frankenstein Meets Superman (Sort Of)
Superman editor Mort Weisinger was always alert for the latest child-pleasing trends. He scanned movie posters…
JUST IMAGINE! November 1936: Time for a Mystery Man
Largely forgotten now, he was the first masked hero in comic books. But the Clock’s hour…
JUST IMAGINE! May 1961: The Ghost in the Machine
Writer Robert Kanigher was particularly good at coming up with concepts for fantastic adventure stories that…
JUST IMAGINE! April 1965: Reflections of a Golden Age
They might well have gone in another direction. DC’s popular revivals of its 1940s superheroes had…
JUST IMAGINE! September 1962: The Experimental Hulk
By the third issue of the second title of the Marvel era, The Incredible Hulk, it…
JUST IMAGINE! May 1960: The First Time I Saw the JLA
The first time I saw the Justice League of America, I was 5 years old, at…
JUST IMAGINE! June 1973: Talk About Larger Than Life
Ironically, the 1930s pulp superhero Doc Savage had a major influence on comic books, but a…
JUST IMAGINE! June 1975: In a Mirror Darkly
Battling bodies careering into and right through arcane architecture — this superhero feature was clearly something…
JUST IMAGE! February 1957: The League of Death-Cheaters
If Hollywood had turned Jack Kirby’s Challengers of the Unknown into a movie in the 1950s,…
December 1965: Letting Catwoman Out of the Bag
You frequently see it reported that, because DC was gun-shy about the Comics Code, the Caped…
JUST IMAGINE! May 1965: The Ian Fleming Affair
In 1964, audiences watched the stylish adventures of an Ian Fleming superspy named … Napoleon Solo.…
JUST IMAGINE: May 1949: The Man with the Automatic Brain
Batman and Robin were always ahead of the curve on technology — but then, so were…
JUST IMAGINE! June 1951: Comet at Dawn
The conformist Cold War decade of the 1950s had dawned, and the detectives had vanished. They…
October 1940: A Fantasy of Freedom
Flight. We see comic book superheroes doing it all the time, and we ourselves do it,…
JUST IMAGINE! September 1966: A Female Who Could Fight for Herself
Fighting females had been around in the comics for a couple of decades before they finally…
JUST IMAGINE! December 1952: The Thing from 400 Newspapers
Here’s a classic monster that traveled from outer space and the far future — and from…
JUST IMAGINE! April 1970: The Amazon and the Clown
Wonder Woman and … Jerry Lewis? Talk about your odd couple. But actually, the comedian had…
JUST IMAGINE! June 1955: Where is that Masked Man?
At right, a cover painting from the Masked Rider Western pulp; at left, Masked Raider art…
JUST IMAGINE! May 1938: The Ghost Who Walks and the Man of Steel
By the time Superman arrived in comic books in 1938, the Phantom had already been crusading…
JUST IMAGINE! October 1964: The Way of the Watcher
The Watcher’s vow of non-intervention, like Star Trek’s Prime Directive, was a rule made to be…
JUST IMAGINE: June 1967: With One Magic Word, Complications!
Young readers had been arguing whether Superman could beat Captain Marvel at least since 1940, when…
JUST IMAGINE! October 1965: The Truncated Trial of Tiger Boy
Sometimes you wonder what on earth they were thinking. Harvey Comics cover-featured a new superhero, Tiger…
September 1963: The Fashions of the Fantastic
The Man of the Atom, like the Fantastic Four, was a late arrival to the superhero…
JUST IMAGINE! August 1930: Fun with a Firing Squad
The most dreaded weapon of World War I, mustard gas, cast its shadow over Superman 2…
JUST IMAGINE! June 1977: The Long Reach of the Unseen Hand
The inventive British novelist H.G. Wells contributed several conventions that have become mainstays in superhero comics…
September 1940: When the X-Men Met Star Trek
If you’re interested in the origins of persecuted teenage mutant supermen, you’ll have to look earlier…
JUST IMAGINE! August 1983: The Battle of the Beetles
Nobody ever said the history of superhero comics wasn’t convoluted. Americomics 3 (Aug. 1983) gave us…
JUST IMAGINE! April 1954: Thinking Outside the Boxer
Captain Comet’s friend Prof. Zackro takes center stage as a stand-in for Arthur Conan Doyle’s Prof.…
JUST IMAGINE! June 1960: Those Destructive and Lovable Titans
I think children are attracted to giant monsters for the same reason they are attracted to…
JUST IMAGINE! February 1947: Undepressed by the Depression
“Many of the adventure-strip leading men, and a few of the women, were pretty tough and…
JUST IMAGINE! April 1930: The Wings of Justice
Something of a cross between Hawkman and Batman, the Night Hawk flew silhouetted against moonlit London…
JUST IMAGINE! October 1970: When Kirby Met Kent
In August 1970, at age 16, I was no longer reading many comics. But I knew…