DC Comics’ Hawkman was subject to the sincerest form of flattery in 1967 when the Hanna-Barbera…
Just Imagine!
JUST IMAGINE! February 1972: Code of the Werewolf
Werewolf by Night was born because Stan Lee stood up to the Comics Code Authority. Created…
JUST IMAGINE! March 1960: Jigsaws and Jeopardy
The first menace I saw Batman and Robin tackle was not the Joker, not the Penguin,…
JUST IMAGINE! February 1940: When You’re Young at Heart
Instant grownup — no, instant SUPER grownup! For a kid, that’s wish fulfilment on steroids. In…
JUST IMAGINE! September 1976: The Sadness of a Seventies Superman
A caped figure in red and blue leaping about the city skyline, Omega the Unknown seemed…
JUST IMAGINE! March 1941: The Avenger from a Cloud of Smoke
Marvel’s 1940s superhero, the Vision, could be as grimly efficient as DC’s Spectre when it came…
JUST IMAGINE! May 1959: A Golden Gorilla in a Silver Age Classic
An offbeat twist turned a tired jungle adventure feature into a science fiction/superhero story. “(W)ith rainforests…
JUST IMAGINE! October 1942: The Tyrannosaurus Test
I’ve always figured that a real superhero — even one who lacked superpowers — ought to…
August 1965: Not a Job for Lady Sprocket
By 1965, the comic book convention of providing female counterparts to male superheroes was so prevalent…
JUST IMAGINE! June 1961: Those Strange Doctors, Doom and Droom
Before Dr. Doom, there was Dr. Droom, a Stan Lee-Jack Kirby creation from 1961 who was…
JUST IMAGINE! March 1956: Alien War Machines Attack
Superman was kept busy in the spring of 1956 by matching wits yet again with the…
JUST IMAGINE! December 1966: Not Your Garden Variety Adaptoid
Sometimes simple survival can seem the sweetest sort of victory. That was true in the classic…
JUST IMAGINE! August 1962: An Echo of Distant Thunder
In June 1962, I celebrated my 8th birthday with a trio of perfect presents. The first…
JUST IMAGINE! February 1949: Blackhawk and the Batmen
Human flight. By the early 20th century, it was the one “superpower” that was actually within…
JUST IMAGINE! January 1940: The Comic Strip That Never Was
The Lone Ranger starred in a popular newspaper comic strip. So why not his grand-nephew, the…
JUST IMAGINE! March 1975: DAK on the Loose
Man-Wolf and She-Hulk may have been David Anthony Kraft’s favorite Marvel Comics characters to write back…
JUST IMAGINE! March 1941: Faster than a Speeding Deer
Not every title could be a Marvel Mystery Comics,and not every hero could be a…
JUST IMAGINE! January 1961: Meet Mental Man
A superhero called Mental Man rivaled Superman in both the 1950s and the 1960s, without ever…
JUST IMAGINE! September 1967: Telepathy Times Three
For whatever odd reason, they decided to advertise their status as crimefighting beginners right in the…
JUST IMAGINE! June 1966: The Magic and the Machine
Whether by accident or design, Marvel’s mid-1960s dual hero titles were subtly thematic. You had Tales…
JUST IMAGINE! October 1958: The Revolutionary Reptile
I remember when Saturday Night Live’s Jane Curtin announced a supposedly upcoming program: “What if the…
JUST IMAGINE! May 1965: The Old Order Changeth
The Avengers were originally the Justice League of Marvel — a team composed of powerful superheroes…
JUST IMAGINE! October 1983: A Champion by Chance
A kind of latter-day Fly Girl, AC Comics’ heroine Nancy Arazello was appealing and unassuming, feeling…
JUST IMAGINE! November 1943: The Movie Star Who Said ‘Shazam!’
Fred MacMurray could fly, even without the hot rod he super-souped up in Disney’s The Absent-Minded…
JUST IMAGINE! November 1960: Still No Superheroes in Sight
Marvel offered four genres on the newsstands in November 1960, and superheroes weren’t among them. Readers…
JUST IMAIGINE! October 1940: “So You Want to Play Rough, Eh?”
The founding members of the Justice Society of America ranged from a crime-crushing ghost who was…
JUST IMAGINE! August 1955: An Abundance of Super Bunnies
The first superhero to which an American child of the 1950s was likely to be exposed…
JUST IMAGINE! October 1948: Wings Against Wall Crawlers
“You say Professor Garvey has been working on a new invention?” Shiera Sanders asked. “Yes,” replied…
JUST IMAGINE! February 1940: The Doctor Is Strange
Strange doctors have been prowling around superhero comics almost from the beginning. The first Dr. Strange,…
JUST IMAGINE! September 1960: The Fast and the Flexible
By The Flash 115 (Sept. 1960), the title had become almost a team-up book, with other…
JUST IMAGINE! October 1935: From the Supernatural to Superman
Caped, in flight (in another dimension) and drawn by Joe Shuster, Dr. Occult might easily be…
JUST IMAGINE! March 1945: The Titanic Teenager
Teenagers were in vogue in the 1940s, and were even something of a new concept. After…
JUST IMAGINE! April 1972: Superman and Machine
He threw all his strength into his legs, felt them hammering the water behind him. In…