THE MIGHTY TOR by Dave Goode

When I imagine an American-made masked wrestler movie in the early 1960s I think of Gordon Scott as the hero. Though he would probably demand to go without the mask for more than half the flick. Unlike the stars of the Mexiluchahero movie. Allison Hayes would be great in the type of roles that Lorena Velasquez played. Either a seductive villainess or damsel in distress. John Carradine would be the villain. And I would, of course, leave space for Tor Johnson to play the villain's hulking henchman.

6' 3" 387 lb. pro wrestler Tor Johnson (born Karl Tore Johansson) became a cult movie star playing hulking brutes in Ed Wood Jr. flicks BRIDE OF THE MONSTER (1955), PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1959) and NIGHT OF THE GHOULS (1959).

 

Before that the massive Johnson who wrestled under the names the Super Swedish Angel and King Kong had appeared in movies usually in bit parts playing carnival/circus strongmen or wrestlers.

In the bio-flick ED WOOD (1994) Tor was portrayed by pro wrestling great George "The Animal" Steele.

 The story goes that while wrestling in New York during the 70s, Steele saw Don Post's Tor Johnson Halloween mask in a Times Square novelty shop. He wanted to know who was exploiting his image and how he was going to get his cut.

Below you can find a Mr.Incognito comic by myself and Vance Capley so that you might get an idea what an American masked wrestler movie of the 60s might look like.











ORIGINALLY PRESENTED IN
BEHIND THE MASK
by GOODE & CAPLEY

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The Noir Knight of Comics by Dave Goode

My introduction to The Spirit came from a story reprinted in Jules Feiffer's classic book from 1965 THE GREAT COMIC BOOK HEROES. It's a story that whenever I reread it Al Stewart's song The Year of the Cat plays on the soundtrack in my head.

 

Later Harvey Comics put out two The Spirit comics in October 1966 and March 1967 with two incredibly fun covers.

The Spirit was the creation of Will Eisner , a cartoonist with the eye of a cinematographer. Anyone of his 7-8 page Spirit stories could serve as a storyboard for a B-Movie detective thriller. These 8 pagers were the main feature in a sixteen page newsprint comic book insert in the Sunday edition of Register and Tribune Syndicate newspapers.The story goes that Eisner wanted to do a detective feature. But the publisher insisted he do a superhero strip. Because after all , the musclemen in tights were what was selling at the time. Eisner's concession was giving his hero a domino mask to wear.

In the first story that appeared on June 2 , 1940 criminologist Denny Colt was presumed murdered by criminal mastermind / mad scientist Dr.Cobra. He was actually put into a temporary state of suspended animation. When he awakens he decides to fight crime as The Spirit. 

Visually The Spirit feature resembled nothing so much as a movie from cinema noir, with urban apartment blocks with rain slickened streets, back alleys, slinky femme fatales , pinstripe - suited torpedoes and darkened rooms lit by cigarettes. The character would have been the perfect subject for a movie. Or two or three. Much like Monogram's The Shadow series starring Kane Richmond.

In fact there were two Spirit movies. The first was a made for television movie in 1987. The second was a big budget production from 2008. Neither captured, excuse the joke, spirit of the comic. In my opinion the biggest problem with these two movies, and there were many, was they needed to be set in the 1940s or early 1950s.

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MONSTER MAGAZINE NO.2 Creature Creature Feature

THE OTHER HERCULES by Dave Goode

One of the best remembered off-shoots of the peplum movie cycle was the syndicated cartoon series THE MIGHTY HERCULES. Created in 1962 it premiered on September 1, 1963. The series was the brainchild of Joe Oriolo. DC Comic editors George Kashdan and Jack Miller also worked on the series. Maybe that's why the beardless Hercules of the cartoon resembled the Superman of the Silver Age. If you remember the show it's probably for the catchy theme song written by Win Sharples and sung by pop singer Johnny Nash. There were 128 stand alone episodes that ran five and a half minutes.

In the very first episode Hercules is competing with his buddy Theseus, another Greek hero for some sort of Olympian championship. Hercules bests his buddy in a foot race and wrestling match. As a reward for his victory Hercules is granted a request from Zeus. Hercules wants to go to Earth and fight the forces of evil and injustice. Zeus reminds the man-god that he would lose his godly powers on Earth. But gets around this by giving him a magic ring that will amp up his strength when putting it on. And this was the formula for each episode. Hercules would take on some threat. He would hold his own against the menace for awhile. But would eventually have to put on the ring to defeat the threat. I always wondered why he just didn't keep the ring on when he came to Earth. Supporting characters were Helena , his love interest and  Newton a centaur. Villainy was provided by Daedalus , an evil wizard , Wilhemine , a sea sorceress and Murtis who wore the Mask of Vulcan.

