Readers rarely saw Superboy in the tub, or were informed that his myriad abilities included…
Just Imagine!
JUST IMAGINE! March 1969: Dark Shadows in Four Colors
Dark Shadows was neither fish nor fowl, though it might arguably have been a bat. Neither…
JUST IMAGINE! February 1967: When Fear Reappears
Even during his camp TV era, Batman’s covers occasionally relied on a spooky vibe. One…
JUST IMAGINE! July 1962: The Man Who Hated Wonder Woman
Early on, I realized that Robert Kanigher hated Wonder Woman, the character he wrote and edited…
JUST IMAGINE! July 1963: Hero of Song and Story
Hercules, hero of song and story/Hercules, winner of ancient glory… Hercules helped inspire Superman, and in…
JUST IMAGINE! September 1966: To Catch a Cat
“Out of the night comes a man who saves lives at the risk of his own.…
JUST IMAGINE! March 1962: Marvel Superheroes Suit Up
“Accepting this premise (of no secret identities for realism), it was also only natural to forgo…
September 1968: The Long Shadow of Kong
Good stories often run deeper than we realize. For example, is 1933’s King Kong just an…
JUST IMAGINE! August 1965: Mightier than the Swordsman
The first appearance of the Swordsman in Avengers 19 (Aug. 1965) echoed the first appearance of…
JUST IMAGINE! February 1959: Wishing for a Facial Tissue
I enjoy exploring Steve Ditko’s 1950s work to trace the development of those mystical elements that…
JUST IMAGINE! August 1948: How I Loved Capes
As a small boy, I was besotted by capes. I really couldn’t understand why people didn’t…
JUST IMAGINE! June 1940: A Tale of Two Futures
He was the other Captain Future. The first, created by Better Publications editor Mort Weisinger and…
JUST IMAGINE! August 1964: Harm is the Hunter
Many of Spider-Man’s early foes were animal-themed costumed adventurers, just like him. And one of them…
JUST IMAGINE! December 1964: Tarzan in the Legal Jungle
For a few months in 1964 and 1965, readers could buy Tarzan comic books from two…
JUST IMAGINE! November 1947: Captain Marvel Battles the Bomb
Omnipotent Artificial Intelligence went on a rampage in 1947, but luckily Captain Marvel was around to…
JUST IMAGINE! July 1930: “Never Seen, Only Heard”
The Shadow first “appeared” less than a year after the 1929 stock market crash, a figure…
JUST IMAGINE! June 1949: A Rocket Man for an Atomic Age
In the 1940s, comic book heroes flew off the page — literally. Rocket Man was one…
JUST IMAGE! April 1942: The Guardian’s Angels with Dirty Faces
By 1942, four years after their introduction into comics, superheroes were already pretty commonplace. How could…
JUST IMAGINE! March 1968: Press ‘S’ for ‘Soar’
I could wax rhapsodic about my favorite Captain America story arc, which stretched from Tales of…
JUST IMAGINE! April 1964: Gunslingers and Gorillas
Like the dinosaur, the gorilla has long appeared to comic book fans as a creature almost…
JUST IMAGINE! September 1980: Some Superheroes Stay Hidden
Although it is never recognized as such, the 1980 film Resurrection is a superhero story. The…
JUST IMAGINE! March 1971: To Infinity Man and Beyond
Heeding the late-1960s zeitgeist, writer-artist Jack Kirby cleverly turned his venerable kid gang concept into a…
JUST IMAGINE! January 2023: Archie and the Man of Steel
Archie Comics has a deep bench of superheroes, although a lot of people probably don’t realize…
JUST IMAGINE! November 1966: The Atom Gets Into a Cat Fight
I have a special affection for DC’s Atom stories. They developed and then occupied their own…
JUST IMAGINE! May 1965: Ever More Powerful…
Storytelling melodrama necessarily led to an escalation of power in early Marvel comics. Super-powered heroes needed…
JUST IMAGINE! July 1960: When Turtles Attack!
In their DC science fiction anthology title Strange Adventures, editor Julius Schwartz and his staff demonstrated…
JUST IMAGINE! December 1964: The Lure of the Covers
Talk about a study in contrasts. The moody Carmine Infantino cover for Detective Comics 334 features…
JUST IMAGINE! September 1973: The Earth Stands Still Again
In guided imagery, when asked to picture a wise being, I always think of Michael Rennie…
JUST IMAGINE! May 1949: Batman at Sea
An oceangoing pirate might well consider himself to be safe from the Dynamic Duo. But he’d…
May 1958: The Shaky Flight of Wonder Woman
Riding on air currents, though? As a kid, while I had no problem with Superman’s unexplained…
JUST IMAGINE! August 1965: Got Those Beetle Blues
Like so many before him, Mentor the Magnificent was a super-menace born of resentment. “A physics…
JUST IMAGINE! December 1942: Demure, Distaff Dynamite
The idea of a female knock-off version of the dominant male superhero goes back to the…
JUST IMAGINE! August 1941: A Star-Spangled Similarity
Hitting newsstands in December 1940, the first issue of Captain America Comics sold nearly a million…