My Greatest Adventure: The Metal Men

One of the strangest super teams to come from DC's try-out book, made their first appearance in Showcase #37, back in March 1962. More than mere robot facsimiles of humans, The Metal Men, had the minds of several noted scientists and a few unlucky bystanders that got caught in a terrible experiment gone wrong, preformed by Dr. William Magnus. The good doctor's top secret project for the U.S. Army in robotics caused these heroes to fuse with his prototype "responseometers" that erased the memories and helped animate their powerful new automaton bodies. Based on the metals they came in contact with, Gold was their intelligent and analytical leader, the friendly giant, Iron, provided the muscle, proud and self centered was the robot Mercury, timid and shy was the loyal loving Tin, dynamic Lead was big-hearted but a little on the slow side, while the lovely Platinum rounded out the team, having a crush on their surprised "creator." This fantastic team, forged in the fiery foundries of science, often sold their lived dearly for humanity's sake against foes like the Missile Men or Chemo, only to be salvaged and rebuilt once again by their duty bound Dr. Magnus.

Bernie Wrightson's "The Laughing Man"

After learning all he could from studying the EC Comics and the Famous Artist School correspondence course, Wrightson started working for The Baltimore Sun as an illustrator, but was inspired a year later in 1966 at a New York comic show by Frank Frazetta to do his own stories. Two years later, with the encouragement of editor Dick Giordano, he produced his first professional work at National Comics in House of Mystery #179. Bernie continued to do numerous mystery and horror stories before producing his seminal work on DC's Swamp Thing, which he co-created with writer Lein Wein in the early seventies. In 1974, Wrightson when over to Warren Publishing Company creating some of his most chilling tales for their moody black and white magazines, which greatly suited his talents in horror art as shown in this shocking story from Creepy #95 entitled...

National Cartoonist Society Profile: Leonard Starr

Featured here is the brief NCS bio for one of the most popular illustrators of the soap opera strip genre, the multi-talented Leonard Starr! Born in New York, started doing comics in 1942 while still at Pratt Institute. Did a lot of advertising from about 1950 until I created "On Stage" for the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate in 1957. Wrote and drew the feature until 1979, at which time I was asked to revive "Little Orphan Annie", now called simply "Annie" to make it seem less dated and to reflect the highly successful Broadway musical. Created "Kelly Green" with Stan Drake in 1980 for Darguad Editeur, Paris. Started writing television scripts in the early 1970s and in 1984 I was asked to develop and write the "bible" for the animated television show "Thundercats", and also act as the story editor and head writer. Moved to Westport, Connecticut in 1970 where I still live today.

Direct Currents: Challengers of the Unknown

Four brave men living on borrowed time make up the adventurous team known as The Challengers of the Unknown that debuted in DC's Showcase #6 from January 1957 by Jack Kirby and Wally Wood. The fearless four Challengers or "Challs" they were often called were, Red Ryan a daring mountaineer and daredevil stuntman; Ace Morgan the high-flying jet pilot; heavyweight boxer and world wrestling champ Rocky Davis; and Prof Haley rounded out the team as a deep sea diver and scientific genius. A group of complete strangers that somehow survived a deadly plane crash together, that all mysteriously had their wrist watches stop at the exact moment, which lead them to believe they were chosen to dedicate their unique skills to help others in their "second chance" at life! From their Challengers Mountain base loaded with high-tech equipment deep within an extinct volcanic crater in Wyoming, the Challengers defended Earth against outer space alien threats to various super villains like the bizarre Multi-Man or the infamous Legion of the Weird. With at least ten different series over the many years at National with some early fantastic and then just average writers and artists producing the stories, the "Challs" still endure as this team uses every last minute fate granted them to benefit mankind.