Supermen!
Posted on | May 5, 2009 | No Comments
Supermen!: The First Wave Of Comic Book Heroes 1939-41 by Greg Sadowski
This was a fun anthology that perfectly captures the experience of stumbling across a random stack of old comics in someone’s attic. The stories collected are selected from the early days of the comics industry, and it made me appreciate how vibrant and open to possibilities the comics from that era were. While some of the earliest portrayals of superheroes are included in the collection there are also stories about interplanetary detectives, a radio host with a secret identity, and crime-fighting magicians complete with snazzy turbans.
This collection would be a great find for anyone interested in comic book history. A non-Superman story from Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster kicks off the collection. Works from Fletcher Hanks, Bill Eisner, and Gardner Fox are also included. I enjoyed the Jack Cole stories because episodes like “The Claw” hinted at the manic energy that readers would encounter later on in Plastic Man. Basil Wolverton’s aliens were lovely to look at. Seeing Jack Kirby’s final story made me appreciate him all over again, because what he’d been doing with panel layout and composition in 1941 looked like it was years ahead of its time.
I found myself having to pause between reading chapters because so much was happening. My brain was overloading after being confronted with transcontinental tunneling machines, evil robot martians, and a jungle queen with a skull on her head fighting a troop of drugged-up gorillas. The paper stock and coloring used in Supermen! hint at the feeling you get when holding an old comic book in your hands, without the accompanying crumbling and fragility.
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