 

What I hadn't been aware of was in Detroit, Don Kolke a former football player for the University of Detroit hosted a MIGHTY HERCULES show where he wore  the Hercules costume from the cartoon. He introduced the cartoons to the television audience and taught exercises to them. Cool beans. There was also two Gold Key comic books based on the cartoon series.

And speaking of Hercules, one of my favorite scenes in a Silver Age Spider-Man story occurred in Amazing Spider-Man No.27. He breaks chains that he's been bound with through muscle expansion while exclaiming "I feel like Steve Reeves in one of those Italian costume movies!". The funny thing is that though this is a feat of strength associated with the heroes in sinew & sandal flicks it's rarely used in these movies. There's plenty of chain breaking. Just not a lot through chest expansion. Below you can find a Golden Adonis cartoon illustrated by Vance Capley with Brad King performing the strength feat associated with carnival strongmen and gladiator movie stars.

ITEM: GET YOUR JUDO ON!!! "WHO IS DR.JUDO?!" is available on shirts, cups, bags, and much much more! All on vancecapleyart1972's Teepublic page!

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MONSTER MAGAZINE NO.2 Creature Creature Feature

How Do You Not Get The Flash? by Dave Goode

HOW DO YOU NOT GET THE FLASH?!

by Dave Goode

 

Some time back some fan-boy friends of mine and I were talking about the Silver Age of Comics and the consensus that it began with DC Comics' Showcase No.4 (Oct.1956) and the introduction of the 2nd Flash in a story written by Robert Kanigher, illustrated by Carmine Infantino (pencils) and Joe Kubert (inks) and edited by Julius Schwartz. An actor friend of mine was with us and couldn't understand why the Silver Age would begin with the Flash. We gave him the short version. And he seemed to grudgingly accept it. Grudgingly. Another time my friends and I were making  how lame is Aquaman? jokes. And my actor friend interjected "you know the Flash is pretty lame too". My fellow fan-boys turned and looked at my friend like he had two heads. He had this insane idea that all the Flash could do was run fast. As if all he knew the character from was the Super Friends cartoons (more likely THE SUPERMAN/AQUAMAN HOUR OF ADVENTURE (1967) which featured Flash cartoons-editor)

About a week later I lent him a copy of Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane No.74 (May 1967). If you're a Silver Age DC Comics fan you know why. And my friend got a better understanding of what the Flash could do. I still can't understand why he never got the Flash to begin with. He epitomized a childhood fantasy. When you were a kid you imagined being the strongest kid on the block or the fastest.

And speaking of being the fastest kid on the block. Do you remember the Silver Age Quicksilver from Marvel Comics and how he compared to the Flash? That's right. He didn't. He still doesn't. Marvel maniacs like to say how Quicksilver can run at Mach 10. Guess what? That makes him about 165 times slower than the Flash. In the Silver Age Quicksilver was often described as moving as fast as an "express train". The Silver Age Flash once ran around the Earth 8 times in the space of a second. As Muhammad Ali would say "no contest". Look at how the young Muhammad Ali defeated his  opponents with hand and foot speed. Now imagine if he was 165 times faster than that.

Back in the Silver Age fan-boys quite often cast teen heartthrob Tab Hunter as the "Fastest Man Alive" in an imaginary Flash or Justice League movie. As for his girl friend Iris West I thought either Natalie Wood or Jill St.John. With possibly Tim Considine as Wally "Kid Flash" West.

ITEM: JUST IN TIME FOR HALLOWEEN!! IT'S MONSTER MAGAZINE ISSUE NUMBER 2! OUR CREATURE CREATURE FEATURE WITH BUTCH PATRICK, DR. PAUL BEARER, AND RICOU BROWNING! Remember the Creature this Halloween along with Spider Island Slim Carody, Joseph I. Cosby, Dave Goode, David Walker, Johann Schmidt, Will Keppel, and Vance Capley. With a "fang"tastic Creature cover by artist Ricky Blalock! You can read more here:

MONSTER MAGAZINE NO.2 Creature Creature Feature